A Different Kind of Pink Cadillac

Long favored by people of questionable stylistic taste such as Elvis, Liberace, and countless overdressed pimps, Cadillacs have always been gaudy and overstyled when compared other luxury marques. It's almost like Cadillac's management fell in love with wretch-inducing tackiness in 1959 and never looked back. Be that as it may, the Cadillac name still has some resonance, and for more than a few people, a Caddy is the ultimate status symbol. And to an even more select few, a pink Cadillac is a sign that you have arrived at your peak. I mean... did The Boss write a song about a beige Lincoln? Or a green BMW? Or a silver Chrysler? Nope! Do successful Mary Kay agents receive a blue Benz? Nope! Pink Cadillac would be the correct answer.

But... nothing depreciates quite like a Cadillac. Yes, every vehicle depreciates in terms of dollar value. But I'm talking about in terms of social status. As a co-worker of mine so succinctly put it- "Drug dealers buy Cadillacs new, and their customers snap them up used." And this guy owns a CTS himself. There are so many relatively nice, relatively-late-model Cadillacs in rundown trailer parks, grungy apartment parking lots, and the shady parts of town. Many of them likely wear a sticker or front tag advertising a buy-here-pay-here lot. My generation calls it "flexing". Meaning, yeah, you work 20 hours a week at Taco Bell and live in your great aunt's basement, but you roll around town in a (used) luxury or performance car, so you give off the appearance of at least some wealth, even as the car falls apart from finance-induced neglect.

And think of the types of accessories you see on Cadillacs. Giant steer horns, acres of gold plating, air horns, animal print interiors, wide whitewalls, and so on. You can get away with so much tackiness when you have a Cadillac. Try putting any of those doodads on, say, a BMW or an Infiniti. Ugh... And often these "modifications" are done instead of basic maintenance and repair. Many Cadillacs end their days as a hooptie. Which is kind of fitting, as the word "hooptie", meaning a rundown car with aftermarket wheels and such, originates from another slang expression, Coupe D, which was short for Coupe DeVille. If you spend big money on a new Cadillac, damn right you're going to take care of it. But one you snapped up for five grand off the back lot at Stumpy's Auto Sales? Not so much.

All of this brings us to the Escalade. When the Arlington, Texas assembly plant ceased production of the Chevrolet Caprice, Buick Roadmaster, and Cadillac Fleetwood at the end of 1996 to make way for C/K pickup production, a joke began to circulate. The joke was that employees found a stash of surplus Fleetwood grilles and Cadillac wreaths, and to get rid of them, they were going to start slapping the leftover Caddy components on pickups. It wasn't too far fetched, as many luxury manufacturers were indeed getting their toes wet in the SUV market at the time. Except that Cadillac had publicly stated they would never produce an SUV, reasoning that they'd be among the last luxury marques to do so, and they were tired of being the last luxury marque to enter a new market. But about a year later... the runaway success of the Lincoln Navigator changed their minds.

The first Escalade was kind of embarrassing. Where the Navigator at least attempted to visually distance itself from the Ford Expedition, the 2000 Escalade was just a GMC Yukon Denali, with a bit more sound deadening insulation, a longer warranty, and Cadillac badging. That's it. When you consider that it came a year after the Yukon Denali, which itself was based on the 1995 4-door Yukon, which itself was based on a 1988 pickup, the original Escalade seems like a painfully-obvious knee jerk. The Escalade still managed to find enough well-off soccer moms, rappers, and NFL players to convince Cadillac to commit to the market.

For 2002 Cadillac went all out on the second-generation Escalade. Well... half way all out. Nearly every piece of exterior sheet metal is different from the Tahoe/Yukon. The interior is another story. Other than some wood trim, silver gauge faces, and a fancy-pants analog clock, the interior isn't much different than what's in a base model Silverado. Yes, leather was standard, but from behind the wheel (where you'd spend most of your time anyway), there really wasn't much to distinguish it from a high-trim Suburban.

But remember what I said about flexing? In that department, you were covered. The people who saw you in the Escalade would be impressed. The 2002 Escalade was a pretty striking design. And it's aged a bit better than several designs from that period. The design, I mean. Most individual 2002 Escalades these days are showing their age.

So... we've discussed what happens to Cadillacs from a price and social standpoint once they're a few years old. We've talked about the kinds of tacky accessories an oddly high number of Cadillac owners seem to find acceptable. We've discussed the arrival of the Escalade. Aaaaaannnnndddddd... we've discussed the color pink. Which brings us to our subject.

