Acadia Denali: Symphony in chrome

Denali National Park and Preserve is in Alaska. Acadia is the old French name for what is now essentially New England and the Canadian Maritime Provinces.

Those two chunks of real estate are 3,000 miles apart, but that didn't keep those intrepid marketers at GMC from joining them in automotive matrimony.

Actually, the Acadia Denali isn't really a bicoastal couple. It is the top-of-the-line rendition of GMC's large and largely pleasing crossover SUV. How top-of-the-line? Well, the base Acadia starts at $32,605. The Acadia Denali opens at $43,880.

In addition to being loaded to the headliner with leather and electronics, the Denali pays more attention to soundproofing than the lesser Acadians. It also sports a special Denali grille, as well as unique fascias, rocker panels, and fender flares. It also has more chrome.

Did I say chrome? The Denali designers certainly weren't stingy with it. It's on the grille, the bumpers, the door handles, the window sills, the exhaust pipes, the insignia, both fascias. Open the driver's doors and there's a chrome door sill with a lighted Denali logo.

(To properly celebrate the Rule of Chrome, I sang a bit of the title song from Hair, substituting the word car for head and chrome for hair):

Gimme a car with chrome

Long, beautiful chrome

Shining, gleaming,

Streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there chrome

Shoulder length or longer chrome

Here, baby, there, mama

Everywhere, daddy, daddy . . .

Despite the chrome overkill, the Denali manages to look rather upmarket and to exude that scent of macho, masculine, manly manfulness that is absolutely obligatory in an SUV.

And its utility score is nearly as impressive as its machismo quotient. Like the other Acadian citizens, the Denali's three rows of seating will seat eight when the second-row seat is a bench. (Because the test car was fitted with two captain's chairs instead of the bench, seating dropped to seven.)

Thanks in part to the sliding as well as the folding second-row seats, access to, and legroom in, the third row is much better than in most three-row SUVs.

The Denali also turns out to be quite the pack animal. With the second and third row of seats folded, it boasts a whopping 117 cubic feet of cargo space, which is Minivanville. With the second row upright, it provides 69 cubic feet. Even with the third row up, it still affords more than 24 feet, which is one large trunk.