Cars are rated one (forget it) to four ('bout as good as it gets) James Deans

 Specifications

• Style: luxury sport utility
• Engine: 6.0-liter V8
• Transmission: four-speed automatic
• Drivetrain: all-wheel drive
• Horsepower: 345 hp @ 5,200 rpm
• Torque: 380 ft-lbs. @ 4,000 rpm
• EPA mileage: 12 city/15 highway
• Weight: 5,809 lb.
• Base price: $49,290
• Price as tested: $51,540

Melissa Stark is someone the producer of ABC's Monday Night Football can cut to when Al Michaels and Dan Fouts can't stop laughing at some quip from Dennis Miller.

Miller is a funny dude, for sure. Smart and quick, he cracks up his Monday Night Football cohorts.

So, while they try to stifle laughter, we cut to Melissa on the sidelines.

"Melissa, what have you got for us?"

Melissa is holding a list (which thoughtfully has been made into a screen graphic). It seems that during pre-season games, Melissa has been interviewing suddenly-rich rookies to find out how they've spent their newfound riches. Most of them come from a similar background -- poor or average early years, perhaps some hungry years, climaxed by a massive infusion of money just as adulthood looms.

Wahwho! Let the spending begin.

"Well, Al, our first rookie here bought a sport utility and a new house for his mom. Our second rookie bought a sport utility and a gold necklace for his girlfriend. Our third rookie bought a sport utility and invested in World Wrestling Federation stock. Back to you."

"What kind of sport utility, Melissa?"

"Cadillac Escalade."

All of 'em. All of the rookies this night have bought Cadillac's big, bad, bold sport utility, a vehicle some Cadillac dealers didn't even want in their showrooms at its introduction in 2000. It's a truck, basically, and Cadillac doesn't have a long history selling trucks. (Other Cadillac dealers were ecstatic, however, to finally have something to counter the Mercedes-Benzs and Lexuses and Range Rovers sold the wealthy by competitors.)

Miller is his usual quick self. "When I signed my Monday Night Football contract a year ago, I had to sell a car," he says. Al and Dan can't stop laughing.

Cadillac could not ask for better publicity than this. Fact is, the Escalade seems the perfect vehicle for a rich rookie football player. It reeks of aggression. It's in your face, all the time. The edgy, brutish design talks trash to competitors. It intends to win -- by force alone, if necessary. It is .. the Terminator meets Mad Max.

From its big-truck squared-off front to bulging fender flares and an exhaust tip the size of the Alaska pipeline, this thing defines a vehicle for the high-testosterone set (and the only group with higher testosterone levels than professional football players -- honestly -- is found in prison.).

With a Cadillac wreath and crest the size of a Frizbee front and rear, this monster is Deion Sanders morphed with Warren Sapp. Gold jewelry is not an option. It's standard equipment. And, like Randy Moss, the Escalade is so competent and secure in its niche that it can spit on the world with 12 mile-per-gallon fuel inefficiency around town and a front end that is most assuredly pedestrian-unfriendly!

Its message is this: Power rules. I got it. You don't. Ssssh. The meek will inherit nothing, fool. The powerful will take it first.

Mess with me and I'll put ya down, it says matter-of-factly.

And it can.

In the end, to its rookie owner, it's a $50,000 ring on the finger. To the rest of us, it's a closed fist in our faces, an assault on both the earth and its inhabitants.

For the bottom line is that this is just a big, heavy, gas-guzzling truck bedecked in jewelry. Hey, a rhinoceros with an earring is still a rhinoceros.

Why is weight so important to football players?

Simple laws of physics, Bubba. What happens when a 325-pound defensive lineman runs full force into a sprinting 185-pound Warrick Dunn?

Let's hope Warrick darts at the last minute. Otherwise, the massive difference in weight, even given equal speed, will first stop Warrick cold and then lift and move him backwards until both masses stop motion. And -- is this difficult to understand? -- the force of the impact was greater on Warrick. He has the greatest risk of injury from the collision.

Same thing applies to the highways.

And the results are most often the same. Weight usually wins.

This Escalade weighs in at nearly three tons. Luxury cars are usually under two tons. And sports cars often are less than one ton.

If the giant takes on the midget, don't wager on the midget.

The Escalade driver has only a smattering of safety features, only two of which Cadillac sees fit to list on its price sticker. There are dual front air bags -- required -- and dual side air bags for front seat occupants. No air curtain. No rear bags.

Oh .. there is an ultrasonic rear parking assist previously tested in the Deville. Don't depend on it for anything other than close parking, which this beast is no good at anyhow. The ultrasonic won't help avoid hitting a disgruntled fan walking behind the Escalade after a nasty loss.

