How the Escalade Redefined Luxury SUVs and Saved Cadillac

1998: The Escalade Arrives

The Escalade may be king of the full-size SUV world today, but it wasn’t the first to the party. When it first hit the streets in 1998 as Cadillac’s first SUV, it did so more than a year after its chief crosstown rival, the Lincoln Navigator. While Lincoln’s full-size sport-ute was a thoroughly reworked version of the more proletarian Ford Expedition, the first Escalade was, in large part, just a GMC Yukon Denali wearing Wreath and Crest badges — and the Yukon Denali was, in turn, just a slightly gussied-up Tahoe. The few differences between Escalade and Denali were found inside, where the Cadillac boasted greater use of wood and leather trim and a set of better-padded seats.

In spite of being less visually distinct and less powerful than Lincoln’s contender — the Cadillac’s 5.7-liter V-8 made 255 horsepower and 335 lb-ft to the Navigator’s 300 / 365 — the Escalade quickly proved a hit, racking up nearly 24,000 sales in its first full year on the market and making it the brand’s third-most-popular model even in spite of a price comparable to the range-topping Deville sedan. (For the first two years, the Escalade started at $46,225 — which, adjusted for inflation, is just a few hundred dollars off the current model’s base price 25 years later.) Clearly, the market was there for a big Cadillac SUV.

2001: The Second-Generation Escalade

While the first Escalade was a late addition to GM’s SUV portfolio, being added to the mix towards the end of its platform’s life cycle, the second-gen model took a more holistic and properly high-end approach. When Escalade 2.0 hit the streets in early 2001 about a year after the Tahoe it shared an architecture with, it boasted its own unique look, bearing massive square headlamps and a giant egg-crate grille to instantly distinguish it from Chevys and GMCs. Inside, a panoply of fancy features set the big Caddy apart from its less-expensive siblings, including a Bose stereo, plush leather seats in all three rows, and, of course, plenty of wood trim.

More power also arrived, at least on Escalades equipped with all-wheel-drive. While rear-wheel-drive versions used the Tahoe/Suburban’s 285-hp 5.3-liter V-8, AWD Escalades packed a 6.0-liter eight-pot making 345 ponies and 380 lb-ft of torque. (That engine would go on to become standard for all Escalades come 2005.)

The second generation also marked the expansion of the Escalade brand to three body styles. The regular, Tahoe-sized version launched first, followed shortly by the Escalade EXT — Cadillac’s version of the Chevy Avalanche, which was, in effect, a Suburban with a pickup truck bed replacing everything after the C-pillars. Come 2003, Cadillac rolled out the extended-length Escalade ESV, which applied Caddy design and luxury to the Suburban body itself.

Gen 2’s arrival also coincided with the Escalade’s rise as a pop culture icon. Artists like Jay-Z and Nelly had begun name-checking the giant Cadillac as early as 2000, but the second-generation SUV quickly found its place in Jennifer Lopez and 50 Cent music videos, as well as many an artist’s garage. (The Escalade became so ubiquitous in hip-hop circles, Mike Myers even dropped a mention of it into a parody rap for Austin Powers: Goldmember.) That street red quickly turned to cinematic attention: with its appearances in everything from The Matrix Reloaded to The Sopranos, the screens were full of Escalades by 2003. Cadillac’s SUV had joined the ranks of the Eldorado and Deville to become an icon in its own right.

2007: The Third-Generation Escalade

By the third Escalade, GM had managed to sync up the arrivals of all of its full-size SUVs, with the Cadillac enterprising production alongside the Chevy Tahoe and Suburban and the GMC Yukon and Yukon XL. As had become a pattern, the Escalade boasted more power than its GM contemporaries, with a standard 6.2-liter V-8 making 403 horsepower on all versions, be they two-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive. The four-speed auto used since the Escalade’s debut was tossed aside in favor of a new six-speed automatic transmission as well.

The big news, however, arrived one year after the launch of the vehicle, in the form of the first hybrid Cadillac. The Escalade Hybrid combined a 6.0-liter V-8 with a pair of electric motors and a small battery pack to whip up 332 hp and 367 ft-lb, while boosting gas mileage from the 2WD 6.2-liter’s 12 mpg city / 19 mpg highway to 20 mpg city and 21 highway. Hardly Toyota Prius figures, perhaps, but the in-town number represented a whopping 66% improvement on the non-hybrid version.

The extended-length ESV and pickup truck EXT variants both returned for the third-generation Escalade, as did the usual assortment of standard interior luxuries: heated leather seats for first and second rows, a Bose stereo, a rear parking assist (handy, in an SUV that ran as longs 18.5 feet) and the inevitable wood paneling, all wrapped together in an interior that ditched much of the patched-together appearance of previous Escalades for a more cohesive, premium feel. The exterior design evolved the second generation’s brutal boxiness into a softer, puffier look, with more upright headlights and a front bumper that resembled nothing so much as a gentle smile.

The third-generation Escalade never quite matched the impressive sales figures of its predecessor (although the Great Recession likely had plenty to do with that), but that didn’t keep it from continuing to generate a loyal following among the influential — increasingly, professional athletes, who responded to its combination of luxury and space. When the Escalade was designated the official vehicle of Super Bowl 40, it seemed an apt fit; the SUV was already a staple of NFL players’ parking garages.

2014: The Fourth-Generation Escalade

The years between the debuts of the third and fourth Escalades were turbulent ones for GM, as the company navigated a 2008 bankruptcy and restructuring in the midst of the Great Recession that forced the automaker to sell off or shut down many of its famous brands. Hummer, Pontiac, Saturn, and Saab all bit the dust, and vast swaths of the carmaker’s dealers and factories were shuttered. But Cadillac endured, kept alive in no small part by the success of the Escalade (as well as the brand’s second SUV, the SRX).

