We’ve known for quite some time now that Cadillac will be expanding its crossover lineup with vehicles that will flank the mid-sized SRX, both above and below, yet will remain beneath the all-new 2015 Escalade, which was revealed yesterday evening.
Yet, as the title of this article reads out, the Escalade nameplate may not be exclusive to a V8-powered behemoth luxury SUV in the future. Or so indicates a report from Automotive News, interviewing Senior Vice President of Global Cadillac Bob Ferguson.
“I’d like to explore the notion of other vehicles that would carry that brand name,” stated Ferguson. To advocate, GM’s had success with expanding other popular nameplates, such as the entire Denali lineup, which stemmed from an upscale Yukon, and now four different vehicles feature a Denali package. Other brands, like Toyota, have made it work with the Prius nameplate, which now encompasses vehicles of three different sizes.
Hopefully GM will at least be bold enough to separate the incoming luxury crossover apart from what’s sure to be Chevrolet, Buick and GMC variants, and aside from just a visual standpoint.
Comments
I don’t like the idea of this. Give the crossover an alpha-numerical name. An escalade is an escalade, a big truck based SUV. Don’t drag the name down to other product.
I can kind of see David’s point with this; it somewhat devalues the Escalade name. The Escalade Mini doesn’t sell that great, and calling it the Escalade CTS may not fly either. But I like the idea of a new moniker. Perhaps something in the Escalade family, a name with a similar sound. That could be used for all the cross overs in the Cadillac family. The… Heritage CTS, Heritage SRX, and Heritage XQZ… you get the idea. Just need to find the right name.
I don’t like this either. “Escalade” is entirely different from “Denali” as a nameplate. One is a model of vehicle, the other is a trim level of a model. Sometimes I just can’t figure out where the heads of GM top brass are. They seem to be quite focused and coherent when they talk about their cars…but they go insane and stupid when trucks are the topic of conversation.
BOF and V8’s aren’t going to be the mainstay forever, despite what some deluded people may think. Not everyone wants something that shares it’s underpinnings with a Silverado work truck.
The Escalade already is a 3 row SUV, but it’s not a CUV and doesn’t handle similarly to a car, something that other 3 row CUV’s do. That handling component matters as something that may be as big as the Escalade need not intimidate and drive buyers away. A lot of this stems from the underpinns too. The X5 and it’s relation to the 5 series, and the X5 can be had with 3 rows too…and the X5 isn’t even in the same segment as the Escalade.
Utimately, the Escalade is not ready for the 2013. GM is still building a luxury SUV on the cheap and without attention to subtle matters like handling. They’re hanging lots on towing capacity, something would matter in a Silverado, but shouldn’t in an Escalade.
The Escalade needs a few things. Drop the BOF cop-out and use a unibody frame; a frame that can underpin other vehicles in Cadillac’s range. Change the legacy Escalade nameplate to something befitting of the nomenclature. ESC will work just fine.
And don’t come at me with crap about tradition and “name dilution”. For 12 years Cadillac “diluted” the Escalade nameplate and NOBODY whined when the EXT and ESV were launched. Those models even fit with the nomenclature too, and still nobody cried foul.
They definitely need to have CUVs both bigger and especially smaller than the SRX, but using the Escalade name on something that is built on a completely different type of platform does not make sense to me.