Are heated seats worth it? Do rain-sensing windshield wipers and driver-assist tools like adaptive cruise control significantly impact your experience in the driver’s seat? If you’d asked me a decade ago, I would’ve laughed because I drove a four-wheel drive, two-door SUV with an AM/FM radio. The doors and roof were usually off because another adventure was always around the corner. Heated seats and other luxuries weren’t on my radar, but they certainly are now.
Over the last few years, I started shopping for better-equipped SUVs to accommodate my family’s needs. Models like the GMC Yukon for sale garnered a prominent place on my list of considerations because of GMC’s success at making luxury more accessible and affordable with its Denali trims. But what does that luxury look like? Why does it matter in an SUV like the Yukon?
Defining Luxury: Beyond Leather Seats
Luxury in the automotive industry has often been synonymous with leather seats and premium materials. While this certainly remains true today, the idea of luxury is much broader. Luxury encompasses the entire exterior and interior, with a strong focus on the cabin experience. It stretches beyond plush seating and impeccable details to the vehicle’s ride quality, features, and technologies that make every moment on the road more comfortable than anything you’ve ever imagined. Automakers like GMC showcase as much with the Denali and Denali Ultimate trims.
The Denali Treatment: Next-Level Luxuries
The Denali name is intricately tied to luxury across the GMC lineup. The American automaker is renowned for making luxury more affordable and accessible by outfitting its models with high-quality materials and advanced technologies. Yet, the Denali and Denali Ultimate take this luxury to the next level, especially in models like the 2024 Yukon. How so? Here’s a closer look at how GMC defines luxury in 2024.
16-Way Power Front Seats
Power seats are a luxury many of us take for granted, automatically using the button or knob to adjust the seat to the perfect position when we climb behind the wheel. In many newer models, you can also adjust the lumbar support. Yet, in true GMC fashion, the Yukon Denali Ultimate’s power seats are beyond expectations. The 16-way power front seats make finding the ideal driving position easier and include a built-in massage feature. As a result, you can bid farewell to driving fatigue and back pains by engaging the massager to truly transform your experience as you navigate the road ahead.
Four Corner Air Ride Adaptive Suspension
The in-seat massage is undoubtedly a luxury worth enjoying, but ride quality is just as important. GMC recognizes as much and equips the Yukon Denali Ultimate with a Four Corner Air Ride Adaptive Suspension. The suspension is a luxury that works behind the scenes by automatically adjusting each corner of the Yukon to heighten your control and improve the ride quality based on the conditions. The result is a cloud-like ride quality, with GMC also giving you manual control to raise or lower the Yukon’s ride height to suit your needs. For example, you can reduce the ride height for easier ingress, egress, or cargo loading. Alternatively, you can raise the ride height to improve ground clearance.
Power Sliding Center Console
GMC’s keen attention to detail is readily apparent in luxury features like the Yukon Denali’s power-sliding center console. This area rarely gets attention because it’s a fairly standard feature with its position making it difficult to improve or modify. Yet, GMC found a way to give Yukon Denali owners the opportunity to enjoy a more versatile and opulent cabin experience. For 2024, the console slides back 10 inches at the touch of a button, giving you more room for all the necessities without compromising the interior’s aesthetic.
Panoramic Sunroof
As a full-size SUV, the Yukon is spacious and accommodating to passengers and cargo. Yet, GMC goes above and beyond to increase the SUV’s spaciousness and opulence with a panoramic sunroof. The dual-pane design features a tilt-sliding window with express-open and close functionality. With the shade open, the cabin feels voluminous, filling the area with natural light and fresh air to genuinely upgrade your experience, whether navigating your weekday commute or venturing beyond the city limits for a weekend getaway with the family.
A Configurable Interior With Premium Materials
GMC strikes an excellent balance between opulence and versatility throughout the Yukon’s cabin. The interior features premium materials with the Denali Ultimate fitted with an Alpine Umber interior with laser-etched accents, exclusive badging throughout the cabin, and heated second-row seating. The materials enhance the plush seating across all three rows, which is fully configurable to your needs. The flat-folding second-row slides to improve access, or you can opt for second-row bucket seats that are powered to fold and tumble for better accessibility to the third-row. The last row is also well-designed for versatility and is powered to fold flat for maximum cargo space.
A Tech-Savvy Cabin With Two Rows of Digital Displays
Vehicles are seeing larger and larger digital displays to accommodate our reliance on technology to navigate our lives and the road ahead. GMC goes all out for the Yukon Denali and Denali Ultimate and outfits the SUVs with displays across the first and second rows. As the driver, you’ll find the cockpit framed by a 12-inch digital Driver Information Center and a 10.2-inch center touchscreen with the GMC Infotainment system and hundreds of features and in-vehicle apps. You can also activate the Yukon’s 15-inch Head-Up Display, which projects vital performance insights on the windshield as you drive.
Moving to the second row, passengers can enjoy the Denali treatment with the Yukon’s rear-seat media system. Available on the Denali and standard on the Denali Ultimate, the system outfits the SUV with dual 12.6-inch high-definition touchscreens mounted to the back of the front-row headrest. The tiltable displays guarantee optimal viewing and that your passengers are entertained wherever you travel.
A Concert-Like Experience in Every Seat
With expansive digital displays and a rear-seat entertainment system, it’s only fitting that GMC outfits the Yukon Denali and Denali Ultimate with a premium sound system to ensure you get the most from the SUVs’ extensive technologies. GMC outfits the Yukon Denali Ultimate with 18 high-performance Bose speakers throughout the cabin, including speakers integrated into the head restraints on the front row. With Centerpoint surround sound, the system delivers an immersive, concert-like listening experience throughout the cabin. Moreover, the speakers complement the trim’s luxurious aesthetic because they’re finished in dark-tinted stainless steel.
Hands-Free Driving With Super Cruise
The Yukon Denali and Yukon Denali Ultimate are designed to transform your driving experience by adding luxury via premium materials and cutting-edge technologies. Super Cruise is at the forefront of those technologies and is the industry’s first true hands-free driver-assist system. The feature works on over 400,000 miles of roads throughout North America and gives you the opportunity to thoroughly enjoy the drive without keeping your hands on the wheel. It can automatically change lanes and even navigate the road with a trailer in tow. Your only job is to keep your attention on the road ahead, settling in for an in-seat massage as you stream your favorite playlist.
Luxury: An Investment Worth Considering
How do you value luxury in an SUV? It’s easy to associate high-end automotive brands like Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, Land Rover, and Jaguar with luxury brands, but these models require digging deeper into your pockets. Fortunately, GMC makes luxury more affordable and accessible with the Yukon and its Denali and Denali Ultimate trims. As a result, enjoying the opulence of an upscale cabin, the comfort of plush heated and ventilated leather seats, and cutting-edge technologies like Super Cruise isn’t a matter of overspending. Instead, GMC puts luxury within reach and challenges drivers to expect more from their vehicles and treat themselves to the experience they deserve behind the wheel.
