Like the rest of General Motors, Cadillac is shifting toward battery electric vehicles. The brand’s first EV the Lyriq will arrive in the first half of this year, and it’ll signal a significant change for the American icon that built its brand on powerful V8 luxury cars. Competition in that space had put pressure on Cadillac, leading to the brand embracing performance vehicles over the last decade.
It’s a solid legacy that’s already hitting the drag strip to give late-model Cadillacs a new narrative. A YouTube video from the Drag Racing and Car Stuff channel captures the antics at 2022’s Cadillac Attack event at Orlando Speed World Dragway, and Cadillac owners did not disappoint. The short video is packed with high-powered four- and two-door luxury cars that produce far more power than they did when they rolled off the assembly line.
Gallery: 2022 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing: First Drive
The video shows several Cadillacs lifting the front wheels when launching from the starting line. More than one car lifts the front wheels high enough to scrape the rear bumper. There aren’t any details about the cars in the video, but few, if any, appeared to be stock. The last Cadillac from the event logged a 9.5-second at 142.46 miles per hour (229.27 kilometers per hour). That’s quick for a Cadillac and suggests these cars have some serious upgrades under the hood.
The future of Cadillac’s performance machines lies in the Escalade-V, which gets a full debut this spring. It’ll likely have a supercharged V8 making as much as 668 horsepower (XXX kilowatts), which is quite the figure for a brand that is all about electricity. Gasoline-powered engines are a dying breed, but their sound and fury should shake drag strips across the country for years to come until they get their doors blown off by EVs.
