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2021 Cadillac Escalade ESV will debut at the New York Auto Show

LOS ANGELES, California — Cadillac pulled the wraps off its 2021 Escalade today at an event in Los Angeles, and we were there to see it all play out live and in living color. But while we have some specifications for the long-wheelbase ESV version, that model wasn't on display. According to the automaker, the next-generation Escalade ESV will get a formal debut at the 2020 New York Auto Show in April. The 2021 Cadillac Escalade ESV will boast a wheelbase of 134.1 inches and an overall length of 226.9 inches, making it 15.9 inches longer than the standard Escalade and 5 inches longer than the similarly extended Lincoln Navigator L. That extra length translates into 1.7 additional inches of third-row legroom and 17.4 more cubic feet of cargo space behind the third row over the standard Escalade. We expect the ESV will get the same two powertrain options as other Escalade models. The standard 6.2-liter V8 puts out 420 horsepower and 460 pound-feet of torque. An optional 3.0-liter diesel-fueled inline-six will offer 277 hp and 460 lb-ft while delivering improved fuel efficiency over its gasoline-powered sibling. Both engines will be mated with 10-speed automatic transmissions. The 2021 Escalade will go on sale in late 2020. We're not yet sure if the extended ESV will come at the same time or be added later, but we ought to know more by its debut in April. Related Video:

Cadillac could 'flourish' in Australia, says marketing chief

Cadillac might have its best product mix in recent history, and GM's luxury brand is looking to expand. In fact, it might even be making a trip Down Under, at least according to the company's global marketing chief.
Uwe Ellinghaus spoke with Australian site Car Advice at the Geneva Motor Show and said the brand could be quite successful there. "[The] goodwill that the Cadillac brand has is such a good starting base that once we get proper volume commitment and a dealer network behind it we can easily flourish," he said, though he warned that the plans are still in their earliest stages and years away. First, Cadillac will expand in markets with the highest possible sales, like China and Russia.
Ellinghaus said that the most likely models for Oz would be the SRX, Escalade and CTS; the latter would probably act as a replacement for the Holden Commodore. GM's Australian arm is ending local production in 2017, and there have been many rumors about what is happening to the big sedan. However, Ellinghaus admits exporting cars from the US to Australia is going to mean higher prices. In addition to the expense, Cadillac doesn't currently build any right-hand-drive models. It would likely take until the end of the decade before the Aussie models could be ready.

Cadillac's Blackwing V8 was the best engine at the worst time

It should be clear that GM knows how to innovate and engineer excellent products when it wants to. Cadillac's 4.2-liter twin-turbo Blackwing V8 is recent proof of that. Yet, as related in an extensive Road & Track piece, the Blackwing became victim to some of The General's bugbears, like the reticence to — for whatever reasons — unleash its excellence everywhere, fund that excellence, and be consistent with that excellence over the long term beyond the Corvette and full-sized pickups and SUVs. The R/T story relates tales told by "several people deeply involved with the Blackwing project" about how an engine 18 years in the making was deprived of its reasons for being in less than three. Starting around 2000, GM spent a dozen years building Cadillac up to the point where the American luxury brand could rationally flip to the chapter called, "Taking the Fight to the Germans, but for Real this Time." The first steps in the plan meant an exclusive platform and an exclusive engine. The platform was called Omega. You know the engine's name. They were going to be the aluminum-blocked fist and velvet glove enabling Cadillac to break on through to the other side of luxury — proper luxury to global standards, that is — with a range of beautiful and dynamic crossovers and sedans. An engineer involved in the project estimates GM poured $16 million into the Blackwing's clean-sheet development. Many more seven-figure sums went into creating the first sedan on the Omega platform, the CT6. The automaker dropped millions again poaching ex-Audi and Infiniti chief Johan de Nysschen, and moving Cadillac's headquarters to New York City in 2014. Further pallets of cash funded the development and debut of the Escala concept at Pebble Beach in 2016. In 2018, GM revealed its dramatically named DOHC twin-turbo V8. Considering what came before, the Blackwing clearly wasn't designed for cars. It was designed for world domination. However, against the backdrop of plummeting sedan sales, the CT6 didn't sell like GM had hoped. The automaker hesitated to marshal another fleet of Brinks trucks to fund entries into a cratering bodystyle. Removing sedans from the world domination equation created more difficult math for the crossovers and the Escala.