2021 Cadillac Escalade vs Mercedes-Benz GLS // $100,000 SUV Kings Face Off

mine's pretty long dude mine is huge it's not bigger than mine yeah well i've got a weird curve to it and i didn't even count the curve okay show me see that's like 39 inches it's pretty big you're watching throttle heads i'm thomas and i'm james and i was talking to james the other day and we realized that pimping ain't easy but with vehicles like these maybe it could be [Music] the new escalade unapologetically monstrous with a road presence that could make a g-class blush i'd say it takes no prisoners but it can actually take quite a lot because for this year it's now the most expansive escalade yet longer larger more legroom and today we have it in its most expensive sport platinum trim have at it mercedes mercedes has taken a different approach the heart of the gls is in the name s-class so that means not only today does this big bruiser need to show us that it can take down an escalade but also that it has the beef to live up to the claim of being the suv form of one of the most luxurious cars on the planet we do car reviews track tests and quite a lot of messing around so subscribe and hit the bell this is the 580. that means it has a four liter twin turbocharged v8 which makes 483 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque and an extra 184 pound-feet of torque and 21 horsepower from an eq boost starter alternator and i won't hear any arguments from james because for a hundred and thirty ish thousand dollars this car is vastly superior in a straight line to james's escalade 5 700 pounds and 0-60 in 5.3 seconds and it does it smoother because of the turbos and the eq boost starter alternator look it's not about naught to 60 times all right and six seconds for something that weighs 6 000 pounds isn't bad and also this is a 6.2 liter naturally aspirated american v8 not some pithy four liter twin turbo v8 that he's in actually sounds really significant when i say how loud okay this power plant is not very elegant but it's very american it's 6.2 liters it's all about displacement it rolls a bit in the corners but put my foot down it's punchy but punchy might not be enough for the escalade to reign supreme and thomas waved me over to explain why mercedes think that they've got it in the bag okay the new gls embodies luxury confidence and intelligence like no other vehicle says ola kelanius he's like a high up dude at daimler sounds like he's high up in the roman senate yeah also it says here this is a quote this is the s-class of suvs that's right that makes it sound like it's like a metaphor thing but it's mercedes saying that yeah no one uses the s-class of the things right kind of you say there's a rolls-royce of something or i don't know a cadillac of something p51 cadillac of the skies that's a good point yeah and as far as cadillac's go this is the escalade so it's the king of the cadillacs and this is the sport platinum trim so it's standard with air suspension fourth gen magnetic ride control gun is the solid rear axle now we have independent suspension so it should ride like a dream except except it doesn't it handles its mass really well and it it doesn't pitch the way you expect it to even though it makes all the truck like motions it does drive car like but it when it comes to impacts or small impacts and bumps you can feel the sensations through the cabin in a way that's not quite perfect and when we're comparing it with something like a gls which is apparently the s-class of suvs that's where it's going to fall down because i'm sure that thomas is enjoying the best ride ever right now [Music] hmm let me explain generally a car sits on springs but beside those or in between them is a dampener or a shock absorber and what that does is it smooths out the ride and keeps it controlled generally what you want to do is match the spring rate to the damper rate so you don't get any unwanted body motions that's not really the case here okay in comfort mode which it defaults to when you get in it's wallowy and washy and it never settles and then over sideways bumps you just keep going back and forth and it's really annoying it's very soft but it's not well controlled so you put it into sport mode or in my case i'm going to put it in individual mode because i want the drivetrain and transmission to be in normal but i want the suspension in sport that stiffens it up and what that does then is it makes the car quite well controlled around the corners it controls its mass perfectly it's really easy to drive except when you hit a harsh bump it kind of sends a shock wave or a vibration through the whole suv so either you get really soft wallowy suspension or harsh vibrations it's just not an s-class an s-class we've driven a bunch of them many generations of them in fact they're beautiful this is not quite as refined as that smooth yes s-class smooth no but if you want you can get even more technology you can get the crazy mercedes suspension that leans into the corner which is called the e-active body control and i would like to think that this car with the active body control would solve all my issues with the ride and this could potentially be one of the nicest driving big suvs that you can buy also it does have the eq boost starter alternator which usually is great not only for all the auxiliary power but it gives you a really smooth stop start this doesn't seem to have that it just kind of is a normal stop start system where it drags you to a really harsh stop and then when you set off again the engine kicks in in a fairly dramatic fashion and it's it's honestly impossible to drive it smooth so you have to turn it off but then it doesn't remember that you turned it off so the next time you get in it happens again that's annoying i know i am being very critical of these cars and honestly if you were just a person who's never driven a modern mercedes and you got in this you think that it's amazing because it is it is an unbelievable car the technology is crazy but having driven an s-class which by the way is the same price as this it's just not quite at that level so the escalade is powerful it's imposing it's big but i just want to go see what that gls is like really quickly so thomas is going to remind himself of this i'm going to hop in that and then we're going to talk about the design well it drives better than this yeah it it has more power first of all yes and it drives smaller it tackles the fact that it's giant better than the escalade does i would say yeah it's not as giant no it still doesn't do it perfectly and you're right i understand what you're saying about coming to a stop comfort mode is just not where this car is comfortable never stops yeah the individual mode's better yeah i do remember the x7 it was a while ago that we drove it to be fair but i i strongly remember it driving better than this in terms of the suspension i remember not having any issues with the