The long and storied tradition of American hot rodding more or less boils down to “put big car motor in smaller car” and for over 70 years it’s been working like a charm. There’s no reason the old-school way of making a muscle car can’t work in the EV era, too. General Motors is finally working its way toward building some pretty competent electric vehicles, and it has a few options to choose from when it comes to building the ultimate electric luxury muscle crossover. With the announcement of the Lyriq-V coming to the market next year, I would like to offer Cadillac some advice.
Walk over to the GMC product line, steal the motors that power the gargantuan Hummer EV, and jam those motherfuckers in a well-appointed Lyriq to make a comparatively svelte speed demon.
GMC launched the Hummer EV with an impressive three-motor 1,000 horsepower drivetrain, which is nearly double what the most powerful Lyriq has available right now. At present you can order a dual-motor model, which has 515 horsepower and 450 lb-ft. Chevrolet’s Blazer SS bumps that up to 575 horsepower, but that’s not enough. Maybe Cadillac will smush the Escalade IQ’s 750 horsepower dual-motor setup into the upcoming Lyriq-V, which would be pretty cool, I’ll admit.
Cadillac’s current sporty car lineup allows for a warm V model (which used to be known as V-sport) and a balls-to-the-wall full bonkers V Blackwing model. The current CT4-V Blackwing and CT5-V Blackwing are among the best gasoline-powered cars I’ve ever driven, and it stands to reason that in the EV world, Cadillac will still want to offer some world-beating performance figures to match the likes of Tesla’s Model X Plaid, Lucid’s upcoming Gravity Sapphire, or whatever Porsche does with its Macan EV. For that kind of push, Cadillac is going to need four-figure horsepower. Luckily GM already has that kind of thing sitting on a shelf!
Don’t be chicken, Cadillac. Go back to your roots and offer a world class luxury experience with the kind of effortless speed that will snap necks. You deserve it.