The 2026 Cadillac Vistiq is an upcoming all-new, three-row luxury electric crossover that slots above the Cadillac Lyriq and below the Cadillac Escalade IQ in the luxury marque’s rapidly-expanding EV lineup. Cadillac Society spies recently snapped photos of the Vistiq in the wild for the first time, giving us our first look at the vehicle in the real world.
These photos show off the Vistiq in natural lighting, allowing for a clear, unobstructed view of its exterior design. Interestingly, this prototype sports a design element that the model in the official photos released by Cadillac lacked: patterned graphics on the rear side windows.
The graphics in question appear to be comprised of strips that are arranged horizontally on the rear side windows. They start out as thin strips just after the rear-most portion of the rear door cutline, becoming thicker as they extend toward the Vistiq’s D-pillar. A similar design is found at the front of the vehicle, within the faux “grille.” The pattern also appears inside the Vistiq, where it decorates the lower half of the door panels as seen in interior spy shots recently captured by Cadillac Society spies.
2026 Cadillac Vistiq prototype
Cadillac Vistiq press photo
If that design looks familiar, that’s because the smaller Cadillac Optiq features similar rear glass graphics, potentially signaling that it’s a new signature for the design of electric Caddy models.
It’s unclear why the glass graphics aren’t visible in the official photos of the Cadillac Vistiq, which has unmarked rear windows like its big brother, the Cadillac Escalade IQ. One of the possibilities is that this could be an old prototype and that the graphics feature may have been discarded for the production model. Another explanation could be that the graphics are exclusive to certain trim levels and/or packages. Finally, another possibility is that the lines were not visible due to reflections in the press images, or they were edited out during the retouching process.
At the time of this writing, there’s still a lot that Caddy hasn’t revealed about the forthcoming Vistiq, including pricing, powertrain details and other specs. What we do know is that it will ride on a larger variant of the luxury marque’s BEV3 platform, and that it will keep physical buttons inside the cockpit to a minimum, as all infotainment functions will be controlled via touchscreens. Regardless, three rows of seating will be on offer, and one of the powertrain options will be a dual-motor setup with 500 horsepower and 450 pound-feet of torque on tap.
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