Unveiled in Monterey on Thursday night and on display throughout the Pebble Beach Concours d’ Elegance weekend, the Cadillac Escala concept sedan is billed as look at the future of Cadillac interior and exterior design. Pretty massive even by full-size luxury sedan standards, the Escala’s swept-back 4-door exterior housed an interior dominated by the curved, layered OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screens serving as the instrument panel displays.
Inside the Escala
The interior of the Cadillac Escala concept interprets what Cadillac President Johan de Nysschen calls a design future based on three massive revolutions in automotive technology: "Connectivity, autonomous driving and display technology." The first two are nothing new — our digital lives grow every day, and every carmaker is confronting the inevitability of self-driving cars — but Cadillac’s take on the design possibilities offered by display tech in the Escala holds some very cool promise.
Working with South Korean electronics giant LG on the Escala project to create curved-screen OLED screens. Wafer-thin and flexible, the OLED displays can be shaped and styled in more ways than a traditional flat display. This allows interior designers more latitude in how information is presented to the driver — as in the multi-layered display used by Escala.
Also: Class of 2017 – New Cars Ready to Roll
Outside the Escala
From a new evolution of the Cadillac grille, to the swept profile and kick-up beltline, all the way back to the split horizontal/vertical taillight treatment, the Cadillac Escala clearly enjoys playing with shapes. And while the car is built around GM’s rear-drive/all-wheel-drive Omega platform (same as the new Cadillac CT6), de Nysschen admits that the Escala "will probably never be produced." He assures us, however, that the Escala’s styling cues — both inside and out — are the first look at a "strong evolution" in Cadillac’s design language that will find its way into production models in early 2019.