ex exactly so we'd have to back the bathroom to be for sure yeah but out of these three i would say the x7 i think is probably the best anyway what do you think of the looks of this i think it's inoffensive i i think they could have done more as like such a flagship car okay so this is the same company that makes the g-class which is one of the most iconic vehicles of all time also it has the most road presence of any vehicle i think on the road next to a cullinan maybe which this tackles what is more like i would say but this is just like it's not just below the g wagon and road presence it's way below way below i think it looks just like a bigger gle and like an infinity qx80 but an s-class looks like a bigger e-class and an e-class looks like it's just part of the russian doll syndrome okay well that's that's a bigger problem with mercedes then i guess yeah the escalade in this stunning red like we always say that the masters have the sore red crystal which is like the best red on the market this has got to be out there it's beautiful yeah this is it's a stupid name okay it's infrared like infrared like infrared light right so by definition is the red that humans come that we can't see yeah so this is an invisible but i know i can see it i know i i swear i can see it i can also see the offset shark fin which now that we mentioned in the last video it's upset a lot of people because you keep noticing it i keep noticing it now why is it not in the middle also we said that this wasn't a bad looking car no we like it i like it we we do like it i think everyone in the video it looks a little bit too boring for some people but in real life you have to understand it's it's also it's like a condo building it's just like it's it's maximizing all the square footage it has so how funky can the design be yeah because inside is massive it's massive inside and this is the short one so this is this is not the esv this is the one that's right so yeah which is visually better proportioned on the side i think also wasn't the the cadillac badge like monochrome in the other one it was i prefer that this these colors are starting to look data so you can option that i think yeah interesting yeah i like this better i don't it's more it's the that's the cadillac symbol it's a cadillac symbol it's old-fashioned but the rest of it doesn't no they modernized it it's not offensive it's less like chintzy okay so did you agree though tintiness whatever aside yeah this has more road presence if the whole point of this then what most things than this oh yes right if you see a convoy of glasses pull up somewhere yeah it doesn't this look if you see a convoy of this it's like that's a military operation yeah that's the president yeah exactly yeah it's just like oh wow when's soccer over yeah let's see if the inside can at least live up to the s-classness okay ah this is a gle interior i knew you're going to say that immediately because it's not and this is not an s-class interior james it's a gle interior a t-elite interior is not the same as an e-class the e-class has still the flowing lines that come around by the doors that's the old e-class though well yeah we haven't seen the new new e-class i don't think we have not in person we've seen pictures of it right anyway an s-class interior is a whole stage above this it is it is it is it is it is you got the flow the leathers this hand-stitched and the whole thing there's some more options you can get you can get a better headliner and this is doesn't have the burmester high-end sound system no so you don't get the little tweeters that spin out in such a dramatic fashion what you get is some mustang plastic in in yes it's interesting you mentioned the mustang thing because the leathers here this looks all dodge challenger it kind of does see honestly visually this is one of the most beautiful interiors i think on sale yeah it's not noisy everything works perfectly we love the way these thumb buttons work on the steering wheel yep the screen size and we as we've discovered it's not as quite as long as the one in the escalator yeah much smoother but it is my ego it is still significant but this is this is a very nice a set of tech that i've got used to after having about five mercedes press cars i will say these seats are wonderful they're quite nice the headrests are a bit hard though right but you can just grab the cushions from the back you could if you no you can't because they attach in a i'll show you but but anyway the ambient lighting in here is next level and it's super adjustable even though i can have absolutely no idea how to address the ambient lighting it's super confusing but i love the heads-up display right it's really aggressive it's crazy it's like minority report that meets like top gun it's awesome and you can change it oh you can change it you can adjust everything actually everything that's in the gauge cluster you can put in the heads-up display adjustably it's it's fantastic it really really is this yeah the steering wheel just the s-class steering wheel is wonderful it's better it's better this is an e-class steering wheel this isn't g at least they could have done that that that i'll admit uh in in this this is a quite toned down one as far as uh the colors of the options like this is the gray wood and yeah yeah you can go a bit more listen i'm not knocking this interior because it's great it really is yeah you just want it to be more but i want it to be an s-class but if you look at like power numbers or size number if you think of this as a gle with three rows well i don't have to think of it as that because that's what it is but if but if you if one was two okay it's not that different in price you're not paying massively s-class differences so it's just a market if you think of it as just a marketing play and you need three rows and a comfortable good suv i am thinking of it as just a marketing play because that's what it is oh they've done a good it does a good job this is optioned not with the captain chairs this is with the three seats in the middle that's right yes and these seats are fine they're comfortable enough and they come with a little pillows there's a lot more to them than the ones in the escalade yeah yes that's true but they're not as spaced out this way or vertically right we do this beautiful sunroof as well everything's powered all the seats go up and down automatically everything's nice like it it accomplishes the task of being a big family suv yes it creeks i was hoping you weren't going to push because i didn't want to have to point out one i have to be honest visually it looks it looks incredibly modern i really like it beautiful like these everything no i the design of this is fantastic someone artistically sketched this and then they built it off of that and i respect that massively it's beautiful in here but let's go look at the escalade because because they've done some good good stuff and they've