Our four-wheel-drive test car (rear-drive is available only with the 2.0-liter) was equipped with the Active Chassis package, which includes those high-tech shocks as well as a rear-steering system that can pivot the rear wheels up to 3.50 degrees (to shorten the turning radius) or add 2.75 degrees in phase with the fronts (to help foster that planted feeling at speed). The CT6’s four-wheel-drive system biases 60 percent of the torque rearward in standard tour mode, which gets bumped up to 80 percent when you select sport mode via a button on the center console. (There’s also a third mode for winter, which splits the power equally.) The system does not, however, perform any side-to-side torque vectoring, nor do the brakes assist cornering.
Our test car had its standard all-season tires upgraded to 20-inch 245/40 Pirelli P Zeros. Cadillac has not yet priced this optional summer-tire package, but we were assured that it will be available later in the year. We can certainly credit the tire fitment with producing stellar 152-foot stops from 70 mph. The brakes are impressive in the real world, too, with strong initial bite from the four-piston Brembo calipers and a firm pedal that is always easy to modulate.
We did have the opportunity to briefly drive another CT6 on the all-season tires, which produced a significant reduction in front-end grip and increased understeer compared with the CTS. The Pirellis go a long way toward making the CT6 feel like its smaller sibling. The steering effort is weighty in sport mode, and while the CT6 lacks the exemplary steering feedback of the CTS, its tuning seems appropriate to the car’s size.The CT6 gets a new engine, a turbocharged 3.0-liter V-6 that makes 404 horsepower and delivers 400 pound-feet of torque. It has a similar wail to the turbo 3.6 in the CTS Vsport and packs enough punch to do zero to 60 mph in five seconds flat. It’s quick enough, yet it might be even quicker. With a pair of turbochargers, a clutch responsible for routing torque to the front wheels, and eight speeds in its automatic transmission, there are quite a few moving parts in the CT6’s drivetrain, and we occasionally found the computers groggy in their synchronization calculations. The throttle response can lag from a standing start and at low speeds, particularly when the car is in tour mode. Cadillac admitted that the CT6’s transmission calibration is a work in progress; this is a relatively new GM-built eight-speed automatic, the same basic gearbox used in the Chevrolet Corvette, rather than the Aisin unit that Cadillac uses in the CTS Vsport.
The CT6’s interior reinforces the kinship to the CTS, with a similar design theme using layered materials; it is a bit too busy for our taste. Our test car features not one but two different wood grains on its dashboard. Three different colors of leather cover various surfaces in the car, including a curious swath of perforated material that surrounds the infotainment screen and resembles seat leather. Even as Cadillac’s exterior-design team seems to have nailed simple elegance, its interior people continue to try too hard.