Cadillac Escalade Could Offer Camaro ZL1 Power
Camaro ZL1’s LT4 with 650 horsepower would make for one insanely fun Cadillac SUV.
The Cadillac Escalade is currently offered with a uniquely tuned variant of the LT1 from the Chevrolet Camaro SS and in the big, luxury sport utility vehicle, this V8 delivers 420 horsepower and 460 lb-ft of torque. Those figures are plenty for “normal” Escalade drivers, but in the booming world of the high performance SUVs, some drivers want more.
Fortunately, General Motors has a few stronger engines in the company arsenal and according to the team at Muscle Cars and Trucks, another Camaro engine could soon be tucked under the hood of the Escalade. Insiders have told the outlet that the Cadillac engineers are currently working on a proper high performance SUV that will derive its power from the same LT4 V8 that motivates the Camaro ZL1 and the Corvette Z06.
Camaro ZL1-Powered Escalade
The LT4 in the Camaro ZL1 and Corvette Z06 is a supercharged, 6.2-liter V8 that delivers 650 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque in each of those performance cars. In many cases, when a performance engine is transferred from a car to a heavier truck or SUV, there will be a unique engine tune that leads to a slight variance in power, but even if the engineers tweak the LT4 torque curve for the Escalade, there is still a very good chance that it will deliver at least 600 horsepower and 600 lb-ft of torque.
Regardless of the engine output, we would expect that the LT4-powered Escalade would share a similar 10-speed automatic transmission to the one in the Camaro. More importantly, the big Caddy would likely feature a heavy-duty four-wheel-drive system that could handle all of that supercharged torque. In the long run, a rear-wheel-drive Escalade with 600+ horsepower might be more fun for burnouts, but with four-wheel-drive or all-wheel-drive, it would definitely make better use of the power.
In addition to the supercharged V8, the 10-speed automatic transmission and a high performance all-wheel-drive system, we can expect that this beastly Cadillac would have a uniquely tuned version of GM’s magnetic ride control suspension system and a huge Brembo braking package, as you need good brakes to slow down a three-ton SUV with more than 600 horsepower.
Luxury Dominance
While the Cadillac Escalade with the LT4 could have differing power levels from the Camaro ZL1 or Corvette Z06, let’s just imagine for a second that it does offer 650 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque. Those numbers would make it the most powerful luxury SUV in the world.
The top competitor from the luxury world is the Lamborghini Urus with 641 horsepower and 626 lb-ft of torque, followed by the Bentley Bentayga with 600 horsepower and 664 lb-ft of torque and the Mercedes-Benz AMG G63 with 577 horsepower and 627 lb-ft of torque. The LT4-powered Cadillac would be down just a touch on torque compared to the Bentley, but it would offer more horsepower than any luxury SUV on the market today.
In fact, the only thing stopping an LT4-powered Cadillac Escalade from being the most powerful SUV in the world is the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk with 707 horsepower and 645 lb-ft of torque, but while the Jeep comes loaded up on the inside, it is generally not included in the luxury SUV discussion. As a result, the Escalade with the LT4 would have the bragging rights of being more powerful than any European luxury SUV.
More importantly, the short wheelbase Escalade with 650 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque would be incredibly fun to drive, especially on a long, straight road.
