Cadillac Reveals High-Performance Escalade-V

Last year, we thought it was a good idea to render a high-performance Cadillac Escalade. At the time, it seemed kinda silly, but just a few months later, we realized that General Motors is just as silly when we saw an enhanced and wholly camouflaged Escalade testing. We could hear a gruff exhaust note and could see telling tailpipes, all but confirming that the Escalade-V was a real thing. More videos of the hustling SUV gave us a taste of its V8 noise, and then yesterday, Cadillac finally confirmed the vehicle's existence with a teaser that included a roaring sound clip. Now the company has revealed the SUV, but in a cruel twist, all we have to perve over is its design.

When we first theorized an Escalade-V, we assumed that the CT5-V Blackwing would donate its 6.2-liter LT4 V8, and there has been nothing to counter that argument so far. We still hold the belief that the supercharged motor is the best candidate for the fast SUV, but with no details provided by the automaker, all we can do for now is tell you how much power this plant makes in the super sedan - 668 horsepower with 659 lb-ft of torque. In the CT5-V, the rear wheels are driven. In the Escalade, it will likely be all four with the aid of a 10-speed automatic.

If this engine does indeed find itself under the hood of the Escalade unchanged, it would be a massive increase in performance over the regular vehicle's ratings of 420 hp and 460 lb-ft of torque. That said, this is still an enormous machine and it's going to weigh more than the forest moon of Endor, so don't bet on seeing 60 mph arrive in much less than five seconds. We'll know more once Cadillac decides to tell us more, but with the most recent spy shots of the vehicle still showing it totally covered in camouflage, we think that Cadillac may still have a long way to go before even it knows what the Escalade-V will do. However far along in development it is, Cadillac says that the Escalade-V's availability will be announced in the spring.