Cadillac Introduces Ultra-High Performance Designation:

The Blackwing

April 14, 2020 – Once the face of Detroit’s finest, today the face of American Luxury Performance as with the 2016 launch of the Blackwing. Hidden under the guise of angular camouflage, the next phase of BLACKWING will boast a slew of ultimate performance upgrades and a new naming convention. This is evident in their announcement of a new line of ultra-high performance vehicles given a load of upgrades and edgy name: The Blackwing.

The Cadillac Blackwing name carries on the moniker of their highly popular twin-turbocharged eight cylinder engine that was first found in the 2016 CTS-V. After the waves made by the “four door Corvette” and accompanying performance vehicles, Cadillac is doubling down on performance with the CT4-V and CT5-V Blackwing. These new models will feature specially tuned chassis, vehicle control technologies and engines, and apparently will be ready to hit the track. Cadillac has already begun testing them on various tracks to some promising results.

The feature that is sure to make some happy is that the Blackwing models will all be offered with a manual transmission option, which was “a feature most luxury brands no longer offer but continues to be a strong desire for many performance driving enthusiasts.” And they are correct.

More details on the models will be released at a later time, but as it sits now, the new Cadillac Blackwing line is cooking up to be something pretty sweet.

Is There an Ultra High Performance Tire Right for You?

You build your car and have made it look like something straight off the race track. However, you don’t plan on driving it on the track all that often. Should you really have a set of Ultra-High Performance tires (or commonly known as UHP tires) on something you don’t track?

Someone who builds a cool looking car that’s low and functional doesn’t always end up on the race tracks across the world. There’s nothing wrong with that and people have been doing that since the early days of hot rodding. Even if they do track their cars, many drivers assume they need UHP Summer or “R-compound” tires for their car when, in reality, they don’t need them for daily driving. They quickly realize they are starting to waste a lot of money on those rubber donuts.

This type of UHP tire is typically designed to be used in environments that are warm and dry enough that they provide the right amount of traction to drive fast. The tread itself is very thin, usually no more than 5/32-inch deep with few sipes and grooves.

They quickly realize they are starting to waste a lot of money on those rubber donuts.

This means the ultra-high performance tread pattern is focused on providing maximum grip to a “clean” driving surface and their tread blocks will have very few voids and channels for water evacuation. Their rubber compound will also be softer to provide more mechanical grip at the limit.

This also equates to a tire that can take some time to learn to drive on the limit with. Many times, they don’t make enough noise or even breakaway slowly. When you go over their limits, it characteristically happens fast and without any audible warnings like you get from your typical street tire. It’s why many track day teachers will tell you not to drive on a UHP tire on your first few events until you get used to your car and how to drive by feel rather than sound.

It’s these characteristics that also make a UHP Summer tire wear faster than a standard street tire and doesn’t work in all seasons. If you drive your car where it rains often or you must drive through even light snow, these tires won’t work. They just aren’t designed to evacuate precipitation that hits the ground and you’ll begin to hydroplane.

UHP Summer and even Winter tires aren’t meant for daily, yearlong driving…

While having a softer compound is great for cold climates—where normal street rubber would become harder and not grip—that compound will also wear much, much faster. Ultra-High Performance Summer and even Winter tires aren’t meant for daily, yearlong driving because they wear much faster in warmer weather.

However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a UHP tire you can’t take advantage of. You should look at the UHP All-Season tire for your daily driving needs. These tires have the tread pattern to allow for water and even snow evacuation so you have grip in the wet. The tread is usually between 8/32- and 11/32-inch deep but their tread siping is also designed to support their neighboring tread blocks using interlocking sipes. This means, as you corner in a high-G load, the tread blocks support each other and prevent them from bending too much during cornering, decreasing heat that leads to tire tread chunking and degradation.

They also have a specific tread compound that works in both warm and cold environments as they contain more silica in the compound. The black color your tires have comes from carbon black. This carbon black also helps determine the softness of the rubber compound, so the more carbon black, the softer the compound is.

…UHP All-Season tires really can let you have your cake and eat it, too.

Tire manufacturers have begun to use silica (also known as silicon dioxide), a type of compound that many try to describe as sand. Silica is only a part of sand, however, as this compound is also found in quartz and even living organisms.

What makes silica amazing, and why it’s being used in UHP tires more often, is that it provides a lower rolling resistance while also improving the grip of rubber tires and results in a more elastic and flexible compound at lower temperatures versus similar tires with more carbon black. According to Rubber World, “The use of silica can result in a reduction in rolling resistance of 20% and can also improve wet skid performance by as much as 15%, substantially improving braking distances at the same time.”

So, UHP All-Season tires really can let you have your cake and eat it, too. However, if you are participating in a track day and have some experience under your belt, you should be using a set of UHP Summer tires then. If you’re just trying to look the part, you can stick with the UHP All-Seasons all year long. That way, you get the benefits of more grip without the headaches of spending money on constantly replacing worn tires and worrying about hydroplaning in the wet.

Milestar Tires Introduces the MS932 XP+:
An Ultra-High Performance
All-Season Tire

Summer may be gone, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have high-traction in these cold months. Milestar Tires brings a new Ultra-High Performance All-Season Passenger tire with the MS932 XP+.

It seems like a case of “have your cake and eat it, too,” but tire technology has progressed to the point where having an all-season tire isn’t a performance detriment. With more sedans gaining exciting, sporty variants and customers not looking for the inconvenience of changing wheels and tires during season changes, tire manufacturers have been developing tires that can stick but still carry a mud and snow rating. Milestar is no exception and introduces the MS932 XP+.

It all optimizes from the MS932 Sport and puts it into a new silica-infused rubber polymer. Injecting silica allows the rubber polymer to remain flexible under nearly all temperatures. To keep it sporty in both winter and wet conditions, the inside tread pattern is optimized to move water towards the outside tire edges. However, the wide ribs and large shoulder tread blocks retain dry traction in summer conditions. The wide grooves help reduce hydroplaning by giving water channels to flow into.

The 380AA rated rubber compound and plies under the tread allow it to retain a W-speed rating to match OE performance. With all of this performance, the MS932 XP+ is a comfortable tire to drive daily with low noise and great fuel efficiency numbers. Even so, it’s a long-lasting tire with a 40-thousand-mile limited warranty. The MS932 XP+ comes in popular performance sizes in 18, 19, 20, and 22-inch wheel diameters, so nearly every performance car will have a tire for them.

If you’re looking for a tire for your high-performance sedan, Milestar Tires has a new tire for you. The MS932 XP+ gives you the all-season performance with mud and snow rating without degrading dry performance. Find your local tire dealer and ask for a set of Milestar MS932 XP+ before winter hits in full.