How a Bespoke V8 Died Before It Lived
Cadillac’s Blackwing V8 was a statement of intent. Unveiled in March 2018 for the 2019 CT6 V‑Sport at the New York auto show, the 4.2‑liter twin‑turbocharged RPO LTA was the first clean‑sheet, Cadillac‑exclusive DOHC V8 since the Northstar family that bowed in the early 1990s and ended production after 2011. In an age of downsizing and crossover logic, Cadillac invested in a bespoke V8 to reclaim space among the world’s great luxury marques. The engine was meant to be the CT6’s heart, hand‑built by a single technician at GM’s Performance Build Center inside the Bowling Green Assembly complex in Kentucky, with the builder’s signature on the intercooler cover to make the point. With it, Cadillac signaled that it could still run with AMG and BMW on engineering, not just marketing. Enthusiasts and engineers had reason to be optimistic; here was an American luxury brand reviving the art of a sophisticated, reverse‑flow, hot‑V twin‑turbo V8 aimed straight at the autobahn crowd. Cadillac even gave it a proper name, Blackwing, and for the brief moment it was allowed to shine the engine delivered on the promise.
A Technical Marvel with the Heart of a Super Sedan
On the spec sheet, the LTA Blackwing V8 was a marvel that could stand toe to toe with the best engines in the luxury performance world. Like its German rivals, it featured dual overhead cams, 32 valves, and twin-scroll turbochargers nestled in the valley of the hot-V, with the turbos and exhaust inside the cylinder banks for compact packaging and immediate boost. Reverse-flow cylinder heads placed the intake runners outboard and the exhaust ports inboard, feeding water-to-air intercoolers mounted atop the engine. It packed all of General Motors’ latest tech: direct fuel injection, a 9.8:1 compression ratio, an 86.0 mm bore with a 90.2 mm stroke, Active Fuel Management that could seamlessly run it as a V4 under light load, and a 10-speed automatic transmission calibrated specifically for the CT6-V and CT6 Platinum’s all-wheel-drive system. The Blackwing was tuned to deliver a broad plateau of torque — 553 lb-ft in the CT6 Platinum and a thundering 640 lb-ft in the hotter CT6-V. Horsepower was similarly prodigious: 500 hp for the Platinum trim and 550 hp for the CT6-V, putting it in the same league as the 4.0-liter AMG V8s and 4.4-liter BMW M engines of the time. MotorTrend noted that those output figures “compare reasonably well” with the sedan fitments of Audi, BMW, and Mercedes rivals, placing the Blackwing right in the mix on paper.
Crucially, it was not just about numbers; refinement and strength were the Blackwing’s calling cards. The engine was built around a rigid aluminum block with cross-bolted main bearing caps and forged steel crankshaft and connecting rods for durability, with oil-spray piston cooling and variable-displacement oiling to minimize parasitic losses at light load. Reviewers found the 4.2-liter V8 smooth and refined, with a velvet delivery of power that belied its muscle. One outlet noted that vibrations were virtually nonexistent, that it could spin to redline with the isolation and polish of a top European V8, yet growl with a distinctly American baritone when provoked. Cadillac’s choice to go DOHC, rather than follow the pushrod tradition of its Corvette cousins, paid off in what one tester called a buttery groundswell of force that no other GM V8 could match for linearity. With twin turbos delivering as much as 20 psi of boost, throttle response was immediate and lag nearly imperceptible. Tremendous, wrote another reviewer of the response; the hot-V layout meant boost built quickly, launching the big sedan with surprising ferocity. In the CT6-V, 0 to 60 mph arrived in the high-three-second range, putting it squarely in sports-sedan territory. This engine was not a casual reboot of an old design; it was an all-new, $16 million moonshot by Cadillac to create a world-class powerplant. Remarkably, they succeeded: at its debut the Blackwing V8 was praised as the most sophisticated V8 General Motors had ever produced, a thoroughly modern antidote to decades of heavy pushrod motors.
