The 2026 Cadillac Escalade-V is the BEST luxury performance SUV ever built

Hey guys, what's up? It's Joe Rady from Rady's Rives. We're back here at Dimmick Cadillac in sunny, super sunny Clearwater, Florida. And guess what? I have that one muscle car of an SUV, but with a tuxedo wrapped around it. What am I talking about? This vehicle right here. This is it. This is a 2026 Cadillac Escalade V, almost did a W, not W, V, and it has the executive package. But before we dive in to this full-size, full-on supercharged powerhouse, let's talk about what's going on here. So the Escalade, the Escalade was already a dream SUV for many. When they decided over at Cadillac to add that famous letter, the V, it's been around since 2004 on the CTS-V and man, oh man, has it morphed into something so mind-numbing. It doesn't just blow your mind. It just numbs your mind, numbs your whole body with what this vehicle brings. Now, yes, you could get it in the extended length, which would be the ESV. This is your standard length. It's got the black package on it. And like I said, wait until we get to the interior. But what I wanna find out is, hands down, without a doubt, is this the best performance SUV ever built? And yes, I'm talking about the others, the Lamborghini Urus, the Audi RSQ8, all the other performance SUVs that you could think of. Is this one the greatest of all time? Why don't we go ahead, let's dive into this one and find out, right off the bat, I don't think there's anything more sinister but also more luxurious and classy than a blacked-out Cadillac. Now, the front of the business, you'll see the revision that they did not too long ago. You have that vertical LED daytime running lamp and turn signal, LED vertical stack of headlights. You have more lighting up top. And then with the black package, all of the trim is gonna be blacked out. And with our particular one, it really makes a nice, clean design. Now, working our way down, you do have functionality on these corner air intakes, and then you do have a massive splitter up front. Now, the splitter is gloss black, but because our particular Cadillac is black, like I said, everything blends in nicely. Now, as we come across the V-specific grille, so anytime you look at the CT5V black wing, the outgoing CT4V black wing, and of course, this Escalade V, you get this unique grille. Forward-facing camera, love the way they do the badging without the color in it. Just really nice monochromatic look. Working our way down, the black all blends in, and then on the lower portion, you have that lower grille with the V shape to it, and then that splitter that extends from one side to the other. But let me know what you think about the massive face. It's a massive front end. Man, oh man, the power that it produces and the ability to push this front end through the air with a velocity that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, I think that's why you may consider this to be the best ever built. Now, as we take the elevator up, boop, boop, love that nice, big, bold aircraft carrier hood. I remember back when I was a kid, man, one of the things I wanted so badly, being a fan of G.I. Joe, and having my G.I. Joe action figures, they're not dolls, they're action figures, because they got a combat grip. I wanted the G.I. Joe aircraft carrier. It was really expensive back then, and my parents couldn't afford it, but there was this one kid, his name was Brian, at the end of my block, that S.O.B., I remember, Christmas 1985, he called me up, and he got the freaking aircraft carrier. He wouldn't even let me play with it. I could go over there and watch him. He wants to watch somebody play with the G.I. Joe aircraft carrier, and I can't. I wanna go find him and beat him up. Now, as we come around the bend, what are we working with, wheel and tire? 24-inch wheels, that doesn't get any bigger than this. So you got a big front end, you got big wheels, V-spoke design, look at those freaking calipers. That almost looks like the Cobra Commander's HES tank, the HES tank, I had one of those. Those were a little bit more affordable back then, but man, that freaking aircraft carrier. Now, love that powder-coated red finish. You got the V-badge that's laser etched onto the caliper. It's a six-piston Brembo caliper, rotors that are over 15 inches in diameter, and then you have adaptive air ride suspension with magnetic ride, 4.0. So even if you didn't have a 4.0 GPA in high school, because believe it or not, I didn't, you can get a 4.0 finally. You just get it with your Escalade V. But with those 24-inch wheels, of course you have four-wheel drive to get the power to the ground, and we got tons of different modes. But let me know what you think about this 24-inch wheel, black on black. They call that murdered out. I always used to think that was weird. I never really liked murdered out. Anyways, coming down the side, all blacked out on our mirror caps, 360-degree cameras, a V-badge that I almost wanna peel that off and wear it around my neck. From the side, this is a full-size, and like I said, you could go even bigger. You go ESV. Open the doors. Of course you have automatic dropping running boards, duh. You have the nice, also the nice soft close, so when you close these, you don't have to slam them. Tell your kids not to slam the freakin' doors. They close nicely by themselves. I wish they would get rid of the roof rails. Come on, let's get real. Nobody's using the roof rails on their Escalade V. I've never seen it, so just get rid of it. It would really clean up and make this even look better, just in my eyes. Now