WHAT IS IT?
Woke up this morning, found ourselves an Escalade……The second-generation Cadillac Escalade took the nameplate a bit further from its Suburban/Tahoe roots and it was the version that started to pull away from its chief competitor the Lincoln Navigator. Even at two decades old, this is a reliable and cushy SUV that is approaching modern classic status largely based on the fact that it was the preferred whip of fictional sanitation executive Tony Soprano (although he was a fan of the extended wheelbase ESV, this one’s a base).
WHY THIS CAR HAS BEST ONE ON THE PLANET CHOPS
Second-gen Escalades with low-miles are really tough to find. They tended to have not been bought by 70-somethings, but rather by people 20 to 30 years younger who put lots of road trip and private school drop-off miles on them. This one is in the classic color scheme of black and cream and other than some minor surface rust on some suspension parts there’s little to fault with it. A 30,000 mile classic Escalade for under $25,000 strikes us as a bit of a bargain. AND, it’s located in Moonachie, NJ, just a stone’s throw from the NJ Turnpike and Tony’s Bergen County home. Buy this and do a Soprano’s filming location pilgrimage.
Even at two decades old, this is a reliable and cushy SUV that is approaching modern classic status largely based on the fact that it was the preferred whip of fictional sanitation executive Tony Soprano
Escalades are still a common sight in the PNW — and most of them aren’t rusty here, either. That said, most of them are 200k-plus mile rattletraps that are bought for their 5.3s and 6.0s (because the 4L60 or 65 is already slip-sliding its way to multiple neutrals).
This one has the LQ9 6.0L V8 (as opposed to the lower compression LQ4 6.0), which is a plus. It’s super clean inside and out, too — there’s a lot of black here, and black is hard to keep looking this nice over time.
Frame rust here kills this one for me, though. I get that it lived in a rough winter environment, but even the roughest PNW Escalade (or Tahoe/Yukon/Suburban) from this era won’t have any rust showing through on its frame — 200k rattly miles or not.
Nice? Absolutely, especially considering where it came from. The Best? Not from where I sit.
These Escelatdes didn’t survive winter where I live – slowly returning to the earth with rust issues and dull plastics. Seeing a 20-year-old example in this kind of shape is certainly a rarity.
How did this survive so long in Jersey? Not a fan of the Escalades, but you gotta respect anyone that can keep any car this clean, especially one as big as a tank!