What If... Cadillac Built an Insane Luxury 6x6 Truck Variant of the Escalade?

But what are 6x6 trucks and why would anybody ever want to purchase one? Well, at first, I too thought they were pointless and silly. An exercise in opulence yet completely unpractical. But looking at the mechanics behind this crazy truck movement has sort of opened my eyes a bit.

Instead of having two wheels on a single axle, or even four wheels on a single axle (like a Dually), a 6x6 truck has two rear axles, with two wheels per axle. What this does is it spreads the load across three axles instead of two, which can help you if you’ve gone off-road – and I don’t mean “up to the cabin” off-road, but more like “left towards the Shire and then straight to Mordor” off-road.

Now, say you want a 6x6 truck, but you’d rather have something built directly by a manufacturer instead of an aftermarket firm. You can start by looking at the Mercedes G63 6x6, because it pretty much paved the way for everybody else.

If you don’t mind an aftermarket product, then your horizons will open to the likes of the Hennessey VelociRaptor 6x6 or the Hennessey Goliath 6x6. The former is based on a Ford F-150, while the latter is a modified Chevrolet Silverado. Both offer north of 600 hp so they’re properly quick too, in a straight line. Then there's the Ram TRX-based Hennessey Mammoth 6x6, with its 1,012 hp.

Of course, there are a bunch of other options, like the Exy 6x6 by Carlex Design (based on a Mercedes X-Class), the Wrangler 6x6 by Bruiser Conversions, Project Kahn’s Flying Huntsman 6x6 (based on a Land Rover Defender 110) or the Toyota Hilux HILOAD by ProSpeed. All incredible machines and supremely capable for when the going gets tough.

Those who don’t really need a 6x6 setup, or perhaps they can’t afford to own such a truck, can still end up being perfectly happy with a Dually truck, which technically also features six wheels in total, minus the extra axle. Examples here include the Ford F-350, Chevy Silverado 3500 or the Ram 3500. Hey, if the latter is good enough for John Dutton, you can be damn sure it’ll be good enough for you.

As for where the Cadillac Escalade fits into all this, well, GM has yet to shy away from toying with the Escalade nameplate. Remember the EXT? It was a sport utility truck based on the second-generation Escalade and people really took to it, especially celebrities and athletes. It was more of a status thing than anything else.

The EXT was kept in production (later based on the third-gen Escalade) up until 2013, before the plug was pulled.

So then, if you have a car manufacturer that’s more than willing to build a pickup variant of its luxury SUV, would it really be that big of a stretch (pun intended) for them to add an extra rear axle to the current generation Escalade, while also installing a truck bed? Rhethorical, but also hypothetical.

If you’re having trouble picturing such a vehicle, we have you covered with yet another exclusive rendering, and as you can see, an Escalade EXT-V 6x6 would look absolutely monstrous – not in a bad way, but in a very easy-to-monetize type of way.

In terms of performance, it would ideally rely on the same supercharged 6.2-liter V8 unit found in the Escalade-V, offering a total output of 682 hp and 653 lb-ft (885 Nm) of torque. The Escalade-V needs just 4.4 seconds in order to accelerate from zero to 60 mph, so if an EXT-V 6x6 variant could still do it in under 5 seconds flat, that would be a tremendous achievement.

Either way, professional athletes and hip hop artists would be all over this thing.