The CTS, new for the '08 model year, has already garnered autodom's biggest prize — Motor Trend's Car of the Year. Granted, this award has been won in the past by such icons as the Renault Alliance and the Chevrolet Caprice, but the boys at Trend got it right this time: The CTS is inarguably the best and most significant launch of the year, for the way it builds upon, rather than nullifies, the virtues of its predecessor. It just seems to have gotten everything right; its styling, powertrain, interior, pricing, chassis dynamics, and even marketing are blindingly great. We say blindingly because the CTS's all-around excellence is so unexpected, such an order of magnitude greater than the car it replaces, that it could be coloring people's perceptions. Is it really that good?

Enter the BMW 5-series, grasshopper. Generally considered the finest midsize sport sedan three generations running, and revised with more power and more styling for 2008, the 5 served as Caddy's internal target for new CTS, despite the latter's 3-series pricing. GM doesn't make a huge deal about this benchmarking, probably because it doesn't want to invite harsh comparison. But if you look closely in the new CTS advertising, featuring the mom-hot Kate Walsh, you'll see the car posted at a stoplight next to a 5er. But we say, To hell with subtlety. Let's see what happens when the Autobahn icon gives the emblem of GM's resurgence a reality check on the mean streets of the Chicago suburbs. Here's our tale of the tape: CTS 3.6 DI vs. 535i.

Interior/Exterior

The vast majority of the ink spilled on both cars has described their styling, for good (CTS) and bad (5-series). The midrange BMW is Chris Bangle's best attempt at a medium-low–heat version of his "flame surfacing," and the CTS reflects Caddy design head John Manoogian's careful advancement of the "Art & Science" theme first seen on show cars like the Evoq and Cien. The thing is, the CTS is both riskier and better looking than the 5. Its wheels are better integrated into the body and its greenhouse is tidier, with a face as swaggeringly American as its stance. There isn't a bad line on the car. By contrast, it's hard to find the 5-series' best angle. It seems to sit awkwardly on its wheels, and Bangle's styling fillips fail to repeat in any meaningful way — there may be the suggestion of a link between the sweeping head- and taillights, but the 5-series has none of the CTS's cohesiveness. You could sketch the Cadillac in two or three lines. It would take a Spirograph to faithfully depict the BMW.

Inside, though, where comfort, quality, and convenience trump styling, the BMW has a small edge. Though its interior looks like the proverbial tortured bar of soap, the 5's cabin is of higher quality than the CTS's. The 5er's wide berth is richly appointed in somber materials like our car's Black Dakota leather, and the fits are micrometer tight. Even if you're the founder of the iDrive Haters Social Club and Facebook Group, it's hard not to love the 5's perfect steering-wheel size, it's intuitive pedal placement, and seats so supportive they make you contemplate a cross-country trip every time you hop in.

And while the new CTS's cabin makes the old car's interior look like a bucket of Duplo blocks (Bob Lutz famously said of the first CTS, "We spent a lot of money to make it look that crappy"), there are some items in here that don't withstand scrutiny. The plastichrome instrument bezels, while handsome, would look more at home in a Saturn. Some of the complex curves of the center console can't hang onto the Sapele wood trim. The seats, while light and thin, have plastic backs and rock back on their tracks whenever you plop yourself down. Speaking of which, the BMW's a bit easier to get in and out of, because its greenhouse has a less aggressive tumblehome. All of this detracts from the CTS interior's careful placement of buttons, the 40-gig hard-drive in the stereo system, the pop-up Nav screen, and the fantastic wheel-to-seat-to-pedal relationship. And let's not forget the important issue of style: This is an interior that, in the words of our managing editor, Bryan Joslin, could easily be found inside an Alfa Romeo, if only GM swapped out the chrome and wood for brushed aluminum and crimson leather. He should know: He used to work at Tony and Sam's House ov'a da Imports.

In terms of space, the first, 2003 CTS split the size difference between the 3- and the 5-series. This one is pretty much right on top of the 5, save some additional room in the BMW's rear seat, as per this chart:

With $9035 worth of options (Performance package with 18s, leather seats, Surround Sound stereo, XM with NavTraffic, kitchen sink), our CTS rang in at $44,325. The BMW picks up right where the most expensive CTSs leave off (we've had press cars, CTS4s, that touch $49,000). This particular 535i came with nearly $10,000 in extra kit — Sport package, Premium package, Premium sound — that pushed the price up to $59,225. The BMW's interior is better, but it ain't that much better.

Powertrain

We put these two particular specimens up against each other because the uplevel CTS DI produces just four more horsepower and five fewer torks than the even 300/300 of the 535i's twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter inline six. Despite their commonalities — lean-burning direct-injection, variable valve timing, and cast-in bore liners — these two engines present very different approaches to producing the same power. BMW moved to artificial aspiration for this aluminum N54 engine as a way to conserve displacement for the sake of coming Euro emissions regs and chose turbocharging over supercharging for its greater operating efficiency. The CTS's V-6, on the other hand, has an additional .6 liters of capacity, but is still no slouch in the efficiency department, returning the same 17/26 EPA ratings as the 535i. In mixed highway/city use, both cars' mileage figures were in the neighborhood of 23 mpg, which is very respectable for the kind of performance kindling under their hoods.

