2015 Cadillac Escalade: Yacht for the highway

There is beauty in the beast, the 2015Cadillac Escalade, Premium edition. But it remains a beast.

There is beauty in the beast, the 2015 Cadillac Escalade, Premium edition. But it remains a beast, a humongous sport-utility vehicle stretching nearly 17 feet long and carrying a factory weight (sans passengers and cargo) of 5,845 pounds.

It is equipped with an engine worthy of its mass— a 6.2-liter V-8 delivering 420 horsepower and 460 poundfeet of torque, capable of running on E85 (85 percent ethanol, 15 percent unleaded gasoline), or on premium gasoline “for best performance.”

But in nearly 1,500miles of driving through the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions, I rarely found a convenient purveyor of E85. I settled on 91-octane gasoline as an easy substitute, at a cost of $296 for the entire trip.

Parking was a hassle, especially in the congested New York boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan, where garages tacked a girth surcharge of up to $12 onto their usual $30 overnight parking fees. That was a good thing. Some garages instantly adjudged the Escalade “too big” to park, turning me back out to the streets. On-street parking was as elusive as peace in the Middle East, and just as worrisome when found.

Ah, but the beauty! There is somuch of it in and about the Escalade, best manifested on long highway runs, during which being in the cabin is akin to being ensconced in the first-class section of the world’s finest airline. There are Kona Brown leather-covered seats, perfectly cut and stitched. The steering wheel is wrapped in soft-feel Mulan leather, also perfectly cut and stitched. Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, my favorite drive music, booms and flows froma 16-speaker Bose Centerpoint surround-sound system. If you want maximum luxury in an SUV, this is it.

It also is an odd and jarring-when-you-think-aboutit thing about the Escalade, fully redesigned for 2015. The Escalade essentially is a truck, built on a truck platform shared by the Chevrolet Suburban and GMC Yukon sport-utility models, all products of General Motors.

The thing about trucks is that nomatter howmuch you pretty them up, most still ride and feel like trucks, especially over rough roads, which seemto be everywhere on the East Coast. GM tried to abate the truck ride roughness by installing its Magnetic Ride Control suspension systemin the Escalade.

The system employs sensors that “read” the road up to 1,000 times per second, sending electronic signals to fluid-suspended magnetic particles to disperse or contract, thereby rapidly adjusting the Escalade’s suspension to changing road conditions. The system works excellently on well-maintained roads. But it seems to suffer dyslexia on poor roads, transmitting every bump and jiggle to the rear passenger cabin.

Still, I loved being in this one on long highway runs. It moved swiftly off entrance ramps into traffic. Maneuverability was as good on the highway as it was clumsy and awkward in the city. Acceleration was excellent. There was no need to trudge along in the right lane. The Escalade Premium was loadedwith useful advanced electronic safety equipment— headup display projecting vehicle speed, local speed limits and other driving-environment information on the lowerleft windshield; blind-spot monitoring; lane-departure warning; rear cross-traffic alert; forward-collision alert; automatic high-beam control; and a safety alert driver’s seat that vibrates when approaching crash danger.

I like all this stuff but find it more desirable in smaller vehicles that are easier to handle in an emergency. But that is not a slam at the Escalade.

You simply have to know what you are buying when you are buying this one — and why you are buying it. The Escalade is a land-based yacht. It is not an economy vehicle in terms of fuel consumption, although an advanced engine-management system delivers about 21miles per gallon on the highway.

It is not a hot-shot performance vehicle, although it accelerates quite nicely when needed and handles well in curves taken with common sense.

Nor is it a work truck, although, when equipped, it can tow up to 7,900 pounds.

The Escalade is a fourwheeled yacht and all that means — tricked-out, plush to-the-max, exceptionally well-executed luxury. It is priced accordingly.

PHOTO BY RICHARD PRINCE FOR CADILLAC The 2015Cadillac Escalade is a limousine, an estate runner. It is not a sport-utility vehicle for the rest of us.