The Cadillac Escalade IQ is monumental, in that it’s practically both the size and the weight of a monument. We’re talking a machine 224.3 inches long in its standard-wheelbase configuration, weighing a minimum of 9,000 pounds, and carrying nearly 2.5 times the batteries of a Hyundai Ioniq 5. It’s a rolling love letter to conspicuous consumption, yet its standard color selection isn’t particularly conspicuous. Beyond a lovely orange and a deep shade of red, every other regular option is some sort of white, silver, grey, or black. That’s about to change, provided your pockets are deep enough.
That’s because GM’s poshest electric SUV is getting a Curated by Cadillac package, which adds a touch of Celestiq ceremony to an Escalade IQ. Much like the Curated by Cadillac package for the CT5-V Blackwing, the treatment for the Escalade IQ includes an enormous selection of paint colors, leathers, and trims, some of which are sure to suit your personal taste. Cadillac claims 160 different exterior finishes and 44 different interior colors are on offer, ranging from subtle to absolutely wild.
Granted, that doesn’t mean 160 distinct colors are on offer. That number seems to include high-gloss, satin, and matte finishes across select hues, although some of the selection is gloriously outrageous. Check out the color wall below. Yellows and oranges and a bright green loud enough to serve as a beacon. Fantastic. Also, browns. So many gorgeous browns.
Plus, it’s likely that 44 interior colors are underselling things a bit, judging by just how much varies in the photos Cadillac has released of demo units. Want contrasting inserts or whole bolsters? How about piping? Stitching? The console? The sheer number of permutations on hand is exceptional, as it should be, considering what the Curated by Cadillac program costs.
For context, Porsche currently charges $13,620 for extended-palette paint and $5,260 for deviated seat inserts and stitching on a Cayenne, and while that’s not as extensive as Cadillac’s program, it’s also not as expensive. However, process variations seem to be where pretty much all the expense lies. With Porsche’s PTS program and BMW’s Individual program, cars get painted in special runs and then put on the general assembly line for completion. With the Curated by Cadillac program, every special-order Escalade IQ gets pulled off the Hamtramck assembly line and finished by hand in the same Warren, Michigan facility where the mid-six-figure Celestiq electric sedans are built. It sounds labor-intensive, and Cadillac is charging $54,995 for the privilege.
That’s a huge amount of money for paint, leather, and trims. It’s more than an entire base-model Optiq crossover. More than wrapping a frankly enormous Escalade IQ once every five years for two decades. It’s expensive in the context of Porsche options, a rather bold move for Cadillac. Still, someone out there has to be brave and paid enough to spec their Escalade IQ in an outrageous hue, and I’ll salute them once it’s delivered. The world needs more bright and colorful things to deliver us from millennial grey.
Top graphic image: Cadillac
$55K for this package? They must be doing lines in the aptly named C-suite. I don’t want to spend that much on a whole car.
That looks like some classic Cadillac colors – maybe even Firemist colors?
GM has rightly gotten grief for decades of getting in early on tech and then abandoning it. In that regard, I’m happy to see them continue with their EV offerings despite the headwinds. But the “let’s shove ten million battery cells into a gigantic SUV” isn’t the thing they should be sticking it out with in my view.
So I looked up Hummer EV sales and I will say, they are doing better than I expected. 2024 was 14,000 units, 2025 was 15,800 per GM Authority. That’s like 1/4 of Suburban sales, not bad. Hell, it’s 4-6x Corvette sales.
Uhh, you’re way off on Vette sales. Here’s the numbers for all 3:
Vette
2021 26,216
2022 25,831
2023 53,785
2024 42,934
2025 25,835 (production problems severely impacted sales)
Suburban
2021 85,159
2022 50,951
2023 52,822
2024 44,400
2025 58,277
HEV
2021 1
2022 854
2023 3,260
2024 13,994
2025 17,279
2026 3,601 units (First half of the year / Jan–Jun)
Many of the 2025s were pull ahead sales with the EV incentives, plus deep discounting from dealers to clear excessive stock before the expected sales drop off we’re seeing this year.
Oh man I went back and looked at my source and I can’t believe how bad I fucked it up. I didn’t realize USA wasn’t listed first, I was looking at CANADA. Thank you for the correction!
Can the customization include CarPlay?
140K-220K for a fancy Chevy truck. Just, wow.
