If there’s any reason to wait for the 2007 Cadillac Escalade to arrive, it’s for the interior. Stylists have made a huge improvement inside this SUV, ridding the new ‘Slade of all its cheap plastic Chevy pickup parts and replacing them with luscious leather, brushed aluminum, real wood, and a plush woven fabric headliner. Nothing inside looks cheap – except the giant script on the stereo and climate control buttons, which are smushed together in a jumbled grid near the bottom of the dashboard where they’re hard to see and use. At eye level, a lovely set of gauges is readily visible, accented with soothing blue lighting. Soothing, that is, unless you’ve got the latest download from 50 Cent thumping through the Bose 5.1 Surround Sound system.

Cadillac has injected a bunch of content into the 2007 Escalade. You can order DVD entertainment screens for the second- and third-row seats, a reversing camera that displays objects behind the Escalade on the navigation screen is available, and you can opt for a power fold-and-tumble second row to make getting into the way-back that much easier. Up front there’s a heated steering wheel as well as heated-and-cooled front seats, and with the Escalade’s remote start feature, you can automatically cool your truck on hot days and warm it on cold ones. Side curtain airbags are standard, and deploy in side, rollover, and severe frontal impacts. Rear crash sensors work to tighten the front seatbelts in an effort to reduce whiplash injury.