Only if You Really Need To  

As much as I liked the idea of riding around in a full-sized,
About as big and tall as the Alaskan mountain it's named after. (Photo: Justin Couture, Canadian Auto Press)
full-blooded Yukon Denali for a week, I don't have the budget for oil like a small industrialized nation, so I kind'a figured I'd mail it in and just drive it enough to get a feel for it and park it for the week.WRONGanswer! In the end I put almost a thousand kilometers on it, impressed most of the people at my office with its ability to take up almost two full parking spots, and impressed an entirely different bunch of people with its roomy, luxurious back seats and plush ride, and then left them complaining as to why I didn't have a DVD for them to enjoy on the car's roof-mounted entertainment system.

On the flip side, I had a lot of people asking me who would
Not the tree-hugger's way of getting from point A to B in rush-hour gridlock. (Photo: Justin Couture, Canadian Auto Press)
buy such a vehicle, plus a couple of obviously envious guys telling me that I was overcompensating - that's right guys, I'm overcompensating for your inability to come up with something original - thanks for sharing. Yes, I know the Yukon, and especially in its eye-catching Denali trim, is not an object of great affection in PC circles, so to them it probably seems completely out of tune with the times, which, along with higher fuel costs, is why sales of large SUVs and trucks have pretty much followed a pack of lemmings off a cliff, but there are people out there for whom this is an ideal and essential vehicle.

While the Denali makes a fine fashion statement, the Yukon is an ideal vehicle for someone whose family numbers between a large 5 or a small 8, and who actually straps their bass-fishing boat or camper to the back of the truck a couple times a year and heads up north for whatever family bonding or relaxation they can find. The Denali trim package may be harder to justify from a practical perspective, but it sure looks cool.

I wish I'd had a chance to pack it up and go pitch a tent for the
Luckily, some of my time was spent driving outside of the city on the highway. (Photo: Justin Couture, Canadian Auto Press)
weekend, but my week involved numerous deadlines so this truck barely saw the other side of the suburbs except when I had to drop my sister and Mom off half way out to the county. That's another benefit to living with a Yukon that reaches beyond mere capability and becomes downright serene. Load up five or six people and let it loose on the highway and you'll find yourself cruising above the legal limit without realizing how you got there. For juvenile fun, bury the pedal on an onramp and you'll hear the Denali-exclusive 6.2L V8 (exclusive amongst regular Yukons and Tahoes; the engine is borrowed from the Caddy Escalade, which has the advantage of lower profile rubber and mild stylistic differences) unleash a helicopter's worth of volume accompanied by a surge of 380 hp to get you to highway speeds in less time than it takes to ask, "Hey, does anybody know what the speed limit is around here?"  


While I normally execute such antics anywhere there's enough of a
Active Fuel Management? Unfortunately, not on the 6.2L. (Photo: Justin Couture, Canadian Auto Press)
speed limit to get the question out, I don't think I did it more than a few times in the Yukon; as I mentioned, I don't have the national budget of Dubai to support the Denali's habit of 18 L/100 km. If you drive it like an accountant you might get closer to the government's city/highway rating of 15.4/10.4 L/100 km, but I actually tried to get to places on time without slowing down every time I went up a hill. No matter the price of gas, I don't think I would ever trade down for the 4.8L in the base Yukon, but the 5.3L upgrade sounds reasonable for moving around that much metal with 320 horsepower and 340 lb-ft of torque to overcome inertia, and secondary advantages of being able to run on E85 (85-percent ethanol mixed with gas) and Active Fuel Management, which shuts down half the cylinders when you're loafing along. The 6.2 in the Denali is also apparently capable of running on E85, but seeing as how I didn't spot the lone E85 pump in Canada (I think it's in Ottawa) during my week with the big