you do have some gloss black here. I am gonna zonk it. Even though you can't really see it because ours is black, this is not gonna look good over time. There's gonna be lots of swirl marks. But you do have a nice size on the quarter glass. And then spin around the backside, just like we started up front. Man, oh man. It's big, but it's bad to the bone. You got that color match roof spoiler. Wiper is hidden. The badge, which is also the button for the rear liftgate. Of course, we got the V badge. People see that. They better run the other freaking way. And then working our way down to ground level, quad tip exhaust. It's a GM Performance Active Exhaust. Keep it quiet and be like everybody else, or make this thing scream. And I love the way it's got the black painted tips. You take off that plastic cover. You could even tow with this thing. Another thing I don't think I've ever seen anybody do with Escalade V. But you can if you want to. It's your Escalade V. You use it the way you want to. But while we go ahead, let's pop the hood and see the hand built Supercharged V8 underneath it. All right guys, we got the hood popped. You do have hood struts. Love the way they got the V badge underneath the hood. And then you drop it down and you get the goods. Built by Mike Ward. Man, Mike Ward did an awesome job. That's a hand assembled 6.2 liter Supercharged V8. Love the way they don't put any plastic covers on it or anything like that. It's got the Cadillac name right on the Supercharger. It's 682 horsepower, 653 pound feet of torque. Made it to a 10 speed automatic. Zero to 60 in this thing in almost four seconds flat. Top speed, unfortunately, is governed to 125 miles an hour. It weighs right around 6,000 pounds. MPG is around 12 in the city, 17 on the highway. And you could tow up to 7,100 pounds. So you have pretty much everything you need to have a killer, amazing performance SUV. But let's get to that part that's gonna make your ears get all gooey with an eargasm. Let's fire up this V8 and hear what it sounds like. All right, guys, we are inside this mammoth of a performance SUV, the 2026 Cadillac Escalade V. Remember, this one does have the executive package and the jet black package. Now, I know you're probably saying, well, Joe, is my package big enough to get one of these? I guess the big question is, is your wallet big enough? Because MSRP for this is $183,000. Not cheap, but hey, excellence comes at a price, I guess, right? So let's see what you get when you go caddy. To the door panels, love the leather, the contrast stitching, the real deal carbon fiber, that nice aluminum-style trim. What I gotta zonk is the gloss black around the switchgear. It's almost disgusting, too much gloss black. Door pocket, though, that's large enough for two long john silvers tackle boxes and a large A&W roof here to wash it down. We got the 8KG premium sound system, 38 speakers. And then going from the door panel to the dash, we have 55 inches of screen. Carbon fiber, ambient lighting, more speakers than what they have at Sound Device back in the day. And if you know what Sound Device was, you and I could be friends. Now, on the side, you have a USB-C and an HDMI. That's to connect for the passenger screen. And that passenger screen turns on when a passenger is sitting there. Now, the other nice thing is you have a large enough pocket. What I would do is I would get two packages of Hostess Donuts, the donuts. Maybe get some powder, some nice chocolate. If you get the powder ones, though, you better bring a napkin or something because you don't want to get pulled over and then they think it's something else, sugar. Slide on in, you have your 33, 33. This could almost be 33. 12.3-inch infotainment system that's part of the 55-inches of screen. It's the full touchscreen like you're familiar with. You got your little entertainment hubbub where you could turn on and off. Like if your kids are being brats, you could shut off their entertainment in the backseat. I like that idea. And you could actually see what's going on. Of course, you swipe and you could bring up your vehicle status. Look at that with the Cadillac badge. There's your Cadillac. We got performance gauges. G-meter, baby. We're going to show how that works. And then you have your ambient lighting and all the other goodies. You got recording. You could do all sorts of recordings. I'm going to keep it next. I don't have a USB, so I can't show you that. I wanted to show it to you, but it won't let me. And then we're right back where we started. Carbon fiber. Working your way down, you have wireless charging. You have then your LED display here where you could bring up just about anything. You could bring up your seat controls, heated seats, ventilated seats, massage seats, the whole shebam. There's really nothing you should be yearning for from behind the wheel. Your dual climate control. And then you have your direct drive control knob for the infotainment system if you don't want to touch the screen. Carbon fiber, nice material on the side. You got this big pocket here. And I'm thinking what you could put is a nice sweet bun. One of those Hostess sweet buns. Honey buns, honey buns. Soft touch with the piping, the Escalade name. Get ready for this. Open it up. You got your cool box. Put a nice six pack of cold, not beer. This ain't 1970s. Put a nice six pack of Yoohoo in there. USB-C, USB-A. And then look at the seats, the leather, the speakers and the freaking headrests, the nice stitching. Of course you have full electric assist for the passenger. Full electric assist for the driver. Al Cantera, your