When you think Cadillac SUV, the Escalade is what comes to mind. After driving the 2023 Cadillac XT6 Sport AWD, It’ll be the first Cadillac SUV that comes to mind. Although the color we had the XT6 was in a mundane silver, the design lines made this such an exciting SUV to look at. I would personally have gone with their blue or red color to command attention. Since this is the sport trim, you get the black grille which I think is the better design of the ones offered. The Onyx Lite package is almost a requirement which makes all the trim black.
Getting in the XT6, you’ll see some of the Sport aspects of the model. The interior trim is carbon fiber that has a slight yellow tint to it which resembles kevlar print. I did wish the seats were a little softer and not as sporty for longer road trips. The venting option on them was really good to cool the black leather on the Texas summer days I had the XT6 on. This XT6 was configured in the 6 passenger configuration. That means the second row were captain’s seats and the third row completed the fifth and sixth seat. I would’ve personally selected the 7-seat configuration as it doesn’t have the opening in the middle for cargo to slide forward in cases of abrupt braking.
Under the hood, the 3.6L V6 engine was outputting 310 horsepower and 271 lb.-ft. of torque. The 9-speed auto did feel a little on the long side but I had no issues with it shifting to the correct gear when I needed to get the sportiness going. I did enjoy the touring drive mode which made this a front wheel drive only configuration to help with gas savings. I do recommend switching to sport drive mode in cases where you need the grip as the touring mode did make the front wheels spin under hard acceleration.
I was ultimately debating if this is the next SUV I’d like to purchase. I felt it was a more practical version of the Escalade that Cadillac has had so much success with. Now if we can get a “V” supercharged model, I think it would be in my driveway in no time.