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Cadillac's striking Escala concept is reportedly headed for production

Cadillac is reportedly planning a new flagship four-door, and it won't be based on its alphanumeric naming system a la the CT6. It'll be the Escala, the stunning concept fastback it revealed in 2016 in Pebble Beach. The news comes via Autoline, which cites AutoForecast Solutions. The Escala is said to be planned for production starting in December 2021 at GM's Detroit-Hamtramck plant, which currently builds the CT6, Buick LaCrosse and Chevrolet Volt and Impala. That suggests the Escala, which was branded as a four-door coupe, will likely keep that layout. It'll also be built on the CT6 platform. Cadillac has been talking about fitting a flagship sedan above the CT6 for years, and the Escala's design language has been influencing bits of other Cadillac models, from the refresh of the CT6 to the broad grille shape on the new XT4 crossover, which debuts at the New York Auto Show next week. The concept Escala featured a wide, muscular stance and a minimalist, white mid-century modern interior aesthetic, with tail lamps that evoke waterfowl in flight. Interestingly, it came equipped with a 4.2-liter twin-turbo V8 with cylinder deactivation, which Cadillac President Johan De Nysschen said at the time was "absolutely worthy of a car of this caliber." But with such a long horizon before production, there's obviously lots of time to develop a more pragmatic production model and cue ravenous speculation. Or, for that matter, to decide to rename it something like the CT8. Related Video: Featured Gallery Cadillac Escala Concept View 33 Photos Image Credit: Jeff Jablansky Design/Style Cadillac Coupe Concept Cars Luxury Sedan cadillac ct6 cadillac xt4 cadillac escala

VW, Jeep and Cadillac top list of most-tattooed car brands

Most car enthusiasts own at least one piece of gear with their favorite brand's logo on it. It can be a T-shirt, a pen, a hat, or a garage sign, for example. It takes a much greater degree of dedication to get a car-themed tattoo, and a study suggests this sky-scraping level of obsession is most often found in Volkswagen, Jeep, and Cadillac fans. Compare the Market analyzed Instagram hashtags and posts to compile a list of the most commonly tattooed brands. Volkswagen came out on top, with 5,507 posts; note that anything related to the Wolfsburg-based brand earns it a point, whether it's a logo, a cutaway diagram of the Beetle's air-cooled flat-four engine, or a Touareg V10's firing order. Jeep finished second with 2,139 posts, followed by Cadillac at 1,775 posts. Surprisingly, the fourth spot is occupied by Pontiac, which appeared in 1,609 posts in spite of the fact that it hasn't built a car since 2010. Holden appears near the very bottom of the top-20 chart, ahead of Lamborghini, and its result might be influenced by the fact that General Motors announced plans to shutter it earlier in 2020. BMW and Mercedes-Benz are in sixth and 12th place, respectively. Alfa Romeo doesn't appear in the top 20, though its decades-old Quadrifoglio logo (pictured) can easily be mistaken for a symbol of Irish luck. Searching for posts that show a tattoo of a specific model uncovered even bigger surprises. According to the same study, the most-tattoed nameplate is the Chevrolet Impala, which appears in 823 posts. Odds are the earlier generations, like Dr. Dre's famous six-four, are more often tattooed than the final-generation model, which unceremoniously went out of production in February 2020 without a direct replacement waiting in the wings. Second place goes to the DeLorean DMC-12, which has transcended its status as an esoteric fiasco on wheels thanks to its role as a time machine in "Back to the Future." It appeared in 800 posts. Chevrolet's Corvette takes a distant third with 180 posts, followed by the Volkswagen Beetle (147 posts) and the Mini Cooper (116 posts). All told, car-themed tattoos are relatively rare. To put some of the aforementioned numbers into context, searching Instagram for the hashtag Volkswagen yields over 15 million posts, while the hashtag tattoo appears in over three million publications. Auto News Cadillac Chevrolet Jeep

Watch Brad Pitt's Chinese Cadillac XTS commercial

Once upon a time, in a land not so far from this one, Brad Pitt was the very face anti-consumerism. You see, when he slipped into the role of the elitist-loathing, food-abusing, violence-embracing Tyler Durden from Fight Club, his visage was inextricably married to images of leveling credit card corporations with nothing more than a little human fat and some determination. Of course, that was before Pitt settled into old age with a passel of children at his feet. Now, it seems, he'll shill for something as long as it doesn't damage his reputation in America.
Need proof? Look no further than this Chinese ad for the Cadillac XTS. In it, Pitt contentedly wafts the big front-wheel drive barge around San Francisco against a mildly euphoric soundtrack. You can check out the scene for yourself below, just make sure you have your last meal squarely situated in your stomach before pressing play. We have to wonder if Pitt wakes up in the middle of the night with Chuck Palahniuk's oddly omniscient words echoing in his ears: "Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you."