Cadillac Escalade-V
Why 4.8: Doug's base Escalade Platinum scored an 8 for Comfort and a 3 for Handling — numbers that only get more lopsided with 130 more horsepower and the same body to move. Cadillac never sent this exact trim to Doug's driveway, but the physics don't change.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Sound
A supercharged 6.2 V8 behind a quad exhaust that opens properly in V mode, and hearing it emerge from a three-row SUV is genuinely funny. It is capped by 6,500 rpm, blower muffling and a cabin engineered for rear-seat quiet — theatre, not a note.
8-cylinder · supercharged · 6,500 rpm redline · rated 6.8 / 10 for engine sound
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €143k (2023) → €127k (2026), trending down · illustrative data
Child seats · ISOFIX
2nd-row outboard LATCH anchors and top tethers standard, same GM T1-platform hardware as Escalade/Suburban/Tahoe.
No LATCH hardware up front.
Escalade is a 3-row SUV at every trim including the V — the 2nd row is the primary child-seat row, with a tether-only 3rd-row position behind it.
FMVSS 225 (US federal LATCH mandate, lower anchors + top tether required from Sept 2002) (owner-community sourced, not manufacturer documentation)
The long version
Cadillac dropped the CT5-V Blackwing's supercharged V8 into its heaviest, tallest body and called it the Escalade-V, a formula GM has run before with the performance-SUVs already on this list, and one that reliably produces the same result: real straight-line violence in a package still built primarily to move a family and its luggage in comfort. Waiting lists and dealer markups defined the first model year the way most limited-run performance trims do, but the fleet has settled into normal luxury-SUV use since — school runs and airport pickups with a supercharger whine underneath, rather than any genuine track ambition.