Inside, the theme turns to luxury. Chrome rings around the gauges and vents, optional "midnight sapele wood trim", ebony black plastic, "leather" stitched dash, suede seat inserts and steering wheel, all come together for a busy interior that feels like it's trying too hard. The suede steering wheel is brilliant, like holding hands with your first high school crush, but the ebony black plastic in our tester already had fine scratches all over, and with only 2,900 miles on odo, we can only imagine what the plastic will look like after 40,000 miles.
When equipped with the optional Recaro high performance seats, adjustable thigh and back bolsters assure that a perfect cocoon of performance solitude is but a few adjustments away...an option Cadillac should make standard on the V. Front leg room is ample, and even when adjusted for my 6'4" frame, there was still plenty of room behind the front seat for back seat passengers. Trunk space was adequate, with plenty of room for Sunday Costco runs.Aside from the pimp-my-ride-slick raising and lowering nav screen, the dash was quite confusing. There are far too many buttons, all with the same shape. Even after a week with the car, we were still hunting for simple things like changing the radio station, or moving around the navigation system. The Bluetooth pairing process was even more infuriating. Generally, I can pair my phone without consulting the manual, but with the CTS, the manual was my best friend. When equipped with navigation, as all CTS-V's are, the Bluetooth pairing process is only completed with aural prompts, which would be fine...if it worked. I was able to get my phone paired (I think), but when it came to making a call, the system somehow repeatedly misinterpreted my "Dial" command as "help". After 20 minutes of yelling "DIAL" in as many different tones and inflections I could think of, I just gave up trying to make my call. The Camaro we had last week was much simpler, and cost a third of the price.
The Bose 5.1 10 speaker audio system helped ease my frustration though, as it sounds absolutely stunning. On XM, FM, CD, or AUX, the sound system was fantastic at converting the stereo source to surround. Very few systems can complete this process accurately. Overall, there are certainly positives and negatives with the interior, but it's all merely a trace of memory as soon as you twist the ignition knob.
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