done some good stuff but before we did i just did a quick test of all the seats in both vehicles without the captain seat configuration accessing the gls's third row wasn't very easy and when back there although headroom was fine legroom was very tight for my 5 foot 10 bionic frame in the escalade the passenger seats had plenty of space with the driver's seat in my driving position and things get even better as you move into the third row where there is both ample leg and headroom but with a little more play time i found the escalade is not without its problems all right so i did sit in the back yeah and in the escalade the the rear third row is much more comfortable i did yes i did notice that yeah it's a way bigger vehicle but also the the mercedes has so many buttons that electronically move the seats yeah you can you can put all the seats down from the back and you could also crush yourself in and all this stuff this is more analog okay except it does have one button okay which is very strange and aggressive are you ready i'm scared to do it again why are you wait why it's gonna do what we're talking about oh my god you see that smack the screen and then you bring it back up and it well this side doesn't hit the screen but if you leave it in that position then do it again i don't want to do this wait this is a test car you do it again look at that oh my god oh my god i know that was me and i was being silly but there are kids that get in these cars yeah and play yeah all they do is press the button and smash this is a very nice ski it's very nice screen i don't want to hurt i want it to stay nice so that's a ridiculous piece of engineering so you got you have to push this back every time manually even then it still comes really close yeah and most of the time it just knocks it a little this is in driving position yeah ah 39-ish inches of beautiful curves curved screen those are some of the running boards going up again which you love it's like an aircraft this is two screens and a couple of hot wings short of a sports bar in here which is perfect because it is an american big vote you had to have prepped that joke you had 100 okay uh okay anyway so here's the thing that i like about this it's that but simpler you don't you don't feel like you've just left the high-end german car does something worse this feels no perfectly competitive and here's the thing is that that has more features and more stuff going on in the inside but i feel like cadillac maybe didn't go we're going to intentionally make ours simpler they probably just didn't put that much more into it but so much to their benefit but so there are some gimmicky stuff like the augmented reality i still don't think i'd ever actually use it's fun and it works very fun and rather than having your gauge cluster sitting there while you're driving it's fun to just have a digital readout of what's happening you know what's funny about the actual augmented reality is that what it looks like is it looks like the real world but with the structure slider on instagram cranked all the way to the right so maybe that's why we like it just young enough make it look better but we need that and then also the the voice command thing this one actually has a return command i don't remember that in the last one what do you mean so there's a microphone back there so when they talk yeah it comes through here as well oh yeah it's not that long like it's cool but like come on they're literally six feet away yeah the next thing they'll have is like uh what's the sonar thing that bats do oh uh sonar no there it's called uh echolocation echolocation they'll do that yeah science boom um okay so this has got this is an upgraded one to the last yes this is the platinum sport platinum rather than just the sport we were in last time so we have some fun stuff oh they have uh this like cooled it's a cooler it's a cooler it's a cooler heated and cooled cup holders more exciting though more exciting more exciting wow we have the 36 speaker akg system and i'm sure it is absolutely legendary no it it i have problems with it it's great it really is great yeah uh it doesn't go that loud oh like it's probably louder than most people ever need to listen to it but if you really want to rock out it doesn't go that loud okay those speakers have been have been buzzing a bit buzzing like you mean the actual it's rattling yeah it's rattling interesting on certain like tote on certain pictures and then one thing i don't know whether this is like a compliment to the sound system that's a bit creepy in a second yeah i don't know whether it's a compliment to the sound system or a negative for the head up display okay but when you get to any bassy bit of the song any bass note it shakes the head up display so i don't know whether it's like oh this base is awesome watch it shake the head up display it all or it's like this should have made that better yeah that is so but the experience is not that different here it feels more sizeable in here like the it looks roomier and it is more sizable we do have a nice glass same as the s gls of the s-class yeah well i don't know i know you'll kill me if i do that yeah you know it's if we comment on mercedes we have to comment on this that is just as creaky um and i will say uh that the leather in here is in my opinion my humble opinion better than the leather in that mercedes except for the steering wheel that's doing whatever feels just a bit bass through yeah but like that steering wheel is not the nice like leather that you get on some on the s-class and but there is more theater to the steering wheel as well yeah it's got like the wood inlay and the chrome oh it's nice it's all it's all really good i do like this interior a lot and i think it is exactly where the escalade needs to be for the modern age yeah they've absolutely nailed it be honest do you really need a third row are you just buying one of these because they are the most boss vehicles on the road because if that's the case then get the escalade it comes off as more honest about what it is that said if you want a mercedes suv and you don't actually need a third row the gle with the e-active ride control doesn't feel like a class below for the same money yes the escalade achieves escaladeness better than the gls achieves s-classness and by that i mean it fits the nauseating instagram influencer level expressions used on the cadillac website to sell it better than the s-class does things like confidence is an expression of power and how it gives you latitude to grow your ever expanding legend like what remove the fluff though and it's still a solid passenger vehicle just one that doesn't match the smoothness and the refinement of the gls or the x7 but thankfully for escalade buyers they already don't care because as cadillac says it themselves its power to draw in those around you has never been greater what does that even mean well i don't [Music] know you

