by Kyle Francis
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- The CTS-V Was Built To Take On The World
- The CTS-V Wagon Is Still Worth A Fortune Over A Decade On
- The CTS-V Wagon Will Show A Range Of Performance Cars The Way
- The Caddy Is Still Effective As A Family Bus
While building your own family unit is one of the most rewarding and exciting things a human can experience, gearheads more often than not need to park their passion to one side in favour of purchasing a vehicle that'll prove usable in a family scenario. This means that it normally needs to be affordable to buy, cheap to maintain, and also practical enough to carry extra occupants and cargo. Squeezing small children into the back of a Porsche 911 isn't ideal, even if it is one of the more practical sports cars on the market.
Luckily, Cadillac came to the rescue of family-oriented gearheads in the early 2010s with a performance wagon version of its CTS-V sports sedan. The trouble is, you'll need to save up a fair chunk of money to add one to your collection these days, as they have become pretty sought after.
The CTS-V Was Built To Take On The World
Cadillac was determined to push its sporting pretensions as the new millennium got underway, primarily in an attempt to shake off its image of only selling cars to the older generation. It felt its sales potential was being severely limited, so it got started making high-performance versions of its models to help tempt younger buyers into its vehicles. One of the first was the CTS-V, a hot version of its CTS mid-size sedan that was built to take the fight to the world's most commanding sports sedans, like the BMW M5 and Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG. The Cadillac's first attempt fell a little short of its European rivals, but this only made it more determined than ever to nail the formula at its second attempt.
The second-gen CTS-V was unleashed in 2009, and featured a more advanced all-round independent suspension setup that also boasted MagneRide, an adaptive damping system that meant the car could offer both a smooth and sportier ride depending on the situation. It also got an uprated supercharged V8, which provided it with more outright grunt than its rivals.
The CTS-V Wagon Is The More Practical Version Of Cadillac's Sports Sedan
Aside from the performance enhancements, one of the most interesting facts about the second-gen CTS-V is that it could be had as a wagon. The first version was only ever offered as a sedan, but Cadillac felt that there was a market for a more practical variant, much in the same way BMW and Mercedes had envisaged with their M5 Touring and E63 Wagon models. While only the sedan was available for the first couple of years, the wagon made its debut for 2011.
The CTS-V Wagon Is Still Worth A Fortune Over A Decade On
In the end, Cadillac found that not many drivers wanted a supercharged V8 performance wagon for their day-to-day lives. The company only offered the version for a few years, before it was discontinued beyond the 2014 model year. The third-gen CTS-V was released shortly afterwards, and remained purely as a sedan until its eventual replacement. This was despite the wagon costing a little less than the sedan to buy, with it being sold with a base MSRP of $63,215, around $100 less than the sedan. As it turns out, the CTS-V wagon has lost little value over the decade since it went out of production, and conversely, is worth more than it was when new.
According to Classic.com, the most valuable model you can get is the manual, which rocks an average auction sale value of $65,451, a few grand more than it cost new. Specimens equipped with the six-speed automatic unit are worth a chunk less on average, with a value of $53,625. Lower mileage models are worth a ton more than even this, with a good example being a 2012 car sold through Earth MotorCars. The pristine CTS-V Wagon is currently being offered as of November 2025 for a cool $127,990, with the vehicle coming with just 3,500 miles on the odometer.
Read the full article on CarBuzz
This article originally appeared on CarBuzz and is republished here with permission.
