GM has made it a habit lately of announcing moderate preliminary figures when it comes to its high-end sports cars. Just like the Corvette ZR1 was SAE-certified at 638 Hp instead of the preliminary 620Hp announced at its debut in Detroit, the 2009 Cadillac CTS-V’s supercharged 6.2-liter V8 LSA engine officially delivers 556 Hp at 6100 rpm and 551 lb.-ft. (747 Nm) of torque at 3800 rpm (preliminary figure: 550Hp).

The 2009 CTS-V accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 sec while it covers the quarter-mile in 12 sec at 118 mph. According to Cadillac, these official acceleration times are believed to be the fastest for any V8-powered sedan currently in production. Talking about fast times, in testing May 8 at Germany's famed Nürburgring track, the new 2009 CTS-V completed a lap in 7:59.32, which is considered to be the fastest ever publicly documented for a production sedan on factory-spec street tires. You can see the video here.