Test Drive: 2011 Cadillac Escalade ESV Platinum AWD
“Stop living in the past,” say countless advice purveyors across a broad spectrum of media. It’s good advice if you’re trying to get over an ex-girlfriend, but you pretty much have to live in the past to drop almost $90,000 on a body-on-frame luxury SUV like the 2011 Cadillac Escalade ESV Platinum. That’s $88,295 to be precise, making this the second-most-expensive Caddy available. (First place by a slight margin goes to the Escalade Hybrid.)
The original GMT400 Escalade was a hastily created rebadge of the GMC Yukon, designed as an answer to the then-popular Lincoln Navigator. But it was the next-generation model, based on the GMT800 platform, that became the bling king, while the Lincoln was largely forgotten. Much hype surrounded the launch of the GMT900 platform that underpins the third-generation Escalade, and early on it proved its mettle by besting the Range Rover in a head-to-head shootout. That was 2006. Some five years on, the Escalade’s shortcomings are beginning to manifest themselves.
