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Would it be inappropriate to cruise through genteel Grosse Pointe with the base cranked and Kanye West\u2019s \u201cWouldn\u2019t You Like To\u201d blaring?<\/p>\n
Would you like to ride shotgun in the Escalade<\/i><\/p>\n
So why don\u2019t you and your friends get with me and my friends …<\/i><\/p>\n
Not if you\u2019re 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
When you rolled up in the Escalade<\/i><\/p>\n
Saw that dub you gave to the valet<\/i><\/p>\n
– Jennifer Lopez, \u201cLove Don\u2019t Cost a Thing\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the kids like that Dad drives the same car as the celebrities they watch,\u201d says Schiavone with a smile. After all, how many vehicles come with their own soundtracks?<\/p>\n
Escalade buyers have been both the richest and the youngest \u2014 average age 52 \u2014 among Cadillac customers, defying Caddy\u2019s image as the Geritol brand. Since the Escalade was introduced in 1999, Caddy has poured billions into updating a once stodgy lineup.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
But the Escalade is still the bling king. Part sculpture, part truck, part upscale condo, the roomy Escalade is Detroit\u2019s most over-the-top status vehicle. It is the standard bearer of Cadillac\u2019s Art & Science design philosophy that combines edgy styling with advanced chassis engineering. And the brand new fourth-generation Escalade lives up to the legend.<\/p>\n
The big yacht gets its superstructure from GM\u2019s body-on-frame pickup and shares many of the same features \u2014 auto lay-flat third-row seats, magnetic shock ride control, adaptive cruise control \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Escalade is for extroverts,\u201d deadpans one GM engineer. Shall we begin with the lights?<\/p>\n
A stack of five LED bulbs illuminate the Escalade\u2019s path \u2014 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\u00a0dream Cruisin\u2019 in my Cadillac Escalade trickin\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n Sometimes like it easy, sometimes<\/i><\/p>\n Like it rugged<\/i><\/p>\n But like Pink, who penned those lyrics, the Escalade is surprisingly popular with the ladies.<\/p>\n Forty percent of base Escalade buyers are female \u2014 a number that jumps to 50 percent with the stretched Escalade XL, which can fit soccer mom\u2019s whole soccer team. Intimidated by the Escalade\u2019s huge five-point chrome grille (which bears a family resemblance to James Bond\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 imitating the grille outside. But the dash is swathed in hand-crafted, cut-and-sewn leather.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The Mercedes GL gets the trophy as best-selling truck in the large SUV class, but the car-based GL can\u2019t compete with the Escalade\u2019s interior room and truck toughness. Huge storage spaces abound \u2014 a center storage bin can swallow a laptop for charging.\u00a0Really.<\/i>\u00a0This isn\u2019t a car; it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n At the center of this rolling domicile is the front seat. Calling them seats doesn\u2019t do them justice. Call them thrones.<\/p>\n 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\u2019ll 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\u2019s seat comes with its own side airbag that instantly fills the space between the front seats. Genius.<\/p>\n OK, you can come back, kids, because you\u2019ll want to play with the cool, haptic-touch buttons on the console\u2019s CUE infotainment system, now standard in Cadillac products.<\/p>\n Also standard is the 6.2-liter pushrod V-8 that must motivate the Caddy\u2019s 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\u00a0business Celebrities are a trendy lot, and as the 2015 Escalade rolls into showrooms this spring, an\u00a0unscientific Jalopnik review<\/a>\u00a0of today\u2019s music charts finds that Bugatti and Versace have replaced Escalade as pop icons. Whatever. The Escalade\u2019s place in cool culture is cemented. And perhaps we\u2019ll be spared from some of the less-memorable Escalade lyrics like\u00a0this ditty from<\/a>\u00a0Paris Hilton:<\/p>\n Incentivize nuclear nonproliferation and ratify Kyoto today<\/i><\/p>\n You can ride in the motorcade in my hybrid pink Escalade<\/i><\/p>\n Paris for President!<\/i><\/p>\n Ugh. No wonder GM discontinued the Escalade hybrid for 2015.<\/p>\n Vehicle type:<\/b>\u00a0Front-engine, four-wheel-drive, seven-passenger sport utility vehicle Would it be inappropriate to cruise through genteel Grosse Pointe with the base cranked and Kanye West\u2019s \u201cWouldn\u2019t You Like To\u201d blaring? Would you like to ride shotgun in the Escalade So why don\u2019t you and your friends get with me and my friends … Not if you\u2019re blaring it through the Bose sound system […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14679"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14679"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14681,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14679\/revisions\/14681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/images.intellitxt.com\/ast\/adTypes\/icon1.png\")
<\/a>\u00a0cruisers meet the new kid on Woodward\u2019s block. These vertical masterpieces set the tone for the Escalade\u2019s bold, severe, handsome architecture. This is a masculine vehicle.<\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0without 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.<\/p>\n\n\n2015 Cadillac Escalade<\/h3>\n
\nPrice:<\/b>\u00a0$72,700 base ($83,790 as tested)
\nPower plant:<\/b>\u00a06.2-liter, direct-injection V-8 engine
\nPower:<\/b>\u00a0420 horsepower, 460 pound-feet of torque
\nTransmission:<\/b>\u00a0Six-speed automatic
\nPerformance:<\/b>\u00a00-60 mph, 5.96 seconds (manufacturer); towing capacity, 7,900 lbs.
\nWeight:<\/b>\u00a05,840 pounds
\nFuel economy:<\/b>\u00a0EPA 14 mpg city\/21 mpg highway\/17 mpg combined
\nReport card
\n<\/b>
\nHighs:<\/b>\u00a0Sculpted design; penthouse-comfortable interior
\nLows:<\/b>\u00a0Theft magnet; where can I park it in the city?
\nOverall:<\/b>\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"