Cadillac's new 'Blackwing' models could be the answer to BMW and Mercedes' luxury foothold - if bungled branding and weird engine choices haven't already turned off fans

The Blackwings will be Cadillac's "ultra-performance" and "track-capable" models — and, incredibly, offered with manual transmissions, per the official press release. That's a big deal for the enthusiast community, especially since rival cars such as the BMW M5 and Mercedes-AMG E63 do not offer manuals. (There are rumors the upcoming 2021 BMW M3 will come with a manual, but the car hasn't officially debuted yet.)

A story published by Car and Driver on Tuesday claims Cadillac is putting an updated version of the outgoing CTS-V's 6.2-liter, supercharged V8 into the CT5-V Blackwing. A story published on January 22 made similar claims. That supercharged V8, when it was in the CTS-V, made an earth-shattering 650 horsepower.

It's not clear where Car and Driver sourced this information from, however. When tapped for comment, a Cadillac spokesperson said that the outlet was "currently speculating about the engine specs based on some earlier, unconfirmed reports."

"The only thing we've said thus far is that neither of these cars will have the 4.2-liter, twin-turbo V8 engine known as 'Blackwing,'" the person said. "In this case, the term Blackwing has grown to represent the pinnacle of performance for Cadillac."

They declined to comment further on future products.

In its press release, Cadillac says more additional information regarding the V-Series Blackwing cars will be available later on.

But for those following Cadillac and its performance variants, the new Blackwings — though a very welcome idea — add another layer to the confusing saga of Cadillac's branding attempts. The V-Series branding started out smoothly enough, but in recent years, it hasn't always stayed that way.

The luxury and sport segment has long been dominated by German automakers like BMW, Audi, Porsche, and Mercedes. Cadillac wanted in.

The first model to get any German-fighting performance treatment from the American automaker was the top-tier CTS-V, a more powerful version of Cadillac's CTS sedan, which launched in 2004. It had a V8 sourced from a Corvette, a six-speed manual transmission, high-performance brakes, and a sporty suspension system. This was all packaged into a four-door vehicle that made 400 horsepower but could double as a daily commuter car.

The CTS-V went on for three generations until Cadillac discontinued the CTS in 2019 and replaced it with the CT5.

The subsequent CT5-V was lower on power than the CTS-V and didn't feel like progress or a true successor — something that sat poorly with fans, since the cars were given full-on V-Series branding. After the launch last summer, Cadillac hinted that higher-performance versions were incoming, even if the brand had already debuted cars with the longtime high-performance badging.

Nearly a year later, the Blackwing models are here, giving a new name to a familiar type of model.

The "ultra-performance" CT5-V and CT4-V Blackwing models announced on Tuesday are philosophically similar to the outgoing CTS-V and its smaller sibling, the ATS-V. The cars will have performance goodies such as sport-tuned chassis, vehicle control technologies, and tuned engines. But that's the other point of confusion.

Cadillac is calling its new cars "Blackwing," which most recently was the moniker for an engine found in the short-lived CT6-V.

That engine was called the Blackwing motor, officially unveiled in 2018. It was the first engine General Motors made in decades that was exclusively Cadillac's to use. It wouldn't show up in other GM products. GM has a history of sharing parts between all the brands it owns, so this was a big deal.

The Blackwing motor went into the CT6-V and then was effectively shelved after that when CT6 production ended. The engine was available to consumers for just around a year and in only one model. Cadillac said in February that it had "no additional plans regarding this engine to announce at this time."

The Blackwing engine will not be used in the upcoming CT5-V and CT4-V Blackwings. Cadillac itself confirmed this to Business Insider, despite the cars using the Blackwing name. But since apparently names are just names and don't appear to adhere to the things they were first bestowed upon, "Blackwing" is how we'll now recognize the special Cadillacs from the rest, even if the company had already built up a strong reputation for the simpler "V" branding.

So much of brand familiarity has to do with recognition and consistency. A brand that means one thing one day and another thing the next runs the risk of confusing customers and fans.

Yet, in spite of the many iterations of Cadillac's brand identities, these new Blackwings should be able to compete with performance offerings from the likes of Mercedes, BMW, and Porsche as their predecessors did. They'll just do it with a different name.

Hopefully, buyers will catch on easily enough.