With its black-ops exterior, blue-highlighted interior and massive turbo, today’s Nice Price or No Dice Escalade certainly does stand out. Let’s see if an outstanding price tag is also one of the truck’s features.
If you’re going to make a change to something, you really should strive for betterment, not just different. In the case of yesterday’s 1987 Jeep Comanche, the change from 4x2 to 4x4 by way of some Cherokee drivetrain parts was certainly for the better. The updated Pokémon-print headliner? Well, the jury’s still out on that change.
That jury, however, is in and deliberations are done on the Jeep’s $6,000 price tag. The verdict? That was a 61 percent No Dice loss. Case closed.
Next up on the docket is a 2007 Cadillac Escalade with some custom paintwork and a few extra bees under its bonnet made by way of a big turbo bolted to its 6.2-liter Vortec V8.
The Escalade was originally introduced for the 1999 model year as little more than a slapped-together rebadge of the GMC Yukon Denali. The model arrived as a hasty response to the Lincoln Navigator, which had hit the market a year earlier. The Escalade proved to be the right truck at the right time for Cadillac, and sales took off, with the truck becoming almost de rigueuer across the celebrity scene.
Since that high point in the mid-aughts, however, the ’Slade has become an also-ran to Cadillac’s smaller, more space- and fuel-efficient XT5 model. The smaller crossover has become Cadillac’s best-selling model, leaving the Escalade as a mere runner-up.
This 2007 standard-wheelbase edition represents the model’s third iteration and has seen some aftermarket updates since it left the factory. The most notable of those seems to be the big turbo kit that has been added to the truck’s 6.2 liter Vortec V8. Out the gate, the L92 made 403 horsepower. With the turbo added, that number should be a few ponies higher.
Unfortunately, the seller did not provide much in the way of detail regarding how much power the engine now makes, nor who did the work to get it there. On the plus side, the installation looks to be tidy and professional, and well, it’s a turbocharged small block which isn’t something you see every day. Whatever the output, it’s all rolled through the Caddy’s standard 6L80 six-speed automatic and full-time all-wheel-drive system.
Other mods made to the 98,000-mile truck seem to be mostly cosmetic. Chrome trim that Cadillac so carefully applied to the truck to give it just the right amount of bling has been either blacked out or painted over in electric blue. Aftermarket wheels are installed at the corners, and they are done up in the same black and blue motif.
That aesthetic continues to the cabin, where the silver dash trim and door sill plates have been repainted as though the truck is the Blue Man Group’s tour bus. A boost gauge has been added to the steering column, while carbon-fiber trim overlays the center stack’s original woodgrain.
The work here appears to be well done and sits atop a base that, as the ad claims, features “Every option available in ’07.”
This is a two-row truck and that seating is further limited by the second row being individual captain’s chairs rather than a bench. Still, with social distancing, and interaction outside of your core group seemingly not a good idea at this time, that actually might be preferable.
It’s been a while since the ’Slade was the go-to truck for rolling with your whole crew anyway. These days, big SUVs seem to have fallen out of favor in preference for smaller crossovers. Like the dinosaurs before them, this style of truck will most likely end up extinct, or at the very least, extremely uncommon.
That’s a possible future, but right now we’re concerned about the present. That present includes this truck’s $28,000 asking price. That’s about half what this Caddy demanded when new, and that doesn’t even take into account all of the cosmetic and performance mods applied in the intervening years. Overall, the truck looks almost new, and it has a clean title and clear Carfax to back up those appealing looks.
Ah, but does all that add up to a $28,000 asking? What do you say, could this turbocharged Escalade be worth that kind of money? Or, do the mods and the price make this a Caddy without a cause?
You decide!
Denver, Colorado, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Bigblockbear for the hookup!
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