The second generation Escalade came in three flavors. First there was the standard wagon, based on the Tahoe/Yukon. Then there was the extended-wheelbase ESV, based on the Suburban/Yukon XL. Then you had the weird one... the EXT, based on the Chevrolet Avalanche (which was itself based on the Suburban). GM advertised the Avalanche as "an SUV that changes into a pickup". But really... it's a crew cab pickup with a back seat that folds down. I remember the local dealer had an EXT in stock for about $60,000. A few weeks later I saw one in a drive through... covered in mud and with an even muddier Kawasaki Bayou in the back. A brand new, $60,000, Cadillac. So Cadillac had (perhaps accidentally) attracted a new demographic... wealthy rednecks.

Yes.

They exist.

So if some of these things were being treated like beat-to-shit '80's K5 Blazers as brand new vehicles... imagine what horrors might await them once they'd reached the "buy-here-pay-here-special" stage of life? In other words... what happens when a NOT-wealthy redneck gets hold of one? That was more or less the idea here.

There are three Escalade kits. And that kind of irks me. I'd love a kit of a Lincoln Navigator. But nope! The one that got the modern-age of American luxo-SUVs has no kit. But, we have three different Escalade kits from two manufacturers. Revell did the standard wheelbase SUV, and a full custom EXT. AMT/Ertl did an EXT, and it is the only one that offers a stock building version. It is also the only one to offer full engine detail.

The AMT/Ertl 2005 Escalade EXT was one of the last kits to be released during the final years of the RC2 regime. Equal parts lazy and cheap, RC2 probably did more damage to the model kit hobby than any change in taste or economic recession. Parts fit terribly, proportions are off, decals suck, and the instruction sheets are only one or two steps more helpful than building the kit blindfolded.

The Escalade in particular suffers quite a few maladies. The undersized headlight reflectors require some shifty work with foil to look right. The rear door window gaskets are omitted. There are horrible gaps around the tail light lenses. For some reason the transfer case is on the chrome sprue. And so on. Yes, you can build a decent replica of an Escalade EXT with this kit. But if you're looking for a quick, stress-free build... well... keep looking.

Add to this that I wanted to modify my kit to represent the "tacky redneck Cadillac truck" I had in mind. So, yeah... this was a fairly unpleasant process, but in the end, that makes me appreciate the finished model even more.

First... remember what I said about the headlights? Revell did them better on their Escalades. AMT used undersized reflectors that fit into a body-color depression. I foiled around the edges after the plated reflectors were installed, otherwise there would be a body-color border around them, which would be visible through the lens. Or you could black out the lenses, but that wasn't the look I was after for this one. Here you can also see the inconsistent hood fit. Since this was meant to be a beater, I just left it as-is. Who knows what this poor thing has been through, and what kinds of iffy repair work has been done?

And that favorite accessory of tacky Caddy fans, the bull horns? They were carved from plastic rod and set into a piece of tubing as the base. I hosed off the truck in Tesors Electric Pink. It may not be the pink Caddy convertible Springsteen sang about, but it's every bit as ugly!

The wheels and tires came from Scenes Unlimited. The truck was treated to a scale 6" lift. This was done with spacers for the front suspension, combined with modified spindles, and longer springs/shocks in back. Being based on the Suburban, you can indeed lift a 1:1 EXT if you so choose. And quite a few people do. The three-pod flasher attached to the roof rack was left over from an idea I had to make this into a pilot car. The graphics I had in mind wouldn't work, but I got attached to the look of the flasher so I left it. I guess it could still be a pilot car if I add an Oversize Load placard.

I could not get the chassis to settle up into the body, until after I'd trimmed off some vertical strips molded to the bottom of the interior and bed floor. I don't know if it was a flaw in the kit or something I was doing wrong, But since this is a late RC2-era kit.... I'm just gonna blame the kit this time.

This model was used as a test bed for the Vallejo acrylic mud effects, and I'm very pleased with the results. It goes on nice and thick... I actually glopped it over some gaps left by poor fitting parts! The color didn't quite work for me, so it was augmented with Tamiya Flat Earth applied with an airbrush. The EXT had a three-piece lift off bed cover. AMT actually did a fairly good job replicating the real truck's plastic-lined bed, so I left the cover off and muddied up the interior of the bed.

Every Escalade EXT had the 6.0 Vortec V8. The engines in twilight-era RC2 kits were pretty bad, and this one is no exception. Thankfully it is mostly covered by a big plastic shroud. The engine bay was treated to a few layers of dust and crust. I also added some clutter to the top of the dash. I should have stuck a cowboy hat in there somewhere. Cadillacs and cowboy hats belong together like Cadillacs and adult diapers, or Cadillacs and crippling debt.

Hmmmmmm.... perhaps I should point out that I've never been a big fan of Cadillacs? Or did you catch that already?

Shortly after I finished the Escalade, I decided it was not redneck enough, so I added an LED light bar. This was made from various bits of plastic stock and a flasher from a Lindberg Crown Vic. Maybe at some point I'll make some Truck Nutz to hang off the bumper.

Maybe one of these days I'll build a 1:25 single wide and park this next to it. Perhaps with this one out in the yard as a companion...