Before popping open the 2006 Cadillac XLR-V’s recessed door handles and dropping into those narrow bucket seats, company officials had informed us of the car’s performance potential. It blasts from zero to 60 mph in 4.6 seconds, making the XLR-V the fastest production model ever produced by Cadillac. Its lateral acceleration of 0.94 g’s rivals supercars costing thousands more. Plus, body roll has been cut by 13 percent, and steering response is bumped 12 percent. Clearly, going fast in a straight line is only one of this Caddy’s tricks.

Though technically the same supercharged Northstar engine found in the STS-V, the 4.4-liter V8 loses a few horses and lb.-ft. of torque as applied to the XLR-V because of necessary differences in the exhaust manifold and oil pan. Even so, there’s 443 horsepower on tap and 414 lb.-ft. of torque, 90 percent of which is available from 2,200 rpm to 6,200 rpm, all used to motivate a ride that’s about 400 pounds lighter than the STS-V.

As one would expect, there’s no shortage of power when you drop the hammer on the XLR-V’s accelerator, as the rear Pirelli tires grip hard and launch the car into a breathtaking sprint. It’s during such aggressive runs that drivers will either love or hate what engineers have done with the exhaust. At slower speeds, there’s a subtle rumble and whine reminding you of the supercharged V8 under the hood, but gun it for a sudden burst of speed and special exhaust valves open up in the mufflers for what is supposed to be a meaner tone. When it works, it’s kinda cool. Problem is, as we noticed while flogging the XLR-V up and down mountain roads around Borrego Springs, the system is a bit inconsistent in its application, sometimes well-coordinated with throttle input but conspicuously delayed at other times. And, in situations when the driver is constantly on and off the throttle between quick corners, the result is a sound much like a street sweeper with a leaky exhaust gasket. Nice idea, but our experience indicates the system needs a bit more tweaking.

Not so with the hardware that makes the 2006 Cadillac XLR-V go, handle, and stop. As noted, engine power is abundant, and the six-speed speed automatic transmission is seamless in its operation. Like the STS-V, this Caddy has a rev-matching feature that keeps the rpms in the sweet spot for optimum power delivery. That’s assuming the driver doesn’t use the manual mode, which will run the engine up against the rev limiter if left to its own devices, and offers a nice little burble when decelerating and downshifting into a corner. Punch it heading out of that same curve and feel the rear end try to come loose, but the standard StabiliTrak stability control system keeps things in proper alignment. Disabling StabiliTrak might have upped the level of excitement, but with all of the Cadillac reps around, drifting around corners and writing our names with a couple of Pirelli pens didn’t seem like such a hot idea.

In hindsight, that might’ve been the only way to get a peep out of the tires, since they didn’t make a sound regardless of how hard a corner was tackled. Those beefy 19s provide tenacious grip, and serve to accent the stiff suspension and responsive handling. For shuffle-steering types, tossing the XLR-V through some S curves is a treat, exhibiting very little body roll and offering plenty of road feel via the large steering wheel. Braking is excellent with a well-modulated pedal and no evident fade, even after some tortuous driving.