Like many things in the automotive realm, the reveals of General Motors’s full-size SUVs are rolling out in a predictable format. First came the all-new Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban, the heart and soul of the company’s sport-ute lineup; then came the more stylish, slightly more-upscale GMC Yukon. Unless Buick has a secret body-on-frame plan we don’t know about, there’s only one model left: the Cadillac Escalade.
And while that car is scheduled for its formal debut on February 4th, Cadillac has just given us a damn good look at it ahead of time.
The sneak preview came via Cadillac’s official channels on Thursday, as the company revealed they’d snagged none other than legendary director Spike Lee to direct a short film showcasing the 2021 Escalade using Lee’s signature style of dolly shot. While Cadillac’s press release gave a small taste of the front end of the new SUV, the carmaker’s Twitter feed revealed a little more of the new Escalade’s face.
As we can see, the 2021 Cadillac Escalade’s face is a massive, boxy thing, with squinting headlamps, massive razor-thin vertical LED running lights and a grille roughly the size and shape of Nebraska. The wheels seem proportionate to the vehicle, which means they’re likely at least 22 inches in diameter. And even though he’s seated on a dolly and a director’s chair, the admittedly-diminutive Lee appears to only come up to roughly where the base of the windshield is.
Given that the biggest exterior differentiator between GM’s full-size SUVs has always been their front ends (and, based on the 2021 Chevy and GMC versions, that’s a trend that continues into the future), this rather comprehensive glimpse of the 2021 Escalade’s front end means we can largely infer what the new model will look like. (It also lends quite a bit of credibility to those leaked photos of the vehicle that were going around last year.)
Of course, it was never really in doubt that the new Escalade would pack a heavyweight punch of visual presence from the outside; not only has that always been an Esco trademark, but it’s needed in order to try and steal back some market share from the excellent Lincoln Navigator. The bigger question, perhaps, will be whether the new Caddy’s interior will equal or better the sumptuous Lincoln’s. We already know it’ll have a curved 38-inch OLED screen, but we’ll likely have to wait until February 4th to find out what other features it delivers.
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