It’s no wonder that rock stars drive the Cadillac Escalade 4WD Sport. It makes you feel like a superstar. This incredible vehicle has all the bells and whistles needed to impress all around you — and frankly, yourself as well. This SUV is stands out and goes over the top — in everything. And, it’s all good.
The Escalade’s V8 10-speed transmission engine brings in about 420 horsepower and gets about 16 combined miles per gallon with a range of 396 to 537 miles on a full tank depending if you’re driving in the city or highway. Like we said, this car looms large over the road with a 134.1 inch wheelbase, 227 inches in length and 76.4 inches high.
The interior dimensions are just as impressive with seven passengers being able to comfortably fit in and enjoy the ride. The front headroom space is 42.3 inches with 44.5 inches of leg room; for the second row, that comes out to 38.9 inches and 41.7 inches respectively. Even those in the third row won’t be cramped with 38.3 inches of headroom and 36.6 inches of leg room — an increase of more than 10 inches from the previous generation. Plenty of room to stretch out! For those needing to haul stuff, don’t worry. If you put all the seats down, you’ll have a whopping 142.8 cubic inches and even if you have all three seats up, you’ll still have 94.1 cubic feet, which is better than most cars.
Luxury
The Escalade is in its fifth generation and luxury is the name of the game. Go inside and it’s as over-the-top as the exterior. Escalade’s industry-first curved OLED display offers more than 38 inches of total diagonal display area with better clarity than a lot of televisions. There is a massive 16.9 diagonal infotainment screen to the driver’s right and is positioned for optimal visibility.
But there’s more! There is a 7.2-inch diagonal touch control panel driving information center to the driver’s left and a 14.2-inch diagonal cluster display behind the steering wheel. Anything — anything — you need to know about the car is right there in front of you. Sitting in the Escalade is an event. Lights of various colors leap across the inside as well as illuminate the door handles the Mulan leather seats wrap you in warm luxury.
If this is a rock star’s car, then it must have a state-of-the-art sound system, and the Escalade delivers. Its Studio 3D Surround creates an amazing sound with an multichannel audio system with 36 speakers that immerses you in the beats.
Top-notch technology
Another impressive feature is the augmented Reality-Enabled navigation that uses live street views with directional overlays so you can see where you are and where you are going. We also appreciated the surround vision that uses four exterior cameras, rear camera mirror and night vision, which uses infrared technology to enhance forward visibility including spotting people and animals that may inadvertently be in your way. A driver has everything needed to safely drive around town.
Driving the Escalade is another unsurpassed adventure. It is the first full-size SUV with Super Cruise driver assistance technology, which means you can go more than 200,000 miles of compatible highways in the U.S. and Canada hands-free. Every little thing that comes along on the highway gets detected and offers a signal telling the driver to pay attention to it.
It took us a while, frankly, to get use to the SUV’s size and driving in our own lane as opposed to taking over the road. But, once we did, what a ride! The all-new independent rear suspension allows each rear wheel to handle road conditions separately while the Magnetic Ride Control is the world’s fastest reacting suspension technology. There are other engineering marvels that helps the Escalade read and react to the road. The bottom line is that the ride is among the best on the road. It’s firm, quick to respond and agile. A total dream.
Of course, the Escalade 4W Sport isn’t cheap. It starts at $88,595, while the model we drove came in at $105,645. But again, the quality, the safety features, engineering, the latest technology and the pure enjoyment of driving a superstar SUV justifies the price tag. As the saying goes: You get what you pay for, and with this SUV you’re paying a lot but you get oh, so very much. Frankly, it’s worth every penny.
www.cadillac.com