Short-Lived Glory in the CT6 (2019–2020)
For all its brilliance, the Blackwing V8’s time in the sun was tragically brief. It only ever powered one model, the final iteration of the Cadillac CT6 sedan, over the course of two model years. In 2019, Cadillac unveiled the CT6-V, initially announced as the CT6 V-Sport, with the full 550 hp Blackwing, and also offered a CT6 Platinum trim detuned to 500 hp for more comfort-focused buyers. In the United States, production totaled 915 units of the CT6-V and 285 of the Platinum 4.2L. That represented roughly 11 percent of CT6 output during that period and fell far short of GM’s early plan to build around 1,500 of these engines. By January 2020, the Detroit-Hamtramck plant had halted CT6 assembly, and the Blackwing V8’s run in America was over almost as soon as it began. “It’s a crying shame, really (and probably a fire-able offense for the decision makers involved) to have designed and developed this high-tech engine from scratch, only to sell fewer than 1,400 examples before yanking the plug,” veteran auto journalist Frank Markus lamented.
What on earth happened? Internal GM politics and market forces conspired to snuff out the Blackwing’s future. In April 2018, Cadillac had a new president, Steve Carlisle, and soon a new strategy that de-emphasized sedans in favor of SUVs just as the CT6 was finding its footing. The CT6 had launched to great fanfare under Johan de Nysschen’s leadership, with even exploratory talk of a larger CT8 flagship, but Johan was ousted amid criticism that Cadillac was not riding the crossover wave fast enough. The new regime saw the writing on the wall: large luxury sedans were a tough sell, and CT6 sales numbers were disappointing. Almost immediately, plans for the CT6 beyond 2020 were dropped for North America. The Blackwing engine, tied at the hip to that car, became an orphan with nowhere to go. Some within GM noted that the 4.2-liter twin-turbo might not be sufficiently ahead of other V8s in the portfolio; the old pushrod 6.2-liter LT4 from the CTS-V was cheaper to produce and could match or exceed the Blackwing’s peak output, and a new mid-engine Corvette with a 5.5-liter DOHC V8 was already in development. In hindsight, the Blackwing was a victim of poor planning and shifting priorities. GM poured resources into a great engine, but the corporation’s pivot to an EV-focused future was already underway, making this twin-turbo V8 a high-profile casualty of that transition. By early 2020, GM stopped hand-building the Blackwing V8 entirely, and with that the book was effectively closed.
The Blackwing name, bitterly enough, would live on only as a badge, not as an engine. In a twist of irony, Cadillac decided to brand its next-generation ultra-performance sedans as CT4-V Blackwing and CT5-V Blackwing, neither of which contains the actual Blackwing V8. The smaller CT4 got a twin-turbocharged V6 and the CT5 inherited an updated 6.2-liter supercharged pushrod V8, meaning the only Cadillac models ever to host the real Blackwing engine were the 915 CT6-V and 285 CT6 Platinum 4.2-liter cars built for the U.S. market. This semantic sleight of hand did not go unnoticed: it remains a point of contention and confusion among enthusiasts that the Blackwing, one of Cadillac’s greatest engineering achievements, became a dead-end, one-and-done experiment. As industry journal Wards Auto put it bluntly, “the Blackwing never had a chance to get off the ground” in the underappreciated CT6. In just two years, Cadillac’s grand revival V8 went from centerpiece to footnote as the company raced toward an electric future.
Rare Bird Status and Soaring Resale Values
If there is a silver lining to this tale, it is that the Blackwing V8’s scarcity has made it a modern legend among car connoisseurs. The CT6-V and CT6 Platinum instantly became rare “unicorn” cars, and today their resale values reflect that cult status. Enthusiasts lucky enough to buy one new have generally held on tight, and when they do come to market, prices are strong. Pre-owned Blackwing CT6s have been known to command “M5 money” on the used market, often $70,000 to $80,000 for low-mileage examples—figures not far off the original 2019 CT6-V MSRP of roughly $90,000. To put that in perspective, a “normal” 3.0-liter V6 CT6 depreciates like any other luxury sedan, but the Blackwing editions are holding exceptional value. It is a case of enthusiasts recognizing that these cars are likely future classics, the end of an era for Cadillac. Only 1,200 Blackwing-equipped CT6s—915 CT6-V and 285 CT6 Platinum—were produced for the U.S. market across the 2019 and 2020 model years, making them a unique chapter in Cadillac’s performance history and an inevitable collectible.
