Larte Design Gives the Cadillac Escalade-V the Loud Treatment

• Larte Design specializes in over-the-top carbon-fiber body kits, and there’s one for the Cadillac Escalade-V
• Caddy’s biggest gas-fed SUV looks pretty restrained from the factory, but what about with a Larte body kit? Not so much.
• Since it’s a purely cosmetic twist, Cadillac’s factory warranty is preserved.

Cadillac lightly facelifted the Escalade for the 2025 model year, showing particular restraint with the top-flight V variant. Despite packing a supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 with 682 horsepower under the hood, the V basically looks identical to more modestly powered Escalades. It’s perhaps taking a page from the full-size Range Rover playbook, where big power is not something you necessarily advertise.

However, there are always going to be customers who bought the most powerful Escalade partially because they wanted everyone to notice. For these individuals, may we present the Larte Design Esthete body kit for the Escalade-V, offering a more visually striking take on the top-of-the-line Caddy SUV. Emphasis on striking, as looking at these pictures feels a bit like getting punched in the face.

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Larte Design

Larte Design is not exactly known for pulling its punches, having built over-the-top body kits for everything from the Mercedes-AMG G63 to the BMW X6 M. It takes a special sort of brain to look at a Lamborghini Urus and decide that the factory look simply isn’t aggressive enough, and you can find those minds at Larte’s Turin design studio.

It’s a bit like the Scoville scale in the world of hot sauce, where whether more is better isn’t really up for discussion. More is more. That’s the whole point. And, it has to be said, the Larte Design team does put a great deal of effort into the engineering behind its offerings. A few years back, it came up with pink carbon-fiber bodywork for the Escalade, and rather than just coating the elements with a tinted clearcoat, the carbon fiber weave itself was impregnated with the color.

Larte Design

Here, the Escalade-V gets a two-tone exterior in gloss black and red, with all of the exterior design elements formed of dry carbon. There’s a massive vented hood, a new front grille, aggressive wheel-arch extensions, carbon-fiber rings over the 24-inch multispoke wheels, and a rear spoiler and diffuser that would make the Batmobile proud. Thinking about that jutting front splitter encountering a parking curb is making us wince.

While the Larte Design body kit obviously isn’t for everyone, it’ll attract anyone who wants their supercharged Caddy to look like what Jeff Bezos would drive if he lived in the Mad Max universe. From the factory, there’s something to be said for the Escalade-V’s “speak softly and carry a big stick” approach. This body kit eliminates the speak softly part.

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Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels.

Source: www.caranddriver.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.