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164 Posts
Hi.
As one or two folks might remember, back in the olden days of 2021 I purchased two DDHCs. A black one to dally drive for a while and a In-Violet one to stash away to daily in the not too distant dystopian electric future.
Once I sold the black one, I eventually replaced it with an Escalade V. At some point it just seemed silly to carry two HP SUVs at the same time so I decided to sell one of them. The TLDR version of this post is that I just sold the V, unmothballed the purple kitty, and plan to daily it for the foreseeable future.
One might wonder why I did such a thing, or they might not, but here it is anyway.
First it's not a money thing or that I made some kind of killing on the Esky and that would be the reason I chose to keep the Hellcat. Without getting too much into, after briefly listing the DDHC privately, the offers I got for it were about the same over sticker as my Caddy dealer was offering me for the V, it was a push so there was no financial incentive to favor either vehicle.
So it really boiled down to what I preferred driving more, and that's the perspective I wanted to share.
The Escalade V is an amazing vehicle. The interior fit and finish are beautiful, the technology is fantastic, the exhaust is brutal, it has a very strong presence on the road especially with the few modifications I made to it. I have very few negative things to say about it. It is very expensive for what it is, but then again they’re making very few of them and most are trading around $50k over sticker.
What the Escalade isn’t, is a complete performance SUV. It is basically a Platinum trim Escalade with a monster engine, upgraded brakes, and an exhaust. It is something to behold in a straight line, and the sounds it makes both on throttle and decelerating shocks other drivers and bystanders, and it should be noted that even in its quietest mode cold starts will infuriate most neighbors within a hundred yard radius. But that’s really it. The handling is sloppy and the throttle response is so lazy that you can actually briefly rev it in gear without the thing moving forward, and this is even in its most aggressive settings. If you like how a regular Escalade drives and want the ridiculously wonderful nature of performance upgrade appeals to you, you will be happy with it.
But I can’t tell you how much owning it made me miss driving my Durango Hellcat. This thing handles so well for a big SUV. I might have mentioned this before but I took my first one to a friend’s track day event at Roebling Rd. and they let me do a few laps in it for ships and giggles until I baked the brakes about five laps in. The thing not only didn’t embarrass itself but everyone at the track, including myself, were in awe of what it had in it. Track workers who see race cars every day were giggling like little kids watching and hearing me fly by on the front straight. If I tried to take any corner the same way with the Esky V as I did in the Hellcat I would have ended up in the next county.
On a daily basis the thing is so much fun. It doesn’t creak and flex every time I go over a pothole like a GM body on frame truck does. The thing feels so much tighter, the throttle snaps, the brakes are there, and the handling is as stiff as you’d want it to be without losing comfort. It might be silly saying it but from a strictly driving dynamics pov, it is to me like a better version of an X5M Competition. Sure I’d like it to have a bit better tech and interior design, I really miss having an auto-hold feature in traffic, but I love driving first and foremost, and that matters to me way more than digital displays and status symbol cred.
Anyhoot, this is all to say that I am now happily back in the fold and there’s no other upcoming SUV that excites me as much as this one. Maybe when the new SVR gets announced I’ll look into it but I’d honestly be as happy as can be driving the DDHC for many more years.
Here she is. These pics are actually before I had PPF and tint installed. That happened four weeks ago and I am still waiting for the oem decals I ordered six weeks ago and counting to get here to put back on top of the film. So right now my OCD is off the charts with the roof and back of the truck having stripes and the bumper and hood without it.
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Mods wise I’m contemplating wheels and the Corsa Sport exhaust, although after the over the top V raspiness I’m kind of enjoying the deeper tones of the stock DDHC exhaust.
Here’s the V that I just sold back to the dealer:
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That’s it for now … I’ll post more pics as I decide on mods and stuff.
Nice to be back in the pants of lesser fancy community.
As one or two folks might remember, back in the olden days of 2021 I purchased two DDHCs. A black one to dally drive for a while and a In-Violet one to stash away to daily in the not too distant dystopian electric future.
Once I sold the black one, I eventually replaced it with an Escalade V. At some point it just seemed silly to carry two HP SUVs at the same time so I decided to sell one of them. The TLDR version of this post is that I just sold the V, unmothballed the purple kitty, and plan to daily it for the foreseeable future.
One might wonder why I did such a thing, or they might not, but here it is anyway.
First it's not a money thing or that I made some kind of killing on the Esky and that would be the reason I chose to keep the Hellcat. Without getting too much into, after briefly listing the DDHC privately, the offers I got for it were about the same over sticker as my Caddy dealer was offering me for the V, it was a push so there was no financial incentive to favor either vehicle.
So it really boiled down to what I preferred driving more, and that's the perspective I wanted to share.
The Escalade V is an amazing vehicle. The interior fit and finish are beautiful, the technology is fantastic, the exhaust is brutal, it has a very strong presence on the road especially with the few modifications I made to it. I have very few negative things to say about it. It is very expensive for what it is, but then again they’re making very few of them and most are trading around $50k over sticker.
What the Escalade isn’t, is a complete performance SUV. It is basically a Platinum trim Escalade with a monster engine, upgraded brakes, and an exhaust. It is something to behold in a straight line, and the sounds it makes both on throttle and decelerating shocks other drivers and bystanders, and it should be noted that even in its quietest mode cold starts will infuriate most neighbors within a hundred yard radius. But that’s really it. The handling is sloppy and the throttle response is so lazy that you can actually briefly rev it in gear without the thing moving forward, and this is even in its most aggressive settings. If you like how a regular Escalade drives and want the ridiculously wonderful nature of performance upgrade appeals to you, you will be happy with it.
But I can’t tell you how much owning it made me miss driving my Durango Hellcat. This thing handles so well for a big SUV. I might have mentioned this before but I took my first one to a friend’s track day event at Roebling Rd. and they let me do a few laps in it for ships and giggles until I baked the brakes about five laps in. The thing not only didn’t embarrass itself but everyone at the track, including myself, were in awe of what it had in it. Track workers who see race cars every day were giggling like little kids watching and hearing me fly by on the front straight. If I tried to take any corner the same way with the Esky V as I did in the Hellcat I would have ended up in the next county.
On a daily basis the thing is so much fun. It doesn’t creak and flex every time I go over a pothole like a GM body on frame truck does. The thing feels so much tighter, the throttle snaps, the brakes are there, and the handling is as stiff as you’d want it to be without losing comfort. It might be silly saying it but from a strictly driving dynamics pov, it is to me like a better version of an X5M Competition. Sure I’d like it to have a bit better tech and interior design, I really miss having an auto-hold feature in traffic, but I love driving first and foremost, and that matters to me way more than digital displays and status symbol cred.
Anyhoot, this is all to say that I am now happily back in the fold and there’s no other upcoming SUV that excites me as much as this one. Maybe when the new SVR gets announced I’ll look into it but I’d honestly be as happy as can be driving the DDHC for many more years.
Here she is. These pics are actually before I had PPF and tint installed. That happened four weeks ago and I am still waiting for the oem decals I ordered six weeks ago and counting to get here to put back on top of the film. So right now my OCD is off the charts with the roof and back of the truck having stripes and the bumper and hood without it.
Mods wise I’m contemplating wheels and the Corsa Sport exhaust, although after the over the top V raspiness I’m kind of enjoying the deeper tones of the stock DDHC exhaust.
Here’s the V that I just sold back to the dealer:
That’s it for now … I’ll post more pics as I decide on mods and stuff.
Nice to be back in the pants of lesser fancy community.