Weight goes with big, however, so that's a given. But making matters worse here is the design of the Escalade. Now, General Motors is not alone in designing front ends that can kill pedestrians all too easily. It's a common sin with sport utilities and trucks (Dodge Ram/Dakota/Durango, Ford Explorer/F-150, Nissan Frontier, etc.). Start looking at vehicle front ends. Which could help save a pedestrian? Which would inflict the most serious injuries?

Note: Take a look at a video showing a pedestrian friendly design and how it compares to the Escalade. Pedestrian friendly design is rapidly becoming an important consideration, particularly in Europe and Australia. Lawmakers are considering what legislation could be passed -- and you know what that means. Think friendly design now, and avoid problems. The video is available in QuickTime or Windows Media Player format.

The most important consideration in pedestrian friendly design might be the point where a vehicle initially strikes the pedestrian. If our 325-pound, raging-hormone lineman is about to tackle illusive Warrick Dunn, the best bet is probably to knock Dunn's legs out from under him. Hit him low. That'll cartwheel him. He's down.

The front of a vehicle needs to strike a pedestrian in the lower third of the body. By striking there, the pedestrian will be picked up and spun onto the hood, which today is increasingly deformable. The hood softens the impact and the pedestrian might further slide onto the windshield and be tossed sideways.

Not good, but worlds better than what would happen with a design like the Escalade's.

There, the pedestrian will be struck in the midriff, where all vital internal organs are located, and will not cartwheel. Likely injuries will be much more severe with such a blow.

Now, vehicle makers have understood this for a very long time. Many have chosen to ignore it. But they've understood it since the days of cowcatchers on the front of steam engines. The cowcatcher's sole purpose was to strike objects in such a fashion that the objects were picked up and tossed aside.

Put it this way: Vehicles shouldn't run over people; they should run under them.

(I'd like to see an agency like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety conduct tests with adult and child-sized crash dummies struck at low turning speeds by vehicles. Videotape the results and itemize the areas of injury to the dummies. Then let's apply the results to vehicle insurance rates.)

But it's not just pedestrians endangered by designs like the Escalade's. In the video, you can see that the height of the Escalade's front bumper is higher than the hood of a test car. That increases the likelihood of rideovers, where a huge sport utility strikes a car and then climbs over it, sometimes through the windshield, with fatal results.

And look at the hood height on the Escalade. It is almost exactly at head-height for the driver of any other vehicle. Since side-impact fatalities most often are caused by a driver's head striking an intruding hood, you can see what chance a car driver would have in a side-impact from an Escalade. Virtually none. Side-impact door beams don't even come that high!

And with three tons of force behind its speed, the Escalade is a deadly menace to almost everything else on the road today.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:

• In the U.S. a pedestrian is struck every six minutes.
  
• A pedestrian is killed every hour and a half.
  
• One third of all children killed in traffic accidents were pedestrians or bicyclists.
  
• Senior citizens -- 13 percent of the population -- comprise 23 percent of all pedestrian fatalities. Many killed had given up their driving privileges and begun walking.
  
• Pedestrian fatalities account for 14 percent of all traffic fatalities.
  
• Ninety percent of all pedestrian deaths were the fault of a driver.
  
• The most common scenario is a car turning aggressively right into a crosswalk, and the driver not seeing a pedestrian (a driver can be blind to that area by some poorly located rear-view mirrors!)
  
• The annual pedestrian death toll is equivalent to a commercial airliner crashing every other week, with no survivors.
  
• Pedestrian friendly design could save 7 percent of those killed, according to cautious estimates.

Now, vehicle makers, get to work dumping those bulldozer-ugly, slab fronts you think make your vehicles look tough and mean.

It is in handling and performance that the Cadillac Escalade stands tall.

That's sure to grab the attention of a newly rich football rookie.

But by any single handling measure, the Escalade doesn't stand tallest.

Despite a posh interior with leather seats, combined with a forgiving suspension system, the Escalade certainly is not the most comfortable sports utility.

Despite all-wheel-drive, stability control and traction control, the Escalade is not the most worthy offroad traveller.

On or off, it's somewhere in the middle of today's luxury sport ute offerings.

Fortunately, it doesn't impose an unnecessary roughness penalty, even on rough roads. But it does fill an entire traffic lane on back roads and the steering is sufficiently vague to cause a driver to tense up and pay close attention as another vehicle approaches and passes on the left.

The Escalade is also out of its element around town. Parking it is a major chore, no matter the style of the parking place. Even a U-turn will require stopping and backing up.

But kudos to this setup that keeps the Escalade stable in turns and smoothes out bumps on the straights. Plus, the stability and traction control, coupled with the AWD, assure that our rookie will get to even a December game in Green Bay.

General Motors seems to have a time-honored answer to any vehicle problem: throw more horsepower at it.

