Photo: Cadillac
Born from the remnants of the Henry Ford Company, the Cadillac Motor Car Division gave us many firsts. A friend of Henry Leland sadly died from injuries caused by hand cranking a car’s engine that went badly wrong, prompting Leland and Charles Kettering of the Dayton Engineering Laboratories (Delco) to develop the industry’s first electric starter.
Leland previously worked at Colt, and this experience convinced him that standardization is key to making cars viable for the masses. In addition to interchangeable parts, Cadillac was the first automaker to introduce a mass-produced V8 engine. For a while, it also offered a leviathan of a V16, a design that Cadillac revisited for the incredibly opulent Sixteen Concept.
Gifted with a 13.6-liter colossus, the one-off show car promised in the ballpark of 1,000 horsepower and 1,000 pound-feet (1,350 Nm) of torque when it was unveiled at the 2003 Detroit Auto Show. Pretty impressive figures for that era, coincidentally the period that saw the rise of the SUV.
Back when MTV actually had pretty alright music, the Cadillac Escalade reigned supreme. To this day, it’s a staple of rap and hip-hop music, a started-from-the-bottom-now-we’re-here vehicle that carries much clout.
At one point during the pickup truck-based utility vehicle’s long and somewhat boring history, the crown jewel of General Motors came up with a very ludicrous idea. Cadillac Escalade product manager David Schiavone told GM Authority that “we even talked about a 16-cylinder Escalade.”
An LS-based V16 in a full-size utility vehicle may have seemed interesting during the days of the Hummer H2 and H3, but on the other hand, gas prices and the ongoing push for eco-friendly solutions have killed off any chances of a second coming. Schiavone didn’t explain why the V16-powered Escalade didn’t come to fruition, but even during those days of excess, it may have been too excessive for the most excessive of U.S. automakers.
On that note, Cadillac Escalade customers are left with the V-Series performance model that packs the LT4 supercharged V8. Massaged to produce 682 horsepower and 653 pound-feet (886 Nm), the go-faster family and crew hauler is the world’s most powerful full-size utility vehicle.
Gifted with a 13.6-liter colossus, the one-off show car promised in the ballpark of 1,000 horsepower and 1,000 pound-feet (1,350 Nm) of torque when it was unveiled at the 2003 Detroit Auto Show. Pretty impressive figures for that era, coincidentally the period that saw the rise of the SUV.
Back when MTV actually had pretty alright music, the Cadillac Escalade reigned supreme. To this day, it’s a staple of rap and hip-hop music, a started-from-the-bottom-now-we’re-here vehicle that carries much clout.
At one point during the pickup truck-based utility vehicle’s long and somewhat boring history, the crown jewel of General Motors came up with a very ludicrous idea. Cadillac Escalade product manager David Schiavone told GM Authority that “we even talked about a 16-cylinder Escalade.”
An LS-based V16 in a full-size utility vehicle may have seemed interesting during the days of the Hummer H2 and H3, but on the other hand, gas prices and the ongoing push for eco-friendly solutions have killed off any chances of a second coming. Schiavone didn’t explain why the V16-powered Escalade didn’t come to fruition, but even during those days of excess, it may have been too excessive for the most excessive of U.S. automakers.
On that note, Cadillac Escalade customers are left with the V-Series performance model that packs the LT4 supercharged V8. Massaged to produce 682 horsepower and 653 pound-feet (886 Nm), the go-faster family and crew hauler is the world’s most powerful full-size utility vehicle.
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