Channel: Throttle House

Views: 1,896,963

Keywords: Cadillac, Escalade, Mercedes, Mercedes-benz, Benz, GLS VS Escalade, GLS 580, Luxury SUV, 3rd row seating, SUV, Spot Platinum, Escalade Interior, 2020 GLS, 2021 Escalade, GLS 580 vs Escalade, GLS interior, Escalade acceleration, GLS acceleration, GLS 580 fuel economy, Escalade fuel economy, escalade review, GLS comfort, Escalade comfort, sport mode, V8, Pushrod V8, Escalade vs GLS, Escalade vs X7, Three row SUV, Cadillac Escalade, 2021 Cadillac Escalade, 2020 Mercedes GLS

Id: q4WqzmeLi5Q

Length: 22min 17sec (1337 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/nujabes02]

The escalade has crazy road presence. The Mercedes looks bland.

[u/lostboyz]

If anyone is curious about the offset sharkfin antenna, it's because of manufacturing. It's a hand operation and a single person can install it on a side, but not if it was in the middle.

The F150 is on the passenger side, the old ram 1500 was on the back drivers side (the new one is centered in the back), and all GM trucks have it on the front drivers side.

[u/AmericanExcellence]

Side by side, the Escalade makes the GLS look flimsy and goofy.

[u/007meow]

You count the curve James

[u/RicciRox]

I'd take the Escalade anytime. Such a menacing presence. Would help to expand my legend, too.

[u/jonnyanonobot]

The Escalade needs shorter fog lamps and bigger headlamps. There's a bit too much empty real estate hanging out underneath the headlamps currently.

[u/Uptons_BJs]

Its my belief that the Escalade only succeeded because the competition barely tries. For years, you had the Lincoln Navigator that never got an update, an Infiniti Q60 with a terrible interior, and a GLS that was overall subpar in tech and quality.

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In recent years, this segment really heated up, but it seems like the competition isn't going all out balls to the wall yet. Lincoln's navigator lacks tech and the fancy suspension out of the Aviator, the GLS has challenger tier leather on the doors and mustang tier speaker covers.

​

I think the Escalade is still king, but the gap is shrinking with each new entry showing up.

[u/Vik1ng]

Would really like to see the NCAP pedestrian safety rating for the Escalde.

[u/andrewjaekim]

I'm not a fan of Mercedes cars but their knock on its styling is odd. Mercedes have always been about understated luxury.

Then again I think their cars look boring too. but I don't think I'm their target market.