NEW Cadillac CTS-V vs Mercedes SL600 V12 BiTurbo…

When it comes to combining luxury and performance, there are two brands that immediately come to mind for me: Mercedes and Cadillac. Yes, I am fully prepared for an onslaught of hate mail from BMW, Audi, and other automakers’ fans, but those two are the epitome of going fast in comfort for me.

Growing up, my parents always had a Mercedes in the garage. Usually reserved for longer drives to dinner a few towns over and the occasional weekend trip, riding in “the Benz” was always a welcome treat that I enjoyed. As far as I know, they never owned a Cadillac, but one of my grandmothers always drove a Caddy and one of my aunts usually had one as well, so I spent a little time in them too.

As I reached driving age, I would always ask first to take the Mercedes and was actually allowed to take it out often (see kids, it does pay to be a good driver from an early age!), and I would always have to give the car at least one spirited pull. I always justified it as “cleaning out the valves” since my parents rarely went faster than 5 over the speed limit, but in reality, Mercedes always had a torquey powerplant under the hoods of their big sedans that made the cars very enjoyable to drive, especially with your right foot planted to the floorboard.

I’ve yet to drive a CTS-V, but hope to get my hands on one soon. I have ridden in one, though, and saw first hand just how powerful they are while maintaining that trademark Cadillac comfort. This video pits two of my favorite rides against one another in a top-end run that shows how closely matched the two cars are despite pretty drastic differences. The Mercedes, an SL600 V12 biturbo is a small sporty coupe with a retractable hard top that cranks out around 550 horsepower. In the other lane a new CTS-V sedan that comes from the factory with 640 horsepower supercharged V8, though it’s considerably larger and likely quite a bit heavier than the SL600.

I point out those differences because when the drivers lay into the throttle, the cars actually prove to be very evenly matched, running side by side until the Caddy’s driver hits the brakes on the top end. I would love to get my hands on both of these cars for a day – or for a couple of years, if any philanthropic lotto winners or generous billionaires are listening – but I’ll just have to live through videos like this for now.