The Cadillac STS-V Is The 469-HP Supercharged V8 Cadillac You Forgot About - The Autopian (2024)

Have you ever noticed that sometimes, cars seem to get better with age? The Bentley Continental GT is far less loathed than it once was for being a re-skinned Phaeton, for example.The Cadillac STS-V is another one of those cars that’s aged into intrigue. You probably forgot this 469-horsepower Cadillac super sedan existed, but even though it wasn’t as dynamically accomplished as its German rivals, from an ownership perspective, it seems to be aging like fine wine compared to the competition.

Welcome back to Beige Cars You’re Sleeping On, a weekly series in which we raise the profile of some quiet greats. We’re talking vehicles that are secretly awesome, but go unsung because of either a boring image or the lack of an image altogether.

The Cadillac we know today was born in the late 1990s with the dawn of the Escalade, it was cemented in the mid-2000s with the establishment of V, a high-performance brand taking the fight to the Germans. While today, the flagship CT5-V Blackwing is the one everyone wants, in the beginning,the baby of the range got all the glory. Not only did the CTS-V benefit from the extensive aftermarket scene surrounding its LS engine, it also came with a manual gearbox and was the least expensive of the original V cars. The most expensive? The XLR-V, an SL AMG competitor with a truly obscene price tag. However, I reckon it’s time we give the middle child a second look, because the STS-V could very well hit a sweet spot.

To create the STS-V, Cadillac started with its Northstar quad-cam V8, reduced its displacement down to 4.4 liters, changed a full 40 percent of its internals, dropped its compression down to 9:1, then bolted on a two-liter Eaton M122 supercharger. The result? 469 horsepower at 6,400 rpm and 439 lb.-ft. of torque at 3,900 rpm. Hitched to a six-speed 6L80E automatic transmission and driving the rear wheels, it was good enough to get the STS-V from zero-to-60 mph in 4.6 seconds during Car And Driver instrumented testing. That’s rapid even today.

Oh, and Cadillac didn’t just stop with a weapons-grade drivetrain. It also added 14-inch front discs clamped by Brembo monobloc fixed four-piston calipers, Sachs dampers, larger anti-roll bars,a new steering rack from ZF, and double-staggered wheels featuring 255/45R18 front and 275/40R19 rear Pirelli Y-rated tires. The result? A comprehensive improvement over a standard STS, but nothing bordering on uncomfortable. However, this relative softness was part of the STS-V’s problem in the face of the Mercedes-Benz E 55 AMG. This big Cadillac just wasn’t as buttoned-down as the German competition, as Motor Trend put so eloquently:

The STS-V storms around Milford quite happily for a 4343-pound sedan, but it doesn’t feel like all of its mechanical systems are in harmony. It’s missing the fluidity that eludes so many GM products but which is usually present in the best performance cars from, you guessed it, Europe. And the Caddy’s steering is too quick off-center and simply doesn’t light up the lines of communication between the road and the driver.

Alright, so the STS-V wasn’t as brilliant to drive as the competition, but did it at least have a nice interior? Well, while Cadillac contracted German upholstery specialists Dräxlmeier for some beautifully stitched leather components, there was definitely a bit of a clash going on between the upscale V-specific bits and the textbook GM plastics elsewhere in the cabin. Add in the fact that the dashboard looked as nondescript as an ATM, save for the slightly flashy touch of black wood, and it’s easy to understand why the STS-V never built the same sort of reputation as its German competition or its CTS-V little brother. Between the start of production in 2005 for the 2006 model year and the end of production in 2009, Cadillac only sold 2,503 STS-V sedans, ensuring they’d be rare spots in the wild.

However, that was then and this is now. Welcome to 2024, and the used car landscape is a little topsy-turvy. Sure, the Mercedes-Benz E 55 AMG and the V10-powered BMW M5 were more enticing when new, but the BMW proved to lack in reliability, while both of the big-two Germans have largely fallen victim to fifth-owner decay, a process in which people repeatedly buy secondhand cars that they can’t afford to run, and the deferred maintenance just keeps piling up. Meanwhile, the Cadillac uses GM parts, making it an intriguing option today. A quick perusal of the STS-V forums suggests these cars are reasonably reliable, don’t commonly suffer from catastrophic issues, and aren’t nearly as expensive to fix as the German competition. They also escaped the head stud issues that affected earlier Northstar variants, to the point where that common talking point is a non-issue. So, what will a Cadillac STS-V run you today?

Well, if you’re looking for a bit of a high-mileage example, you can find them for between $10,000 and $13,000. Here’s a 2007 STS-V up for sale in Orlando, Fla. for $10,995. Sure, it might have 112,306 miles on the clock and be slightly weathered from the Florida sun, but it has a clean Carfax, and the last owner kept it from 2013 to 2024. Two good signs for a promising used car contender.

On the other hand, if you want a creampuff, expect to pay in the neighborhood of $20,000 for a low-mileage Cadillac STS-V. Here’s one up for sale in Washington for $19,980 with just 67,728 miles on the clock. The low-res photos taken inside of a parking garage aren’t immediately confidence-inspiring, I’ll admit, but with low mileage and a location in the Pacific Northwest, it feels like a car that might be worth taking a chance on.

So, for the same money as a likely somewhat abused BMW M5 or Mercedes-Benz E 55 AMG, you can get into a reasonably reliable (at least compared to the competition) Cadillac that, although not quite as sharp, still hauls the mail and is likely decent to daily drive. That doesn’t sound like a consolation prize, that just seems like where the smart money’s at.

Add in how Car And Driver noted that the Cadillac STS-V “thrives on high-speed cruising” and that “power oversteer is readily achievable, something to keep in mind when applying throttle at corner exits,” and this frequently forgotten super sedan sounds like it might actually be brilliant in the sort of real-world driving many of us experience. How’s that for a left-field choice?

(Photo credits: Cadillac, Autotrader sellers)

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