buddy Al, he's here. And you got a panoramic sunroof that's blinding me right now. Somebody asked, Joe, why don't you open the sunroof all the way, the shade? It's because the sun's out. It gets my eyes. I got blue eyes. That means the sun hurts my eyes more than somebody with brown eyes. Because technically somebody with blue eyes doesn't really have blue eyes. That's not a pigment. Brown eyes is a pigment that covers blue eyes. So we all have technically blue eyes deep down inside. And then of course, we have that digital rear view mirror, clear as day. Look at that Cadillac, cool. Cadillac cool. But why don't you come over here behind the wheel of this Escalade V. There's some things I wanna show you. Hi guys, business time behind the wheel. You got that Escalade name that illuminates to welcome you. Pedal box, aluminum brake pedal, aluminum throttle. There should be an aluminum dead pedal though. That's a big no-no. All your seat controls are easy to get to. I'm six feet tall, plenty of room in here. Plenty, this is full size. Steering wheel, I love the thickness, the leather. You got your Super Cruise, the V badge on the wheel with your leather and your nice stitching. Gloss black on the switch gear though. So I am gonna zonk that. You got metal paddles to go up and down that 10-speed automatic. And it is a powered tilting and telescoping wheel that give you one more V badge for an extra five horsepower. And then here is your switch gear to raise and lower your Cadillac Escalade V because we have adaptive air ride. And then you hit the modes. There's our modes there. Even my mode, which is nice. Not my mode, your mode. Well, technically not your mode. It's the mode of whoever owns this vehicle. So maybe it might be your mode, I don't know. But I do know it's not my mode. And I'm okay with that because I got plenty other modes. Steering wheel, it's great. The dash, you got beautiful gauges there, easy to figure out. And then watch this, we got more options than what the astronauts had when they went around the moon. You got the Google Maps, I could do. Driver assistance is boring. Night vision, I've already shown that. AR camera is pretty killer, look at that. And you could actually drive with that camera. Those are the palm trees right in front of us. Yeah, it looks like a scene from King Kong when they're on King Kong's Island. And watch, those trees are gonna shake a little bit and then King Kong will come out and kill everybody. Having flashbacks. Of what? I have no idea. Head up display to make sure you keep your eyes focused forward so you know where you're going at all times. But you know what? It's not just about up front, even though this is where I'll be sitting. You're not sitting here, I'm sitting behind the wheel. Let's get into the mid-row and the third row and see what executive package means. All right, guys, let me get the door for you. So when we talk about executive package, this is some of the things that you get. So you get to open up the door, I could close the door, and it's all done from where I'm sitting. I'll show you that in a second. Now, both passengers, of course, are getting the 12.3-inch Info, Info, it's really car infotainment, I mean, if you think about it, because you're being entertained with info in the car. I could go to my home screen here. You could pick on vehicle status, all sorts of stuff. You could watch Amazon Prime, go on the internet, all those different things. Large pockets for some Mike and Ikes, maybe some hot tamales, ooh, those are good. When you're watching a movie back here, those are nice. Now, you do have a separate screen. That's how I'm able to control the doors. I could control the AC back here. You do have the ability to see where the airflow's going, and you have all the seat functions. So ventilated seats, heated seats, and massage, that's part of the executive package. You can adjust the position, either the left side or the right side, all at the same time, and then you bring it right back to where we started. So nice to have that, and you get a little bit of a haptic kickback. You do have your wireless headsets. They come in a nice little case here that says Cadillac and AKG. Two cup holders, two USB-Cs. Down below, that's where you could put the snack box, but before you do, you have HDMI, home power source, and I would say you could probably put two meat and three boxes back there. So think about it. You're going on a road trip. You don't have to worry about being bored, and you don't have to worry about being hungry. They got you covered here. Now, I have my own entertainment. Of course, you could tilt it. I got speakers out the wazoo. Look how beautiful these speakers are on the door panel. Everybody gets carbon fiber, and then part of the executive package as well is that you're getting power seats, reclining. You could adjust the bolstering, massage. That's all part of the executive package, and then there's one more thing. Let me show you this. Two wireless chargers with cooling fans, and then lift this up. Let's get executive now. So these are gonna be the tables. I'm gonna do it. I know I'm not supposed to probably do this, but I gotta show, right? There's your executive. So you could have your meat and three box up here. You're eating your beef and cheddar. You got your curly fries, and you're watching Mission Impossible. That's the life. And just so you know, here's a little fun fact. Arby's was the first nationwide fast food restaurant to have curly fries. That's why they don't have them at Mickey D's or anything like that. And then you tuck this back in just like