Here’s something you may not realize: Cadillac’s "V" brand once made a high-performance 2-seat roadster. It was called the Cadillac XLR-V, and it graced our lives from 2006 to 2009 with good performance and a massive price tag.
First, a little back story: In the early 2000s, presumably fueled by the success of the Escalade luxury SUV, Cadillac started rolling out all sorts of new models that were — for the first time in years — appealing to a wide range of shoppers. These included the edgy STS and CTS, the rather versatile SRX, and the XLR — a 2-seat convertible that was based on the Chevy Corvette but fitted with Cadillac’s Northstar V8, which was deemed to be smoother and more luxurious than the Vette’s engine.
The XLR came out in 2004, and it was pretty cool from the get-go. It had distinctive styling that represented a "new" Cadillac, the Northstar V8 made an impressive 320 horsepower, it had a fairly nice interior and it used a retractable hardtop — which was a pretty cool trick back then.
And then, in 2006, Cadillac turned things up a bit. Eager to launch its "V" line to garner the same recognition as BMW‘s M or Mercedes’ AMG, Cadillac added a high-performance engine to just about everything — and the XLR came out especially well. The XLR-V used a supercharged 4.4-liter V8 that made 443 hp and a whopping 414 lb-ft of torque — good enough for zero to 60 in 4.3 seconds, which is a mean feat considering its heft and standard torque-converter automatic.
But the XLR-V had one major drawback: its price. It started around $110,000 and climbed even further by the car’s final model year of 2009. The result is that very few XLR-V models were sold, though the few that are out there still command surprisingly big money: Although there are just 17 Cadillac XLR-V models listed on Autotrader across the country, the average asking price is $34,800 — not bad for a 10-year-old Cadillac most people don’t know about. Find a Cadillac XLR for sale
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Ah yes, the XLR-V. Possibly the longest car I ever remember being un-sold on a dealer lot. I think they were discounting these $30-40 THOUSAND Off.
Yuck. Northstar isn’t an engine you wanna have.
v model doesnt have northstar
Looking at the ones listed the first has almost 200k miles (!!!) I can’t believe somebody put that much on one of these.
I can’t believe a mid 2000’s GM product made it to 200k miles.
That supercharged Northstar had some serious thrust. When I was 18, my boss drove a STS-V with the same motor and would routinely let me drive it to run his errands. Because I’m a decent human, I didn’t rod someone else’s car too hard but I never saw an on-ramp I didn’t like.
supercharged has different engine
I think the real problem with car from day one is that it didn’t use the LS motor from the Corvette. It was hard for people to justify a XLR-V when they could purchase a Corvette that was faster and also cheaper. Rumor has it though that the reason for this is that GM has always wanted for the Corvette to be the fastest of the GM fleet so they put the Northstar V8 for its smoothness and luxury but also because its not as fast as the LS Engine which is good because they did not want the XLR-V to compete with the Corvette. I guess it makes sense because it seems like the Corvette and XLR-V have different target markets anyways.
Cost more than double a base Vette, with an engine that wasn’t as good as an LS, plus automatic only. It’s like they didn’t want it to sell.