Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing
Why 6.3: Cadillac's smaller Blackwing undercuts the CT5-V version by a wide margin while keeping the same standard manual transmission, and the buyers who cross-shopped it against a base 3-series or a used M2 tend to be people who wanted a stick shift more than a badge. It's the cheapest way into GM's small-sedan manual-plus-turbo-V6 combination, and it gets used exactly like that math suggests.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Sound
The twin-turbo 3.6 gets a valved exhaust and a mild mapped crack on the overrun. But a boosted V6 is the weakest engine ever to wear the Blackwing name, boomy under load and hollow at the top, with an assist through the speakers. Bought for the stick, not this.
6-cylinder · turbocharged · 6,500 rpm redline · rated 5.5 / 10 for engine sound
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €55k (2022) → €56k (2026), trending up · illustrative data
Child seats · ISOFIX
Same restraint hardware as its CT5-V Blackwing sibling: LATCH lower anchors on both outboard rear seats, top tethers across all three.
No LATCH hardware in the front seat.
FMVSS 225 (US federal LATCH mandate, lower anchors + top tether required from Sept 2002) (owner-community sourced, not manufacturer documentation)
The long version
GM built the CT4-V Blackwing knowing it would sell in smaller numbers than its CT5-based sibling, and priced it low enough that the buyers who found it were mostly cross-shopping used M2s and base 3-series cars rather than six-figure German sedans. That positioning produced an ownership pattern closer to a hot hatch than a status sedan: a high manual take rate, real track-day attendance, and none of the hedge-your-bets garage-queening that shows up on the pricier CT5-V. Values have held close to flat since launch rather than following the usual new-car depreciation curve, which for a GM sedan is its own small vindication. Nobody buys the smaller Blackwing to be seen in it; they buy it because it is, dollar for dollar, the easiest manual-transmission turbo sedan to justify.