The fourth-gen version, which debuted in 2013 but entered production the following year, needed to not just live up to the expectations set by its predecessors, but further push the boundaries of what a 21st Century Cadillac could be — especially now that the brand had retired its full-size V-8 luxury sedans, the DeVille and Seville. The powertrain remained the same, apart from the demise of the complex hybrid variant; power climbed to 420 hp and 460 lb-ft, but it was still sourced from a 6.2-liter V-8 and a six-speed automatic, with a choice of rear- or all-wheel-drive. The oddball EXT pickup truck didn’t survive into the fourth generation, but the extended-wheelbase ESV version endured, slowly but surely filling the role of “black car” left open by the demise of Cadillac and Lincoln’s full-size eight-cylinder sedans.

The design, however, was a mighty shift — a new look for the post-bankruptcy New GM, if you will. The softness of the past version’s skin was ditched for hard edges, as though the previous version had traded Cocoa Puffs for CrossFit, with sharp LED headlights and towering tail lamps that stretched along most of the D-pillars. Inside, however, was where the Escalade received its biggest upgrade. Gone was the awkward design and cheap-looking controls of the third-gen model, replaced with a stylish blend of flowing lines, minimalist controls and crisp, clear screens. Wood and leather had always been part of the Escalade package, but in the fourth-generation vehicle, their quality climbed to stratospheric heights worthy of Cadillac’s true flagship.

The thorough update worked: after a dip at the end of the third-gen’s life, Escalade sales trended upwards again once the new model hit showrooms. Small but meaningful updates along the way — an eight-speed gearbox for 2015, a 10-speed one for 2019, a splash of added tech like lane departure prevention — helped keep sales on the rise all the way until 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic took the wind out of the entire industry’s sails.

2020: The Fifth-Generation Escalade

Speaking of the pandemic: the fifth-gen Escalade had the bad luck to debut just before it, with Cadillac revealing it in early February 2020. The sudden shutdowns and supply chain disruptions didn’t keep GM from getting it into production by September of that year, however. The new SUV’s exterior was largely evolutionary, refining the look of the fourth-gen, with one notable exception: the front end, where horizontal headlights returned for the first time since the initial Escalade, and the body-color grille surround grew large enough to make the sizable front vent seem almost petite.

With the brand’s last full-size sedan, the CT6, enough of a flop to be discontinued in 2020 everywhere but China, the Escalade was able to fully ascend to flagship status — and nowhere was that more obvious than inside, where GM’s latest full-size SUV chassis meant far more third-row and cargo room than before. Of course, leather and wood were everywhere, but the highlight of the interior was a curved super-high-def OLED display dashboard that combined three separate screens — two touch-capable — into a single majestic 38-inch arc encompassing instrument panel and infotainment alike. The stereo was now AKG, not Bose, and packed 19 speakers as standard; audiophiles, however, would be tempted by the optional setup that packed 36 speakers, three amps and 28-channel audio. The Escalade also adopted GM’s excellent Super Cruise hands-free driving assistant, enabling drivers to let the SUV steer and work the pedals over hundreds of thousands of miles of highway across America.

Broadly speaking, Cadillac didn’t mess with success under the hood. The fifth-ten SUV stuck with the 6.2-liter V-8 and 10-speed auto of its predecessor, paired with a choice of two-or all-wheel-drive; even the power and torque remained unchanged. A 3.0-liter turbodiesel inline-six was also rolled out at launch, putting out 277 hp and 460 lb-ft of its own; while it was capable of 27 mpg on the highway, it never caught on that broadly and was ditched by the end of the 2024 model year.

On the flip side of the efficiency coin, 2022 saw Cadillac give the Escalade the V-Series treatment for the very first time. The Escalade-V used a version of the supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 of the CT5-V Blackwing, turned up to deliver a whopping 682 hp and 653 lb-ft of torque. With the help of its 10-speed auto and standard all-wheel-drive, this three-ton-plus beast could hop from 0-60 mph in 4.4 seconds — although fuel economy ratings of 11 mpg city and 16 mpg highway meant you might spend as much time at the pump as drag-racing Camaros.

But an even more powerful Escalade was right around the corner … even if it was a very different beast from the gas-guzzling V.

2024: The First All-Electric Escalade

Cadillac was among the first of GM’s brands to get in on the automaker’s big push into electric vehicles; the Lyriq crossover that dropped in 2022 showed the face of the brand’s EV future, and the subsequent reveals of other EVs like the Optiq and Celestiq have shown further proof of intent. But as much as the General might talk about Cadillac going electric, it would never be possible without a battery-powered Escalade.

Hence, the Escalade IQ, which was revealed in 2023 ahead of a planned production kick-off in late 2024. Thanks to a massive battery (much like the one used in the GMC Hummer EV) of more than 200 kilowatt-hours, Cadillac claims the first electric Escalade will be capable of going 450 miles on a charge and putting out 750 hp and 785 lb-ft from its dual motors, although using the latter to its full extent will likely keep drivers from achieving the former.

As it hasn’t yet entered production, there’s no way yet to know whether it’ll live up to the brand’s bold claims, or whether buyers used to gas-powered behemoths will accept one that requires a plug instead of a pump. (Sales of the fifth-gun Escalade have hit record highs three years in a row, suggesting few buyers are displeased.) One thing is for sure, though: Cadillac has too much riding on the Escalade to screw it up now.