“Cadillac’s brand manager says, ‘research showed that there was a real need for the EXT.’ A real need for a Cadillac pickup? Really? If so, then here are a few things that I really need: An air-conditioned front yard. Iguana-skin patio furniture. Stigmata. Mint-flavored Drano. Gold-plated roof gutters. A 190-hp MerCruiser SaladShooter. A dog with a collapsible tail. An office desk that converts into a Hovercraft. Chrome slacks. A lifetime subscription to Extreme Fidgeting. A third arm. A fourth wife. A smokeless Cuban Robusto. Reusable Kleenex.”

-John Phillips, Car and Driver Editor at Large

Caddy’s Big and Small—Car and Driver, March 2002

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John Phillips started writing for for Car and Driver at the tail end of the Nixon administration, and you’ll still find his name in the magazine’s bylines today. This piece is from March 2002, halfway through his ongoing tenure. By that time, it seems, he had earned himself some leeway, and used his status as Editor-at-Large as an excuse to go fully rogue. His assignment was to review the new Cadillac EXT, but what made it into print was a prescient cultural rant that pulled no punches. The full piece is included above, and we’ve pulled out some of our favorite passages and themes below.

By 2002, pickups had long become a familiar sight in suburbia, and the EXT (introduced three model years after the mall-hauler Escalade) was the first real, actual, truck-truck aimed at the affluent. But how to sell it? Cadillac aimed their first marketing salvo at an existing overlap between pickup owners and moneyed buyers: horse people. Phillips quickly rendered the notion absurd:

“It may frighten your horses. We mention horses because Cadillac mentioned them first. ‘This is a great vehicle for suburbanites who own horses,’ they said. We don’t agree. We couldn’t fit one in back, even with the “Midgate Utility Enhancement System” (MUES) fully enhanced, extending the bed to eight feet, one inch. In fact, the horse nearly kicked out the removable backlight before we got its attention with a 500,000-volt Panther stun gun ($99.95). Did you know the tonneau comes off in three 20-pound chunks? The horse learned this first.”

At $49,990 (over $94k in today’s money), the EXT was priced much like today’s luxurious full-size pickups, and was based on the new GMT800 platform. Cadillac, remembering the snark that the introduction of the GMT400 Escalade occasioned a few years earlier, was aware that the idea of a luxury pickup might strike some as even more absurd. They did their best to hedge on the concept.

“Cadillac’s engineers are sensitive about the word ‘pickup.’ The assistant vehicle line executive for full-size trucks gets quite huffy as he reminds, ‘The EXT is based on a utility chassis, not a pickup-truck chassis.’ He means the Chevy Suburban. We know why he’s touchy. For many years, Car and Driver insisted it was a lifestyle, not a magazine. None of our parents ever bought this.”

But how did it drive?

“I drove this Cadillac to our 10-Best loop to test its handling. Later on, I came back….At one point, we got the EXT up to 107 mph. That’s all we’re going to say about that.”

In hindsight, the EXT set a precedent for today’s everyday trucks—whose cargo space and capability seem have an inverse relationship to their size and comfort—which even a jaded auto scribe like Phillips was willing to countenance.

“It’s a serene freeway cruiser, in the manner of modem Greyhounds that are simple to nurse downstream as long as you’re not impinging on vast portions of the adjacent lane…A ‘Road Sensing Suspension System’ (RSSS) comes standard. Sure enough, it senses roads. But can it sense outdoor carpeting, corduroy, Florentine velour, or the decorative lava around Mrs. Zeile’s marigolds? All we can report for sure is that the EXT is a dream on gravel.”

Twenty-four years ago may seem like the Upper Paleolithic when it comes to computer technology, but the EXT was possessed with (or by) an array of sensors and programs and profiles that still sound familiar.

“This Cadillac includes an ‘Ultrasonic Rear Parking Assist’ (URPA), so that you don’t back over a runaway bison or a Humvee belonging to the military police. Cadillac says the device ‘now incorporates a new snow, ice, and mud algorithm in its software.’ What it does is this: It works to tell you when it’s not working.”

“There’s even an in-dash computer program called ‘Vehicle History Last 15 Days.’ Ours recalled the Battle of Hastings, the movie Nurse Nancy, and quite a bit of time spent idling in a Krispy Kreme parking lot.”

Despite his earlier protestations, Phillips clearly sensed how the EXT met the moment, and what it meant for the future.

“[B]ack in 1976, Cadillac buyers didn’t want their luxury sedans to be confused with anything so mundane as a truck. Hence, a car-based pickup. A quarter-century later, Cadillac buyers don’t want their trucks to be confused with anything so mundane as a luxury sedan. Hence the EXT. I didn’t say any of this out loud.”

Two decades and change later, truck manufacturers and owners have fully embraced the pickup’s descent into decadence. The EXT pickup was discontinued in 2013, when the new GMT K2XX platform took over—luxury trim levels available on the new Silverado rendered it redundant. Over the last decade, the pickup has continued to grow in size, with the average full-size quad-cab straining to fit between the lines at the local big box store. Indeed, most of today’s trucks boast even less utility than the first-gen EXT, which had cool tricks like a fold-down midgate and storage boxes in the sides of the bed. Now, CarPlay has taken priority over cargo capability, and drivers operate under Instrument Flight Rules with the aid of warning beeps, flashing lights, cameras, and haptic ticks and buzzes. Visibility? That’s Someone Else’s Problem.

Thankfully the pendulum has begun to swing back toward modesty, and the compact pickup is attempting a comeback. Kei trucks are being imported in greater and greater numbers, and their owners are fond of showing them out-hauling vehicles four times larger. But the EXT has shown recent popularity on this site; maybe its appeal is similar to that of Cadillac land yachts from the ’70s and ’80s, luxury status symbols from a bygone era.

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