
It’ll be an all-rounder for most owners, according to Cadillac. The Escalade V is designed to bring more excitement to the everyday monotony of life.
Escalade v 2023 drivers#
Its goal isn’t to wow drivers on track-that’s what Blackwing models are for. Remember, this is a vehicle sized and shaped like a small building that can launch out of the hole as quickly as a mid-range sports car. We suspect owners will extract the most joy out of straight-line blasts from stop lights. It’s no sports sedan, obviously, but it’s far from boring. Thanks to all of those chassis upgrades, the Escalade V can maintain its composure through high-speed bends.
Escalade v 2023 driver#
On the highway, Cadillac’s latest version of Supercruise-the brand’s hands-free driver assistance system-works wonders, able to change lanes to go around slower cars all on its own, without any input from the driver. Once you are up to speed, though, it’s just as pleasant and comfortable to drive as a normal Escalade. Weighing over three tons means not even 682 hp can make it truly fast, with a lot of that acceleration turning into heat and noise as you climb higher up the speedometer. After a short stint behind the wheel through the mountainous desert ranges outside Phoenix, Arizona, it’s clear the Escalade V works best as a high-speed cruiser. While the vast majority of the hardware is shared with the standard Escalade, the Magnaride dampers, air springs, and steering have all been retuned for the V in an attempt to match the engine’s rowdiness.
Escalade v 2023 upgrade#
It’s well geared to deliver good acceleration, allowing for a claimed 0-60 time of 4.4 seconds, or 4.5 seconds in the long-wheelbase ESV truck.Īll of this extra grunt meant the Escalade team had to upgrade the rest of the SUV to cope. That might sound low, but you don’t really notice thanks to the 10-speed automatic the engine is paired to. Redline comes at 6200 rpm, typical for GM’s line of small push-rod blocks. Step on the gas and you’re immediately met with a ferocious bellow from the quad exhaust tips out back, along with a substantial punch to the gut as you’re ferried away. Thrust is constant and unwavering, with 80 percent of the engine’s torque arriving at 2000 rpm. There’s power everywhere in the rev range, with instant response and all the fantastic noises you’d expect from a V-8-powered V-Series Cadillac. Though most of the changes were made for packaging reasons, don’t think the motor’s been neutered. The result is 682 hp and 653 lb-ft of torque-14 more hp and 6 fewer lb-ft versus the CT5’s engine. But thanks to exhaust and intake runner restrictions in the engine bay, Cadillac had to bump up the Eaton supercharger’s size from 1.7 to 2.65 liters to get the power it wanted. The block is the same, stuffed with a forged crankshaft, forged connecting rods, forged pistons, and lightweight titanium intake valves. That engine, based on the phenomenal unit found in the CT5-V Blackwing, comes with a slew of changes to make sure it works on this platform. Let's go.’ And once we made that decision, it all came on really fast.”Įven if popular consensus determined there should’ve been an Escalade V a decade ago, we’re not complaining now. We've got all the content we need from similar engine architectures that we were able to just say, ‘Okay, it's time.
Escalade v 2023 series#
“With the V series becoming so popular, we it was time,” Schiavone continued. We started that in, what, 2004? So we've been doing it for 18 years.”Įventually, the business case for an Escalade V became too tantalizing to ignore. “And if you look where the focus was, it was really developing the V series on the sedan side, because that's where most of the racing has been.

“General Motors has opportunities to do so many different things,” David Schiavone, the Escalade’s global project manager, told Road & Track. So why release the Escalade V, the antithesis to logical efficiency, now? Its first all-electric vehicle, the Lyriq, is set to be released next year. Officially, Cadillac plans to be all-electric by the year 2030, though rumors suggest GM’s luxury arm could be a purely EV affair by as early as 2025.

The Escalade V comes at an interesting time for the brand. Except you can get this one straight from your local Caddy dealer.

At its core sits a supercharged 6.2-liter small-block V-8, not unlike the powertrain you’d find in one of Hennessey’s offerings. For the first time ever, Cadillac will finally sell an Escalade with a V badge.
