2025 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing: Same Grunt, New Grin

If we were simply to note the changes made by Cadillac to its highest-performing V-8 sedan for the 2025 model year, you might be underwhelmed. But if you know anything about the CT5-V Blackwing, you know that it is intoxicatingly fun: a four-door, row-your-own-gears sedan built in Detroit with a supercharged V-8 making 668 hp. The most important takeaway is that Cadillac knows exactly how good this car is and isn’t about to change what ain’t broken, like the powertrain, the standard manual transmission, and the driving dynamics.

So, the changes. At the 2074 Arizona auctions, discerning car collectors will be choosing a 2025 over a 2022–24 CT5-V Blackwing for one of four reasons.

Reason One: They really like one of these paint colors, both of which are new for 2025: Drift Metallic, a cloudy-sky-blue, which Cadillac designed to recall tire smoke (love that), or this sparkly teal, called Typhoon. Pete Nellis, product manager for the CT4 and the CT5, suggests that Typhoon would look good paired with the bronze brake calipers, a combination that we entirely endorse.

A third color re-appears for 2025, but one could argue it isn’t new: Deep Space Metallic, a dark-bluish gray practically drunk on sparkly bits, is a throwback to 2011. Personally, we think it’s better suited for an Escalade than a sedan, but if you like it—shine on, you crazy diamond. Let us drive your car sometime?

Reason Two: Because they like the reworked front fascia (your author does), with its heavier horizontal elements and unbroken, blade-like DRLs. Cadillac would also like us to mention the little etching business on the face of the blades, which it calls a Mondrian pattern, after the geometry-loving Dutch painter.

Reason Three: They like touchscreens, and the 10-inch one from the pre-facelift cars ain’t cuttin’ it.

Behold, the big screen. It’s the same 33-incher as in the Lyriq and the XT4, Caddy’s smallest SUV. The brand announced the arrival of the screen in the regular CT-5 for 2025 just a few weeks ago.

Reason Four: They are nerds for performance data. For 2025, you can now access data on your last lap or session through the center touchscreen, no need for a laptop. (You can still download data to your laptop, if you want.) Want to find out which corner of the track you could gain time in, and how? The new Performance Data Recorder module will analyze the arsenal of data it gathered from your session and give you some pointers for the next time out. Cadillac says that 10 percent of CT-5 V Blackwing customers track their cars, and most do it with a coach riding in the passenger seat, so the engineers designed new readouts to deepen the conversation.

A side note: If you are confident in a solo track session, and rely on a digital coaching system like the Garmin Catalyst, Cadillac hasn’t given you good reason to ditch it: This new Speed Tips function, with its suggestions of how to improve lap times, is a “post-analysis tool”; though all sorts of real-time performance data is available on the screen and even in the head-up display—like boost, g-force, and tire temperature—Speed Tips does not audible or visual feedback while you’re on track.

The engineers did way more, of course, than fuss with the PDR and leave the design team to give their car a facelift. The facelift was expected, to bring the car into sync with the models introduced in the last three years: You’ll recognize the “swipe” turn signals in the unbroken horizontal “blades” of the headlights from the Celestiq, Lyric, and Escalade IQ, as well as the projector-style headlight beams themselves, placed one below the other rather than side by side. (The appearance of the latter on this performance sedan is no accident, either: Candice Willett, who played a large part in designing the animated, exterior lighting of the Lyriq, introduced before the first CT5-V Blackwing, worked on this refresh.)

As Alex MacDonald, chief engineer for the CT5-V Blackwing, told us, he and his team were heavily involved in the redesign of the fascia, negotiating with the designers to ensure that cooling and downforce were not compromised. As a result, the front spoiler has been massaged. The vents above it have been widened, and they now flow air so efficiently to the seven radiators that the teams had to block off the (previously open) areas below the headlights to maintain the proper balance of air through and around the fascia.

We’ve known since the beginning that the CT5-V Blackwing, along with its little brother, the CT4-V Blackwing, will be the last hurrah for internal-combustion performance at Cadillac. We’re happy to report that, in fifty years, the 2025-and-on cars will likely be just as coveted as the three previous model years.

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