Bling King: 2015 Cadillac Escalade

Posted by hpayne on April 17, 2014

Would it be inappropriate to cruise through genteel Grosse Pointe with the base cranked and Kanye West’s “Wouldn’t You Like To” blaring?

Would you like to ride shotgun in the Escalade

So why don’t you and your friends get with me and my friends …

Not if you’re blaring it through the Bose sound system of the luxurious 2015 Cadillac Escalade. Is there any luxury vehicle today with a broader buyer demographic than Caddy’s flagship SUV? From West Coast celebrities like Kanye, Jennifer Lopez and Kobe Bryant to well-to-do East Coast families, the Escalade has become synonymous with cool lux.

As it happens, I was riding shotgun recently … with Cadillac Escalade Global Product Manager David Schiavone, who says that the high society poles of Escalade buyers don’t seem to repel one another. Celebrities love the cachet of Cadillac; families love the utility.

When you rolled up in the Escalade

Saw that dub you gave to the valet

– Jennifer Lopez, “Love Don’t Cost a Thing”

“And the kids like that Dad drives the same car as the celebrities they watch,” says Schiavone with a smile. After all, how many vehicles come with their own soundtracks?

Escalade buyers have been both the richest and the youngest — average age 52 — among Cadillac customers, defying Caddy’s image as the Geritol brand. Since the Escalade was introduced in 1999, Caddy has poured billions into updating a once stodgy lineup.

The Cadillac CTS sedan now runs stride-for-stride with the best German luxury thoroughbreds and won the 2013 Detroit News Vehicle of the Year. And the 2014 Caddy ATS is the crucial, entry-level sedan that the brand needs to pull in first-time buyers.

But the Escalade is still the bling king. Part sculpture, part truck, part upscale condo, the roomy Escalade is Detroit’s most over-the-top status vehicle. It is the standard bearer of Cadillac’s Art & Science design philosophy that combines edgy styling with advanced chassis engineering. And the brand new fourth-generation Escalade lives up to the legend.

The big yacht gets its superstructure from GM’s body-on-frame pickup and shares many of the same features — auto lay-flat third-row seats, magnetic shock ride control, adaptive cruise control — with the premium Chevy Tahoe LTZ that I reviewed last week. But the $72,700 Escalade is much more than a Tahoe in a tux. It puts OMG in SUV.

“The Escalade is for extroverts,” deadpans one GM engineer. Shall we begin with the lights?

A stack of five LED bulbs illuminate the Escalade’s path — each separated by heat-dispersing heat fins. The vertical light show continues round back where giant LEDs anchor the corners like the red neon signs on Radio City Music Hall. Tail-finned dream cruisers meet the new kid on Woodward’s block. These vertical masterpieces set the tone for the Escalade’s bold, severe, handsome architecture. This is a masculine vehicle.

Cruisin’ in my Cadillac Escalade trickin’

Sometimes like it easy, sometimes

Like it rugged

But like Pink, who penned those lyrics, the Escalade is surprisingly popular with the ladies.

Forty percent of base Escalade buyers are female — a number that jumps to 50 percent with the stretched Escalade XL, which can fit soccer mom’s whole soccer team. Intimidated by the Escalade’s huge five-point chrome grille (which bears a family resemblance to James Bond’s nemesis Jaws), my wife softens to the big hunk when she passes her foot under the rear bumper. The hands-free liftgate rises like a garage door revealing an interior space so large you expect a Caddy ELR to come driving out of it.

Step inside and the macho lines melt into a plush interior. Sure, there are artistic echoes like the five-point design of the CUE infotainment system — imitating the grille outside. But the dash is swathed in hand-crafted, cut-and-sewn leather.

Wood accents abound. And the interior bristles with family-friendly USB ports essential for digital Gen Y. The interior reveals why the Escalade is in a class of its own.

The Mercedes GL gets the trophy as best-selling truck in the large SUV class, but the car-based GL can’t compete with the Escalade’s interior room and truck toughness. Huge storage spaces abound — a center storage bin can swallow a laptop for charging. Really. This isn’t a car; it’s a home away from home, where hectic families can catch up on their way to their next appointment. The Escalade is a 21st century family kitchen table.

At the center of this rolling domicile is the front seat. Calling them seats doesn’t do them justice. Call them thrones.

The most complicated assemblies in the Escalade outside the powertrain, these thrones deserve their own showroom. Heated and cooled, these plush recliners are 12-way adjustable with 4-way lumbar support (what, no pop-up foot rest?). And … parents, I’ll wait while you take the kids out of the room … because side impacts often result in deadly temple-to-temple front passenger head collisions, the front driver’s seat comes with its own side airbag that instantly fills the space between the front seats. Genius.

OK, you can come back, kids, because you’ll want to play with the cool, haptic-touch buttons on the console’s CUE infotainment system, now standard in Cadillac products.

Also standard is the 6.2-liter pushrod V-8 that must motivate the Caddy’s three tons of steel, chrome and bling. Segregated from the cabin by yards of sound-deadening material, inlaid doors and laminated window panes, the big pushrod motor quietly goes about its business without a bead of sweat.But if you need a reminder of its awesome 460 pound-feet of yacht-pulling torque, just stomp on the adjustable accelerator pedal and the beast will roar off the line on its way to 60 mph in under six seconds.

Celebrities are a trendy lot, and as the 2015 Escalade rolls into showrooms this spring, an unscientific Jalopnik review of today’s music charts finds that Bugatti and Versace have replaced Escalade as pop icons. Whatever. The Escalade’s place in cool culture is cemented. And perhaps we’ll be spared from some of the less-memorable Escalade lyrics like this ditty from Paris Hilton:

Incentivize nuclear nonproliferation and ratify Kyoto today

You can ride in the motorcade in my hybrid pink Escalade

Paris for President!

Ugh. No wonder GM discontinued the Escalade hybrid for 2015.

2015 Cadillac Escalade

Vehicle type: Front-engine, four-wheel-drive, seven-passenger sport utility vehicle
Price: $72,700 base ($83,790 as tested)
Power plant: 6.2-liter, direct-injection V-8 engine
Power: 420 horsepower, 460 pound-feet of torque
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Performance: 0-60 mph, 5.96 seconds (manufacturer); towing capacity, 7,900 lbs.
Weight: 5,840 pounds
Fuel economy: EPA 14 mpg city/21 mpg highway/17 mpg combined
Report card

Highs: Sculpted design; penthouse-comfortable interior
Lows: Theft magnet; where can I park it in the city?
Overall:★★★★

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