At $10,900, Will This 2005 Cadillac CTS-V Prove Victorious?

Imbued with Corvette power, today’s Nice Price or No Dice CTS-V is a model that opened up a new door for Cadillac, introducing the brand to a new world of fast-car fanatics. Let’s see if this one’s price opens that door even further.

The most pertinent question about the 2001 BMW X5 we examined last Friday was, “They drove it how far?” The car was something of a puzzle as, even though the ad claimed it to have nearly 300K on the clock, it was in far too good of shape for anything that has gone that distance. And it had a manual! A $2,950 price sealed the deal for most of you, with many suggesting to dive it until it breaks and then just walk away. An overwhelming 72 percent Nice Price win was the result.

In 1955, singer-songwriter Charlie Ryan came up with a little ditty called Hot Rod Lincoln. The song tells a story about a Lincoln-powered Model A beating a Cadillac in a race up and over Southern California’s two-lane Grapevine road, the precursor to the I5 freeway. The song has been covered many times since by a number of different artists, with details changed here and there, but the one constant in all versions is the Cadillac losing the race. Maybe if the participant had been driving a Caddy like today’s 2005 CTS-V, the song might have ended differently.

Cadillac introduced the CTS for the 2003 model year as a smaller, tighter-handling, and more avant-garde addition to its then-stodgy old lineup. Powered by a series of V6 engines and designed to allow the fitting of a manual transmission, the CTS looked and performed like nothing else in Cadillac’s catalog.

With the CTS-V, Cadillac took things up a notch, giving the car the 5.7-liter LS6 V8 out of the C5 Corvette and mating that with the six-speed Tremec manual from the ZO6. That combo gave the car 400 horsepower and 395 lb-ft of torque and the ability to use all that power. Wanting to warn unsuspecting hot rod Lincoln drivers and all others of what the Caddy was packing, the designers fitted the V edition with a mesh grille, deeper front air dam, and bigger, more aggressive wheels and tires.

This CTS-V is claimed to be stock save for a cold air intake (woooooosh), black-painted wheels (which show a bit of curb rash), and a set of aftermarket LED headlamp units (with halos.) At just over 156,000, it has about half the mileage of last Friday’s Bimmer and, at least in the ad, looks just as good. The black paint seems without issue, and the seller says it’s free from dents or fading. They do warn that it is an almost 20-year-old car but promise that it has been well-maintained over that time.

The cabin looks… well, like you might expect of a 20-year-old product of GM. There’s a good bit of crazing on the driver’s seat leather, and the cover on the shifter has worn completely through. There’s also some unfortunate waving on the driver’s door armrest that a new owner will likely simply need to live with. Other than that, it looks clean and has lots of buttons on the center stack for folks who miss that feature in today’s screen-heavy interiors.

Mechanically, it also looks to be solid. It has fairly new MOMO tires and an engine bay that proudly shows off its Corvette fraternity along with its K&N intake. The title is clean, and the price tag reads $10,900.

What do you say about this hot-rod Caddy and that $10,900 asking? Does that feel like a fair price, considering the car’s condition and description? Or, for that much, would you just go buy a Corvette?

You decide!

Phoenix, Arizona, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

H/T to Don R. for the hookup!

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