Michael Rawdon sent a pointer to Car and Driver’s review of the Cadilac Escalade EXT with the note “Always nice to read someone making fun of SUVs”. I don’t think the EXT is a SUV, but then, what is it?
Or you could think of the EXT as a shrine to Harry’s Big and Tall. It’s as long as a 1977 Fleetwood Brougham d’Elegance with Florentine velour cloth and a Tuxedo Grain vinyl roof. The Cadillac wreath on the EXT’s nose is 6.25 inches across, as big as your average acorn squash. The radiator hose is four feet long. The chrome “Escalade EXT” badges on the front doors and tailgate are each a foot and a half long. Each running board exceeds a Porsche 911’s wheelbase. The truck bed’s walls are 10 inches thick. The rear-seat armrest is 15 inches wide. Pee Wee Leaguers will find the column-mounted shifter useful as a hockey stick. One of the dash panels consumes six square inches yet contains only one button–for the “Power Fold Mirrors,” whose mallardlike flapping, by the way, holds preschoolers paralyzed in fascination. The passenger-side grab bar is two feet long. The 45-inch-wide CHMSL looks like something a vandal might have pried off the Caesars Palace sign in Las Vegas.
My Dad used to subscribe to Car and Driver, with smart-assed writing like this, I understand why he did.
There are lots of things on which you could spend $49,990. This is one of them.