Much rather do a curated by Cadillac build(on a CT5V Blackwing) than pay for PTS. The interior options far exceed PTS; go into CXX territory for Porsche, which is definitely insane pricing.
I’m counting 45 shades of what I would call gray or silver, and six blacks. Over a third of the offerings.
How many people who want a custom color want it because they want an exact shade of gray?
I get WHY they are doing this and they might even find some buyers, but I still think its dumb to do it with an Escalade.
At that price point its closer to Porsche’s Sonderwunsch than comparing to the PTS program honestly.. though Sonderwunsch will customize just about any relatively sane request.
the problem is, it is too small.
Conversation in Warren Michigan a couple weeks back:
“We have all this special paint and leather and workers to do sewing and stuff for the Celestiq – and nobody is buying them!”
“Yeah, and did you see how badly that Celestiq did on Bring a Trailer a few weeks back? We haven’t even sold out on the first 25 Invitational models!”
“Mary is gonna be so concerned. She asks hard questions too, like “What did you do today?” and “Did you get my memo?” What are we gonna do, Guys?”
“Hey Dudes – I have an idea…”
I mean, a fully optioned and customized IQ is still half the price of a Celestiq, so you can get one for yourself and one for the wife, for the same amount of business tax write offs.
That’s twice the price of any color or pattern finish you want on a Slate , and you get a free truck too.
As for yellow, I walk past a place in Brooklyn that will paint your car yellow while you wait for a couple hundred dollars.
> As for yellow, I walk past a place in Brooklyn that will paint your car yellow while you wait for a couple hundred dollars.
I imagine you mean an independent paint-and-body shop that’ll do a variety of gloss hues, but I’m entertained by the idea of the folks who paint city cabs just buying that yellow in bulk and offering some to the general public on the side.
Susan Maintenance Corp. is a NYC taxi fleet/maintenance management company at 374 4th Ave in Brooklyn. Back when it was all Crown Vic’s they could change out the rear axle or transmission super fast. They were a couple blocks from my apartment on the way to the subway and you would walk by and there would be eight police cars. An hour and a half later they had painted them all.yellow. All they do is yellow as far as I can tell. Some black cars get mechanical work done but not paint.
It’s good looking work. Single stage, no clear coat.
Ahh, so that is exactly what you meant! Neat to hear about.
The base price they are asking is already insane. This is just another level of that. For $55k you could likely get more for your money and certainly more choices at a third party shop.
But you’ll have to count in the extra $50k of depreciation that will immediately hit your car the second it’s repainted.
It’s deprecating either way. Both massively. That $55k is in the ether.
A shop isn’t going to disassemble the entire car and repaint the bare body-in-white. It’s not comparable.
But I think that Cadillac should be offering proper custom colors at this point, not merely an expanded palette of pre-selected ones.
There are shops that put in a lot of effort in doing color changes and customization. If Cadillac wants to play in that pool. They need to offer any color and any material the buyer wants.
I concur.
That’s not $54k for paint, that is a total customization. That’s stopping the paint line, cleaning the equipment completely mixing a pretty much 1 off color and paint then stop cleaning the equipment again and on to the next color. Then all the other specific choices. Now a different interior no problem but changed to paint one car yeah that costs.
Agreed. I’m all for it being available! Why not? I get it if you want to argue some markup or another is excessive in other contexts, but not for this one. This is what it costs if you want a one-off factory Escalade IQ. Seems like a fair bargain to me. If you are into that kind of thing.
I do think it would be interesting for GM to note the most popular custom colors and make them available at a lower price when they could do a run of them at once. There are a few colors I could see them managing to sell a run of 50 of the more popular choices.
Part of the appeal of custom paint for some people is knowing that nobody else has it..I’m pretty sure some of those people woulld call the lawyers if some else had the same thing.
But the ones shown aren’t truly custom, they’re the ones offered by GM.
My point exactly.
that is the attempt at getting bentley style obscurity for certain things.
With all these awesome colors available, one wonders if they just bought a Cadillac, could GM also throw some D’s on it for a few grand more?
I’m pretty sure the Escalade IQ is standard 24’s
More! We need 30s!
That would sell too! I wouldn’t be surprised if 26’s will be on the refresh
It’s truly the perfect time for DUB Edition badges to circle back to being cool again lol
Anybody else remember this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb3THwZjnHY
The DUB pimpstar wheels with LED’s in the spokes that synchronized with the rotation so you could display whatever picture you wanted as you drive. They were so cringe they wrapped around to being ironically cool.