In a highly scientific stoplight drag race, the CTS has the 535i by half a nose for the first 75 mph. Credit the optional mechanical limited-slip on our Caddy, which helps the CTS put its power down faster and hook up better than the 5-series. (The 535i is officially rated at 5.7 seconds to 60. The CTS, by our reckoning, shaves a tenth off that time.) But after 75 mph, the BMW begins to pull away — and won't stop. By the time the cars hit 100 mph, the 535i is a car length ahead of the CTS. But we could have predicted that from the engines' characters themselves.

The Caddy's engine feels like a tiny V-8, with lots of grunt and an assist from a numerically higher final-drive ratio. Power begins to taper off a bit as the engine revs out past peak torque at 5700, though. The BMW's I-6 has a wider powerband than the GM V-6 and is utterly linear, despite the presence of turbocharging. It starts around 2500 rpm and just keeps building momentum all the way up to its 7000-rpm redline, with nary a dead spot in there.

You feel the 3.0-liter turbo's superiority at part-throttle, too. Caddy's V-6 is dead under three grand, and the 6-speed Hydramatic needs to crack off two shifts to get itself out of overdrive. The N54 has a very long, flat torque plateau (1500-4000 rpm), which gives it power everywhere yet none of the hokey elasticity of other turbocharged cars.

Both cars are mated to 6-speed transmissions (manumatic and full manuals are available) and our cars had the manumatic versions. Both have expertly spaced lower ratios, but the 5-series's shifts are crisper. This is BMW's revised, quicker-shifting Steptronic gearbox, actuated by a Norelco-shaver-sized shifter. Our car did not have the new-for-'08 Sport Automatic shifter, with its steering-wheel paddles and matched-rev downshifts. We missed it here and would have swallowed its $500 premium, it not being our money and all.

Chassis

With the CTS, GM seems to finally have figured out what less profligate carmakers such as BMW and Porsche have known all along: Great cars are products of evolution. So the CTS rides on an iteration of the 'Ring-honed Sigma rear- and all-wheel-drive chassis. Its track is two inches wider than the old CTS's, and GM fed wheel geometries and structural elements from its CTS-V back into this car's chassis. It rides on a monotube-damped control-arm front/multilink rear suspension, with aluminum rods and wheel knuckles for lower unsprung mass. The BMW, similarly, rides on revised and well-proven hardware. In fact, it seems like BMW has been using this strut-type front suspension on all its cars since the Bay of Pigs fiasco. But BMW keeps using this easy-to-package chassis componentry because it has kept finding ways to make it better. Over the years, it has added moves such as twin-tube dampers and aluminum bits to the playbook, and the cars keep getting more athletic as a result.

The 535i's well-defined muscle mass is evident the moment you take the wheel. Our car's optional Sport package brought firmer suspension calibration, wide 18-inch wheels, and Active Roll Stabilization to keep body roll in check. Control feel here is taut and deliberate, like everything was calibrated to run all day at 155 mph on perfect German highways. Primary ride quality on the 18s is very firm, and the body exhibits a little jiggling and even some fore-aft rocking when you hit patches of high-frequency pavement. There's a tiny dead zone at the top of the brake pedal's travel. Also, at in-town speeds, the steering feels a bit artificially weighted (and this without the cockamamie $1400 variable-ratio Active Steering). But when you find an open stretch of road or, better yet, one that snakes through some elevation changes, the 5-series comes alive like Frampton. The steering wheel communicates every nuance of the road and every shift of the load. Stability at high speeds — whether the asphalt is pin-straight or curvy — is never in question. When it's working hard, the 535i inspires huge confidence in every component, from its bigger, uprated brakes (13.7/13.6-in f/r) to its Bridgestones to its seats.

Hopping out of the BMW and into the Cadillac, everything feels lighter. Steering, brakes, power delivery — it's all very fluid. The harmony of controls that the BMW achieves at speed is there in the Cadillac from the moment you engage a gear. The ride copes with wavy pavement better than the BMW does, due in part to its higher tire sidewall, but also to its incredibly well sorted damper settings. Initial response from the brakes and steering are more natural and linear than in the BMW. And, amazingly, none of this evaporates when you flog it, even if it doesn't exactly gird for battle the way the organ-meat-fed BMW does. In the CTS, for example, the brakes don't bite as hard as the 5's, and our car's anchors pulsed when hauling down from 120 — likely the handiwork of the previous, ham-footed driver. It's almost as stable as the BMW at those speeds, needing only fingertip pressure on the wheel to keep it on course, but it floats just a tiny bit. Body control over serpentine pavement is as predictable, if less assertive, than in the BMW. And in extreme limit-handling maneuvers, you can't help but notice the BMW's greater tenacity and longer bloodline. The CTS can't quite match the liquid-like movements of the 535i at its limits of tire adhesion, and no other sedan's cornering attitude is as throttle-adjustable. The BMW is happiest at the edge.

Conclusion

These cars differ in small but powerful ways, which makes sense: One is built for American driving styles, and the other is built for the A92 Autobahn between Munich and Deggendorf. The CTS hasn't lost the silkiness that people expect from a Cadillac, which persists here well beyond our posted national limits. The BMW, by contrast, is just waking up at 80 mph, at which point the Cadillac hands over the baton. The fact that these cars are so complimentary, however, is enough to beggar belief. No one who ever drove a Cimarron could have predicted that an entry-level Cadillac could hang with a BMW 5-series. Nor that, for the bulk of American driving, the Cadillac does a better job. And that isn't just this huge wad of GM cash talking.