2021 Cadillac Escalade Looks More Modern and Clean in This Redesign

Some said the Escalade represented the old Cadillac way of doing things and that it's never going to work in the era of crossovers with four-cylinder turbo engines. We don't know yet if GM proved them wrong, but it certainly packed a lot of luxury into this thing.

Nobody says the SUV should have had more screens, but it can use some modern exterior touches. Because of how and where it's built, the 2021 Escalade has a number of styling constraints. But over in the digital world, none of them matter.

Parts that would require millions to re-engineer can just be Photoshopped in moments. The Sketch Monkey did just that, based on his hypothesis that the SUV is too fussy. Older Escalades were known for making a clear and quite bold design statement, but this new generation tries to offer something called "sophistication," whatever that means.

The concentrated front end now sports much narrower, squinting headlights, a different frame for the main grille and sportier touches in the bumper. It does look better with added intakes around the fog lights, doesn't it?

The updates created down the sides of the SUV are more difficult to spot, so we're going to point out the refreshed door mirrors and flushed door handles. Obviously, these aren't the most practical feature in the world, but they clean up the profile and give the Escalade a Tesla-like high-tech appearance.

While it's powered exclusively by large, simple V8 engines, the new Escalade does have one Tesla-rivaling feature, and that's the Super Cruise system. This is essentially like Autopilot, able to drive itself on 200k miles of American highways using cameras, map data, and radar sensors.