2013 BMW M5 vs. 2012 Cadillac CTS-V - One guess who the winner is!

Road and Track always puts together epic head to head battles of class leaders. Just a few yeas ago the Cadillac CTS-V came out of nowhere and knocked the E60 M5 off it's perch as the king of high powered sports sedans. BMW is now back with the 2013 F10 M5, I'll give you one guess who wins this match up.

It’s tough to be the king. Sit upon a throne long enough and someone’s bound to come along and try to knock you off—as was the case in the summer of 2008 when Cadillac released its all-new CTS-V to challenge the nearly 4-year-old sports sedan king, the BMW M5 (2009 Cadillac CTS-V vs. 2008 BMW M5 SMG). It was a historic moment that has helped to redefine Cadillac’s image. GM’s luxury division made no bones about it in 2008, as it specifically developed the CTS-V to knock the 2005–2010 E60 M5 off its pedestal. BMW graciously rose to the challenge and fought it out with the upstart on the racetrack, the BMW driven by Bill Auberlen and the CTS-V by John Heinricy. Not surprisingly, the CTS-V narrowly edged out the M5. If it hadn’t, we suspect someone in Cadillac’s engineering department would have been fired. Fast forward and BMW is now ready for some payback with its new F10 M5.

Read the complete head to head article at RoadandTrack.com

Willing to bet the 2013/2014 CTS-V dethrones the M5 (which will remain largely unchanged the next 4 or 5 years).

Perhaps, but BMW could step up the power of the M5 at LCI in three years.

You do make an interesting point that it is hard to have a 100% fair comparison when cars are 2-3 years out of cycle with each other. Someone's always running older technology.

Tim

Bingo. The nice thing about this generation's M5 though is that they can always increase the boost. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't be surprised if they detuned the initial launch of the car for that exact reason. If the motor can safely handle 125-150% the boost, they can likely eek out another 50-150 horses if need be.

Originally Posted by 2000_328CI

Bingo. The nice thing about this generation's M5 though is that they can always increase the boost. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't be surprised if they detuned the initial launch of the car for that exact reason. If the motor can safely handle 125-150% the boost, they can likely eek out another 50-150 horses if need be.

I was more or less told exactly that while on the BMW M6 press drive event (read my M6 review). It is the reason BMW M went back and reworked the S63 (X5 M and X6 M) into the S63tu. They want more reliability to be able to turn up the power in the future.

Tim

Originally Posted by tim330i

I was more or less told exactly that while on the BMW M6 press drive event (read my M6 review). It is the reason BMW M went back and reworked the S63 (X5 M and X6 M) into the S63tu. They want more reliability to be able to turn up the power in the future.

Tim

PS: I'm jelly of the press event tours you get to take

don't get me wrong but for the brand new state of the art F10 M5 to edge out a 4 year old CTSv competitor by such a narrow margin I am a bit disappointed. I foresee the revised CTSv to even it back up and then some. And even if the F10 can be modified in the near future or they up the boost somewhat, this current CTSV with $3-5k of mods is at 625 hp with a stock cam and heads. And with heads and cam over 700 hp easily. so bmw has their work cut out for them. For the $ i'd buy a low mileage caddy and dump in some mods and have $ left over for a nice E46 M3.

My fav videos of the 700 hp CTSv.

I absolutely love the new M5.

Old tech vs. new tech? And new tech barely wins...not saying much about the BMW...Caddy is nicer anyway and less $$$

I'm taking this comparison with a grain of salt, but are raw figures and lap times more important than how the car makes you feel? Driving Pleasure and Cadillac aren't synonymous last time I checked... the M5 from its conservatively tuned engine is the car for every occasion.

Caddy is better?? LMFAO. Of course the M5 will win, BMW is the one that everyone else copies from and tries to compare to. That CTS-V wouldn't even exist if it weren't for BMW. The way technology is going, I don't think there's much more car companies can do to make cars faster and still be street legal. I doubt we are going to have a bunch of 10sec cars on the market.

I worked at the local Caddy dealership when the first 2nd Gen CTS-V came off the truck and I've been in love ever since... then my buddy got one and let me drive it. God damn, I've never been scared of a car before but the CTS-V is insane. It's an amazing car only let down by it's interior which isn't bad, but compared to the BMW is a bit down market. I love the new M5's styling but I don't think Cadillac is going down without a fight. I'm looking forward to the next CTS-V.

The new M5 is the daddy. BMW always have something up there sleeve

It's also a well known fact the next generation CTS will be better aligned to compete with the 5, E-Class, and A6 and not be the bastard child it is now offering the 5 Series space for 3 Series price. Unfortunately I have read that GM might be going to a TTV6 for both the ATS-V and the CTS-V. Let's just hope GM doesn't screw it up like they always do.

Cadillac will always be second over all, their interior kills it all the time. The only way Cadillac would win is if it was made in Germany, designed, tested and built, we Americans care about the bottom line before anything.

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i bet 2 years from now they will turn up the boost and put he m5 at something like 595 bhp or something. still not a fan of the f10 m5. i loved the e60m5 looks and mostly its engine. hey for the hell of it they should have supercharged the v10 and had a eco friendly state where it saves mpg's on the freeway or something. imagine a supercharge e60 m5 stock

The M5 was 1.5 sec quicker on the track and the R&T staff chose the M5 better overall. Where does the Caddy beat the M5????? The driver in the video mentions that the nav needs to be upgraded and it has been. the new nav system for Caddy is similar to the I-Pad , just the thing to distract drivers from their primary task.....PAYING ATTENTION TO THE VIEW OUT THE WINDSHIELD!!!

M5 looks so much better

So the M5 beats the caddy by 1.5 seconds and people are calling that barely winning? For those of you who don't know any better 1.5 seconds is a good bit of time when your talking about lap times.

Does anyone have the weight on these cars? Knowing BMW and all the technology they put into their vehicles id bet the farm the BMW outweighs the cadillac. Maybe its not by much but you have to remember that for every 1-250lbs lost results in mili seconds off lap times... Which again, is a lot on the track.

Not saying the cadillac isn't technologically advanced but BMW is a pioneer in car technology. All GM ever does is put corvette motors in their cars when they need an edge.

Without the ls block GM would be a laughing stock in the racing industry. How many award winning motors has GM produced that isn't LS branded?

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Regardless the Cadillac still costs $30k less than the BMW and nearly matches it performance. Sure the Caddy is short on interior quality but from judging what GM did with the new XTS, the next generation CTS will be tough to beat as long as GM doesn't screw it up.