Even within that tiny universe, the CT6 Platinum 4.2-liter stands out as the unicorn of unicorns. With just 285 produced for the U.S., the Platinum combined the Blackwing’s might with every luxury feature Cadillac offered, and it was the only way to get both the Blackwing V8 and GM’s Super Cruise semi-autonomous driving in one car. The CT6-V did not offer Super Cruise, making the fully loaded Platinum the choice for those who wanted the ultimate American luxury sedan experience. A used Platinum was recently listed at $71,000 with 30,000 miles—essentially unheard of for a five-year-old Cadillac sedan. For comparison, the BMW 7 Series and Mercedes-Benz S-Class of the same era have generally plummeted in value on the secondhand market, but the Blackwing CT6s are highly sought-after halo cars. Each engine was hand-assembled and fitted with a signed plaque atop the intercooler housing, underscoring the special nature of what you are driving. As one owner on a forum quipped, owning a CT6-V Blackwing feels like having “the best V8 you can’t buy anymore”—a piece of history that also happens to do 0 to 60 mph in under four seconds and devour interstate miles in sublime comfort. The combination of luxury, performance, rarity, and story behind these cars has created a perfect storm of desirability. Cadillac inadvertently built a collector’s item, the last flag-waving American V8 sedan of its kind, with a mystique that will only grow as time passes.
What Could Have Been: A Mournful Epilogue
It is hard not to wonder what might have been if the Blackwing V8 had enjoyed a longer life or a broader mandate. This magnificent engine arrived as a swan song for GM’s gasoline V8 development just before the electric dawn, and one can imagine the alternate timelines in which it thrived. Wards Auto mused that the Blackwing would be a perfect fit for Cadillac’s full-size Escalade, offering a high-tech alternative to the old pushrod 6.2-liter in the big SUV. An Escalade V with a twin-turbo DOHC 4.2-liter could have been a refinement monster, a “Velvet Hammer” to take on Bentley Bentaygas or AMG G-Wagens with sophisticated force. Others have envisioned a true Cadillac super-coupe or roadster. Cadillac once built the XLR, a Corvette-based luxury convertible, and it is easy to picture a next-generation XLR with the Blackwing V8 snarling under the hood, a proper American grand tourer to challenge the SL63 and Aston Martins. And then there is the bittersweet irony of the CT5-V Blackwing sedan: had history gone differently, that model’s name might not be metaphorical. The current CT5-V Blackwing uses an inherited 6.2-liter supercharged pushrod V8; one could imagine Cadillac sticking to its guns and slotting an uprated 4.2-liter twin-turbo into the CT5, creating a lighter, more modern “Blackwing inside a Blackwing.” It likely would have sacrificed a bit of peak output—the pushrod supercharged mill makes 668 hp, a figure the 4.2-liter was not tuned to reach—but in return Cadillac would have had a truly unique selling point, the only American sport sedan with a DOHC hot-V twin-turbo V8. Unfortunately, these scenarios never left the realm of imagination. Despite hints from Cadillac’s brass in 2019 that “there’s lots of things we could do” with the Blackwing V8 beyond the CT6, no such plans materialized before the march toward EVs rendered the idea moot.
In the end, the Blackwing V8 serves as a stark reminder of Cadillac’s crossroads in the 2010s, a time when the brand was close to reclaiming its old glory through engineering excellence yet ultimately changed course. Cadillac is now doubling down on electric vehicles—the stunning Celestiq EV is proof of that new direction—which means the window for a revival of the Blackwing has closed for good. As one poignant review noted in 2020, “Two revolutions around the sun are not enough for this engine, in my eyes, and the CT6 doesn’t deserve to die either.” The author spoke for many of us who felt almost bereaved by the Blackwing’s demise; it was not just the end of a car and an engine, but the end of an era of Cadillac audacity. Indeed, “so sad this engine left the market as quickly as it arrived,” wrote Wards editor Tom Murphy, encapsulating the collective sigh of what could have been.
And so the 4.2-liter Blackwing V8 passes into automotive lore, a brilliant comet that burned briefly and bright, then faded before its time. It remains a testament to what Cadillac’s engineers can achieve when given the chance, and a tantalizing what-if for car enthusiasts. The Blackwing was Cadillac’s last great hand-built engine, a gift to the faithful, and a semi-aniline leather lined ass-kicker of a motor that deserved a far better fate. In years to come, we will look back on the Blackwing V8 and the CT6 as exemplars of Cadillac’s lost chapter of excellence, dreaming about the rear wings that never spread. As the brand soars into an electric future, we cannot help but shed a tear for the Blackwing’s silent turbos and untapped potential. It was a brief, glimmering reminder that Cadillac could still build a world-beating engine, and that memory, however bittersweet, is something truly worth celebrating.