At a time when most automakers are rushing to embrace electrification, adding batteries and digital driving experiences, including on their high-performance models, Cadillac has chosen to defy the odds by continuing to build what is now the only V8-powered sedan still available with a manual transmission in 2025.
While much of its German and Japanese competitors have long since abandoned this enthusiast format, i.e., pairing a rear-wheel-drive sports sedan with a manual transmission and a big-displacement engine, Cadillac has doubled down on the formula, refining it with the kind of attention to detail usually reserved for limited-production exotics. The Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing is a genuine outlier in an age when the art of driver engagement is slowly fading into obscurity.
Beneath its long hood lies a 6.2-liter, supercharged V8. Hand-built in Bowling Green, Kentucky, the same place that churns out Corvette Z06 engines, this LT4 mill harks back to the first-gen CTS-V from the 2000s, but with even more muscle. It sends 668 horsepower and 659 pound-feet of torque to the rear wheels through either a ten-speed automatic or, crucially, a Tremec six-speed manual that offers active rev-matching and no-lift shifting.
In terms of styling, last year, Cadillac rolled out a few updates for the 2025 model year. The car received a lightly updated exterior with a more aggressive front fascia, redesigned ground-effect elements to improve aerodynamic performance, and a new quad trapezoidal exhaust system that’ll leave onlookers with no doubt about the presence of eight cylinders under the hood.
Three new paint colours, including Typhoon Metallic, Drift Metallic, and Deep Space Metallic, add visual interest, while the addition of Cadillac’s curved 33-inch LED digital display inside brings the car’s cabin more in line with the brand’s newer electric offerings, all without sacrificing the physical controls and tactile surfaces that suit a car that is properly analog. Many of these updates carry over into the 2026 model year.
The interior, trimmed in leather, is available in a range of finishes. The optional carbon fiber-backed sports seats strike a delicate balance between luxury and purpose, offering 18-way adjustability, besides real metal switchgear, and an enhanced performance data recorder with live lap data tracking for those interested in tracking this 4,100+ pound super sedan on the race track.
Fuel economy, as one might expect, is far from its party piece; we’re talking 20 mpg tops on the highway, but then, frugality has never been the point or intent of any V-Series model for the past 20 years, let alone a Blackwing model. With a starting price hovering around $100,000, it is hardly inexpensive. But when you consider that no other manufacturer offers a V8 manual sedan of any kind, not Mercedes-AMG, not BMW M, not even Lexus, it becomes clear that what Cadillac is offering here is something elemental and endangered.
How long it will stay on sale is difficult to predict, as increasingly stringent regulations and shifting consumer tastes continue to narrow the window for cars with a three-pedal setup. Cadillac says it’ll keep building the CT5-V Blackwing as long as there’s demand. But to give you some context, of the 150 or so models on sale today, fewer than 30 offer three pedals, and that number is in single digits if we’re talking, purely in terms of high-performance models.
But thankfully for now, and perhaps for the last time, you can still walk into a showroom and purchase a brand-new, rear-wheel-drive, supercharged V8 sedan. Throw in GM’s fourth-generation Magnetic Ride Control, Brembo Brakes, and four doors, and you’ve got something versatile and composed that you can truly enjoy on the road or out on track, rewarding you with a deeply mechanical experience that may soon become obsolete.
Images Source: Cadillac
