Cadillac CTS-v R vs. Cadillac CTS-v

The air was silent right up until his finger pushed the starter button. Then, suddenly, the CTS-v R's exhaust note tore through the air with the razor-sharp crackle of a lightning strike. Andy Pilgrim--the big-game sports-car pilot who drives these things for a living--enjoyed giving us a scare each time he lit off the 6.0-liter V-8. Even when we anticipated its high-compression internal explosion, the crisp, high-decibel fire-up of the race-bred LS2 still made us jump.

We couldn't get all of the photos that we took into the story, but we have them available here in this photo gallery.