Cadillac CT6 Platinum: The Blackwing is gone too soon

Jeff Glucker

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Blackwing is one of the coolest names in the automotive world. And on the Cadillac CT6, specifically, it’s already dead. Cadillac spent millions developing a brand-specific engine in the Blackwing. And then decided to kick it to the curb. That’s a shame because the 4.2-liter twin-turbocharged V8 is pretty damn intriguing.

Is it perfect? No. Could it have brought some attention to the American luxury brand? Definitely. At least the name Blackwing lives on in other Cadillac models. It’s just a bit of a bummer that the powerplant with that name… will not.

About

Jeff Glucker

Jeff Glucker

Jeff Glucker is the co-founder and Executive Editor of Hooniverse.com. He’s often seen getting passed as he hustles a 1991 Mitsubishi Montero up the 405 Freeway. IG: @HooniverseJeff

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10 responses to “Cadillac CT6 Platinum: The Blackwing is gone too soon”

  1. caltemus Avatar
    caltemus

    Did they put the engine in any production vehicle?

    Reply
    1. Maymar Avatar
      Maymar

      Just the CT6, which is on borrowed time.

      Reply
  2. Sjalabais Avatar
    Sjalabais

    That should be Cadillac’s slogan…”Let’s try this…or not”. Hot wagons, moving to NYC, having a new engine line – for a short while. Expensive cars are about legacy, they threw away theirs and have been like forgetful, whimsical goldfish ever since.

    Reply
    1. neight428 Avatar
      neight428

      GM has long been knocked for being excessively bureaucratic and prone to committee-borne groupthink. The NYC move was trying to break that, but it couldn’t reach escape velocity, apparently. Cadillac is on the edge of the market from GM’s perspective, so the brand’s strategic direction is the most volatile. GM will give them some slack when it looks like the luxury/performance market has some legs and then yank it out from under them when they see how much it costs. The Volt based ELR , Catera, Cimarron, XLR, Northstar and now Blackwing all were of a piece with the “hey let’s try something, ok, wait stop, let’s not” approach.

      Reply
    2. neight428 Avatar
      neight428

      GM has long been knocked for being excessively bureaucratic and prone to committee-borne groupthink. The NYC move was trying to break that, but it couldn’t reach escape velocity, apparently. Cadillac is on the edge of the market from GM’s perspective, so the brand’s strategic direction is the most volatile. GM will give them some slack when it looks like the luxury/performance market has some legs and then yank it out from under them when they see how much it costs. The Volt based ELR , Catera, Cimarron, XLR, Northstar and now Blackwing all were of a piece with the “hey let’s try something, ok, wait stop, let’s not” approach.

      Reply
      1. Vairship Avatar
        Vairship

        The NYC move was trying to break that because the CEO liked living in that city better than in Detroit. See also: Boeing moving its HQ to Chicago.

        Reply
  3. Zentropy Avatar
    Zentropy

    Perhaps the lofty price tag is just Cadillac’s way of paying for the R&D on that stillborn engine, since it won’t be leveraged to other models. What a shame… sounds like a sweet mill.

    Reply
    1. neight428 Avatar
      neight428

      And I’ll bet that you’ll find them sitting new on dealer lots unsold two years from now without aggressive discounting. People like us that find them interesting end up finding lots of things interesting in that price range with few intangible reasons to favor the Cadillac brand.

      Reply
  4. neight428 Avatar
    neight428

    If anyone hasn’t looked at the depreciation on ~2 year old Cadillacs, it’s astounding. If I weren’t terrified of a limited production engine having reliability/part availability issues out the curve, one of these would make a heck of a value in the used market. Part of the problem is, as great as a Blackwing engine might be, GM can take one of the 18 million truck engines they make, slap a supercharger on it and a different cam, and you have probably 98% of what anyone actually cares about at roughly zero marginal development cost. I’m all for diverse offerings, but Caddy, Olds, Pontiac, Buick and Chevy all used to make their own engines, and apart from some rare outliers, they weren’t all that different. I’m not sure why that arrangement persisted as long as it did. Even the outliers overlapped themselves in terms of what they could do. A SD 455 Pontiac and a, LS5 454 were reasonably duplicative. At some level, projects like this keep the creative/smart folk engaged to be redeployed into the wider organization, but whether it’s worth the cost, who can say?

    Reply
  5. Victor~~ Avatar
    Victor~~

    Lost all faith in the brand over their defective NorthStar engines , seems like half of them had intake problems and the starter being inside the engine was another bad move.

    Reply