Cadillac Calls 2015 Escalade “The Cadillac Of Escalades”

It’s a known fact that Cadillac owners are special chosen people. I’m not even mad about it. I love being on the outside, looking in at things I can’t have like Charlie Bucket with his nose pressed up against the candy shop window. I stared at the Elmiraj concept at the Chicago Auto Show for like a half hour, just watching it spin slowly in a circle of cold, unattainable beauty. When the product specialist got in there to talk about it I was livid and refused to listen to a word she said. Get out of the circle of light, truth and splendor! I thought as hot, angry tears sprung to my eyes, You don’t belong! Knave!

So, I get it. But have you seen the official page for the 2015 Cadillac Escalade? If I’ve been gleefully sipping the Kool-aid, whoever wrote that copy has been mainlining it. Which makes enough sense since they work for Cadillac, but seriously. It’s pretty intense. It goes there.

It’s a redesign, and that’s totally exciting and everyone’s real happy and warm about it. As they should be. They lead with this whole, like, profile of a photographer who comes in and shoots the process of making the Escalade and falls madly in love with it the way she used to fall in love with rock stars and somehow that’s not sad and she gets mad inspiration from the headlamps to make some sculptures for the big photo shoot and yeah. Great. Real neat.

Then it starts getting kind of insane. First they call it “THE CADILLAC OF ESCALADES.”  Which is pretty clever, really, and might have even come off as sort of fun and playful until you realize that they are dead serious, and just getting warmed up. There’s a frustrating video of a good-looking couple who just keep driving around this runway like they’re about to do something daring, yet classy, but never do, and text next to it that includes this doozy: “The epitome of interior, exterior, and performance artistry. All monumental standards that promise to keep it on the pedestal it richly deserves.”

The epitome of performance artistry.

Next, they prattle on about the interior for a minute and how they use wood and leather that’s so good you’ve never heard of it you poor thing, and then they flop this one out onto the table: “SCIENCE AND ART PROUDLY DISPLAYED IN A SINGLE MUSEUM.”  It’s not even a vehicle now, just a salon where the upper crust of society can come together and appreciate beauty and grandeur. Side by side.

They bust out the big gun, though, just after the father-son clay sculptors and their custom tools are highlighted. That’s when they call the 2015 Escalade “THE 420HP GATED COMMUNITY.”  There it is, finally. It’s almost refreshing to see them just come on out with it, just fully inhabit the unapologetic dick they’ve been coyly silhouetting all this time, and mercilessly hose us all down with it.

It’s at once appalling and banal. They’re basking in the greatness and exclusivity of their product, which everyone already knows to be great and exclusive. Its an exercise in equal parts self-aggrandizement and redundancy.

Also, I want one.