that. I'm gonna take this, pretend like that's how it came. Put that down. Feels great. The seats have all the bolstering and everything just like up front with the headrest. And then we're gonna go ahead, and I'm gonna move this seat for Lori to show the third row. I'm not getting back there for this review, but you could see with the power seat, move it out of the way, and now you have your third row flexibility, just like you do in any other Escalade V. The only thing you can't do is you can't fold down the mid row because of the executive package. But you can see all the nice touches here. The Cali badge, you have USB-Cs, cup holders. Third row, let's just be honest. The third row is good, but it's not great. This row is amazing. And up front is amazing. So just make sure you're in one of the two front rows. Third row, meh. But while we go ahead, let's get in the cargo area because I want to take you for a fast spin in this Escalade V. Hi guys, time to get in that cargo area. Your fist bump, your Cadillac Escalade V, and it opens up. You're gonna be greeted to over 20 cubic feet of space. On the passenger side is where all the goods are. What am I talking about? I'm talking about that home power source. And you're gonna hold down the buttons to fold down the seats. Look how fast they go. That's like a world record. Of course, we got the subwoofer, 38 speakers. AKG subwoofer in the back. Got your USB-Cs up high, like I tried to show you when I let you into the back seat. And then of course, one of the problems with the executive package is you can't fold those seats flat because of the power assist. But hey, you could bring the seats back up. Look at that, lickety split. And then you hit this. And then the next thing to do is to hit the engine start stop button and fire up this beast. So if you're ready to do that, I'm freaking ready to do that. Let's go for an on-throttle spin in this V. All right, guys, we're behind the wheel of this 2026 Escalade V. When you go into V mode, which I'm in right now, you can see how you can adjust everything from steering, suspension, brake feel, the whole nine yards. And I think most people are gonna wanna drive this in V mode because you have that supercharged V8 shoehorned underneath that hood. We're gonna slow down a little bit and then we're gonna go on-throttle. Let's go from a dead stop, nobody's behind us. You ready? On-throttle, here we go! So of course you're gonna get that great V8 sound. Love the pops. Every time there's a shift, pop, pop, pop. It's like a thunderclap. Makes driving this vehicle such a unique experience. And for its size, it handles and drives so well. The magnetic ride suspension, the tuning of the sway bars, all of the things that they did. The four-wheel drive system just really shows what Cadillac and the V series family is all about. Because when they put a V on something, they are gonna make sure that it is gonna meet and exceed those expectations. But like I said, cornering is so crazy how good it is in this full-size SUV. 10-speed shifts super well. And of course you have great visibility. I love all the pops and bangs come out of the exhaust. Let me slow down a little bit here. Are you ready? A little launch control. On-throttle! On the brakes, look at this. Unbelievable just how well this vehicle drives. You're not getting a bunch of nosedive. You're not getting a bunch of body roll. It's really buttoned up super well. And then you have technology like night vision, the AR cameras. I mean, this thing is a packed powerhouse. Let me show you how easy it is to make a U-turn. Pretty good turning radius in these Escalades. Look at this. Easy peasy, easy peasy. And then of course the seats, the comfort, the massage that you could get. Even with this having the executive package and how you're spoiling those two mid-row passengers. Absolutely phenomenal in this beast. And then when you want to drive normal, you can. Piece of cake. You got those six-piston Brembos. Shedding speed faster than a Husky sheds hair. And the 10 speed with that 6.2 liter supercharged V8, the LT4, it's like peanut butter and jelly. It's like cheese on a pizza, man. They go together hand in hand. Very, very phenomenal what this vehicle is capable of. Got blind spot cameras. Look how nice that is. Helps with the overall driving of the vehicle. The metal paddles behind the wheel. This is my performance SUV of choice. This is it. Sign me up. Signed, sealed, delivered. And then you have that great Cadillac ride quality when you just want to drive on the highway and cruise. But I'm hoping that this has been a good overall review of what this Escalade V is all about. We're going to get back to Dimmock Cadillac and wrap this one up. So I'll see you in a split second. Hi guys. Always a good day. When you get behind the wheel of one of these, I mean, it is a almost life-changing experience. But we got to thank Corey and the rest of the team here at Dimmock Cadillac for getting us access to this vehicle. Let me know what you think. For the money, for the performance, for everything, is this the best performance SUV ever built? Let me know down in that comment section. But if you're new to the channel, you're on your way out, hit that subscribe button. I promise you it's worthwhile. Come back for more. If you are a subscriber, thank you for being part of the RaceWrites family. Got to give it up to LGR. She loves Cadillac Escalade Vs and she loves going on throttle. So it's one of the many reasons why I married her. Thank you, Lori, for your awesome hard work. And just like always, guys, I'll see you on the next one.