Heck, if 0-to-60 were the final measure of vehicles, GM sales would be up, not down. GM has some baaaaad cars.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Baddest and Fastest Boulevard.

Vehicle buyers got really, really interested in safety. For years, GM lagged. Still does with many models. And crash test results are just a click away on the Internet. Gas prices soared and fuel efficiency became more important than Most Powerful. Consumer Reports offered reliability lists -- and GM vehicles resided near the bottom and failed to make any list of recommended vehicles. And BMW taught today's movers and shakers what driving excellence really is. Excellence is far more than Brute Force. The lesson has been learned. The savvy won't unlearn it.

Baddest and Fastest might play in the hood, but not across Mom and Pop America. Not today.

So with the most horsepower of any sport ute, the Escalade finds itself playing on a field surrounded by empty bleachers. The crowd has moved on. And the only guy in the hood who can afford the $51,000 price tag is rich rookie hisself.

Go forth and impress, young man. Your 26-gallon gas tank will be empty before you can say, "Hey, ref, how long you been doin' this ref thing, anyhow?"

Psssst. Don't tell anyone, but the Escalade takes 7.9 seconds to go 0 to 60. The Mercedes-Benz ML55 takes 6.4 seconds. Its V8 has 342 horsepower, but the M-B sport ute is a lot lighter, thus the power-to-weight ratio is better. Warrick Dunn should buy one. Goodbye, rookie lineman.

It would be great fun to be present when Rich Rookie invites his fellow linemen out to dinner.

No problem, right? An Escalade is claimed to seat eight.

Ha.

Eight what? is a legitimate question. The fact is that the huge, three-ton, space-hogging sport ute makes about the poorest use of interior space of any vehicle this side of a Hummer. It's Clown College inside.

The first two occupants -- driver and front-seat passenger -- will enjoy the luxury expected from a big $50,000 vehicle. They'll have quite a step up, but, hey, these are big guys and big stepups are no problem. Things won't be so easy for the other linemen.

Open a rear door and it doesn't open very far. Not far enough for a 325-pound tackle to enter easily. Nope. It'll be a squeeze to get past that door. But look down! The entry space where feet must pass through is only six-and-one-half inches. On this biggest of luxury utes, this may be the smallest space. (My size-7 shoe is longer than that space.)

Hold everything a second. Before the second row people can enter, we need to access the newly added third row bench seat.

To do that, a second row seat has to be folded forward. Trouble is, it won't fold if the front seats aren't very far forward. So far, in fact, that the front-seat occupant will be uncomfortable, with compromised leg room. Pull a tab on the second row seat base and flip it forward. Now fold the seat back forward and down. That seat's head restraint thoughtfully folds backwards as it strikes the rear of the front seat -- and stays that way until uprighted by someone.

The offensive guards and tight end now face a tunnel. That third row seat is not on the same level as the others. It's raised, so the big boys will have to duck and then waddle through the space left by the flattened seat (you'll probably see the Escalade Waddle being performed in end zones after touchdowns this season). Assuming they can waddle or crawl, they will next fall onto a seat where their heads will immediately brush the roof and their knees will be pointed skyward at an uncomfortable angle. Few third row seats are as uncomfortable as this one. (They used to call this location the "rumble seat" and the unlucky passengers here will find out why.)

Putting on a seat belt restraint back there is more than a little difficult. But, listen, while the door is still open .. what's that noise? Kind of a hiss. Far out. The Escalade has a self-levelling suspension system, so when 325-pound Bubba plops down over a rear shock, the shock is first shocked, then sprints into action to try to level the suddenly squatting Escalade.

Fully loaded, the Escalade's suspension will find level -- somehow.

After everyone has finally entered the Escalade, there will be a delay-of-game penalty while the second row is put back in place, the head restraints raised, the front seats motored rearward, etc. All these readjustments must be made every time the third row is used. And not only are the third-row occupants uncomfortable, they are trapped back there in any accident scenario. No easy exit, Bubba.

Now check the cargo bay. Open the massive liftgate, which swings too high for some people to retrieve (where's the power liftgate when you need it?), and you'll find a space not big enough for a rookie's weekly grocery load. Creating any acceptable cargo space means eliminating the third-row seat. What kind of Big Boy is this? Flawed is the only conclusion.

Don't take my word for all this.

This video clip demonstrates the entry problems an owner will encounter with a Cadillac Escalade, as well as the lack of cargo space. The video is available in QuickTime or Windows Media Player format.

In front of the driver is an uninspired dash that looks more truck-like than luxury car. There are tiny buttons everywhere and unwanted features that require reading the owner's manual to turn off. This time, I just lived with the dipsy-doodle seat dance on entry and exit. Cadillac has programmed the seat to move down and all the way back when the ignition is off. Insert the key and the seat moves to the last remembered position. Ugh. You enter a seat so low on the floor that it's the Edith Ann Syndrome all over again.

Surely no one actually asked for this feature. It must be some committee's "better idea" that isn't. It's just .. one more thing to go wrong. (Can you imagine a seat motor failing and you're stuck with a driving position all the way back and on the floor?)

And if you examine the tolerances of body seams and the sometimes sloppy trim fit, you'll understand that things likely will go wrong. While this is the best of the GM sport ute bunch, the Escalade doesn't approach the build quality of some competitors.

Sure to grab your attention is the column-mounted gear selector. Instead of putting chrome on the bumpers, where it actually makes more sense than the whiff of paint these plastic protectors get today, Cadillac added a chrome trim ring on the end of the selector. Bingo. It catches the sun and glares intensely into a driver's eyes. It's like having E.T.'s finger pointed at you while you try to drive. I ended up hanging a baseball cap over the thing! (Here's an unretouched photo made at highway speed with a digital camera.)

Another surprise is the absence of features more or less expected at this extremely lofty price level. The power windows are one-touch down, for instance, but not one-touch up. And the touch needed to power them down is tricky. More times than not, one touch wasn't enough. Plus, the rear windows don't go all the way down.

Where's the navigation system that belongs in a vehicle of this class? Didn't come with one. OnStar is wonderful -- but no substitute for a navigation system.

The two front seats are very comfortable, however, the best yet from General Motors. They are firm, but not rigid, just about perfect for extended travel. And they adjust every imaginable way. The seat controls are poorly located, though, down low between the door and seat base. And the door handle release is likewise poorly located -- too low again. GM could benefit by copying the door-mounted adjustment controls pioneered by Mercedes-Benz and now widely copied.

You can take a leisurely look around the interior of a Cadillac Escalade in this photobubble

Who knows how history will judge our times? These may well become known as the "selfish years" for America, when personal gain counted most. "I got mine," is our motto. Money is the magic ticket for admission to The Good Life. Wealth is our distribution criterion for finite resources. Gated communities protect those inside, who demand lower taxes and less government at the expense of those on the other side of the fence, both geographically and economically. Huge SUVs provide a similar sense of security and say loud and clear that "I got mine."

Ayn Rand is back in vogue.

Now, there's not a better system on earth than capitalism.The promise of financial reward for personal effort and excellence spurs innovation and invention better than the threat of a whip or an appeal to communal causes. Work is a reach for the gold ring on the merry-go-round of life. I want it. I'll reach. I'll work for it.

Rich Rookie reached it. He got it. So why shouldn't he buy a Cadillac Escalade?

No reason, and several reasons. For sure, put your money back in play, Rich Rookie. That's good for all of us on the brink of recession, out of work as you scoop up what seems a vast fortune in signing bonus, more than the rest of us will earn individually in a lifetime of labor. Put your money in circulation. Please don't hoard it.

But know that vehicles like the Cadillac Escalade make a selfish statement. Who can be proud of 12 miles to a gallon of gas from a vehicle that primarily will be used for commuting? Who can be proud of driving something like this while ozone alerts become a common feature of weather forecasts? Who can feel good about driving a vehicle that endangers almost all others in any accident scenario?

I don't think history will be any kinder to this vehicle, and vehicles like it, than I've been here. It's comfortable and it's powerful. It's also a gas-guzzling polluter, a bigfoot in a forest of elves, a product that promises what it doesn't deliver. As is the case with many other dreams finally fulfilled, the reality here doesn't live up to expectations.

This Escalade is the quintessential example of an American vehicle the rest of the world doesn't understand. It makes no sense.

Listen up now, rookie. I understand self-indulgence after an initial goal is reached. Understand that. Seen it before. You deserve to reward yourself, gosh darnit, to make all this real. Go party. But let me tell you something else, young man. You're a member of not only a league team, but a bigger team. We're all on that bigger team, driving crowded highways, breathing polluted air, all of us in this together. And I want you for a moment to think about the members of this bigger team and how your on-field glory might be short-lived but the Big Team will play on. How will your membership on this bigger team be viewed? Are you a team player, rookie, or just a spotlight-seeking wannabe star? Do you want to help us score some victories that really matter? You want safer highways? A cleaner Earth? That's our end zone, son. That's the dadgum goal. It's a Super Bowl-sized competition we can't afford to lose, now can we?

As sure as my name is Bobby Bowden, I'd look elsewhere for my reward, Rich Rookie. This one ain't gonna help things. It's the kind of rookie mistake, in fact, that can cost us the Big Game.

Back to you, Melissa.

'Nuff said.

Home, James