I Really Wouldn't Rather Have a Buick

Buick is officially a monster-wagon brand now.

The Opel-made Buick Regal Sportback sedan (above) and its sister model, the Regal TourX wagon, will no longer be available after the 2020 model year.  Opel, now owned by Peugeot, is phasing it out, and thanks to the popularity of monster wagons, Buick will concentrate on just those and get out of the sedan business.  Which is a shame, even if you think Buicks are boring cars.  Buick has admittedly made some boring sedans, like the big old LeSabre of the early seventies and the Century of virtually every year, but it also offered interesting sedans like the Electra T-Type and, well, the Regal Sportback . . . and the later LeSabres and LaCrosses had elements of elegance and style that outweigh their lack of sportiness.  Understatement and subtlety were always the theme of Buick style and design, and traditional Buick sedans - and station wagons, like my uncle's LeSabre Estate - executed that theme flawlessly.  By contrast, the Enclave and the Envision monster wagons are as subtle as a pie in the face.

And anyone who thought that the monster-wagon "craze" was coming to an end has egg on theirs.

I give up.  It's become more obvious that automakers in general and Detroit automakers in particular have no interest in making or selling real cars in the U.S.  They instead push these big ugly boxes with cool advertising and get silly Americans to buy them because of the bigger profit margins on them. 

Even worse is that Americans show no signs of going back to simpler, more sensible vehicles. Volkswagen recently conducted a survey and found that 96 percent of American car-buyers ranked monster wagons as the best vehicles in value for money and 87 percent said that don't plan to own a vehicle other than a monster wagon in the future.  Also, alas, most Americans families say that monster wagons are replacing the living room as the place where they spend the most time talking to each other.  The front parlor has been replaced by the rear seat.

And I'm trying to convince Volkswagen to keep its base Golf in its U.S. lineup when the eighth generation arrives.  At least that's an easier task than a Buick dealer has in convincing me to by an Enclave.

I used to like Buicks because I thought they were handsome, comfortable cars, and in fact I like today's Buick Regal Sportback even more for the same reasons, plus it's a driver's car, the sort of car my uncle and my grandfather (my grandfather owned a Skylark) could never have anticipated.  But Buick always did have a lame side, and its switchover to an all-monster-wagon lineup has amplified its lameness exponentially.  And when 2021 comes, Buick will be one of the growing number of car brands I pass by completely at the auto show.     

Wouldn't You Really Rather Have an Opel?

In my earlier commentary on GM's sale of Opel and Vauxhall to Peugeot, I noted that many of the rebadged Opels sold in America in the 1990s were seen as lackluster by consumers in the States.

But what of some of the more recent Opel cars rebadged for sale in the U.S.?  Specifically, what of all those interesting cars at your neighborhood Buick dealership?

Buick and Opel have a history dating back to 1958, when the porthole division began selling Opel cars in America as captive imports.  Cars like the Kadett, the Manta and two-seat Opel GT weren't exactly big hits, but they had cult followings in this country - especially the GT, the Corvette-style look of which more than compensated for its Karmann Ghia-like performance.  Indeed, the connection between the two brands is so great that when GM brought  a sedan over to the U.S. from its Japanese subsidiary Isuzu, it sold it as the Buick/Opel, even though it was neither.

Opel, in fact, has been instrumental in giving Buick a sense of credibility it hasn't had since the original Riviera coupe debuted in 1963.  The current Buick Regal, which debuted in 2010 to considerable acclaim, is a Canadian-built version of the Opel Insignia, while the Buick Cascada convertible (below), which has received mixed reviews, is an Opel made in Germany, the real thing.

And watch out for the all-new Regal debuting at the New York Auto Show in April - it will be based on the all-new Opel Insignia (below).  This car may also be built in Germany.

And this time, a version of the Opel Insignia Sports Tourer wagon (below) may also be included in the new Regal's lineup.

And by the way, the compact Buick Encore SUV is based on Opel's Mokka model.  Opel's engineering and technology have also made their way into other Buicks, including the Michigan-built entry-level Verano, now its in last year and based on the same platform used by the Opel Astra and the Chevrolet Cruze. 

How will Opel continue to supply Buick with cars and components when it will be under the ownership of Peugeot, which is still not back in the U.S. market?  That's covered - for now.  The GM/Peugeot deal in the Opel/Vauxhall sale continues existing supply arrangements for Buick, as well as for GM's Holden brand in Australia, at least for the next six years, which is approximately how long the current generations of Opels should be in production.  But as current Opel models are phased out, and as future Opels are developed on Peugeot platforms, the future for Buick looks problematic.  As Kyle Campbell noted in the New York Daily News, sales of Opel-based Buicks accounted for almost two-thirds of the brand's sales in February 2017, and losing the Opel influence in future products once the current generation of cars is gone might be hard for Buick to overcome.  And at least one option being considered - outsourcing engineering from GM affiliates in China -  isn't exactly an idea that will make the American road that belongs to Buick great again. 

These are classy cars, though, and they're responsible for jettisoning Buick's stodgy image while maintaining its reputation for understatement.  And even though Opel is seen as a middlebrow car back in Germany, its higher-end models have been more successful in America than its volume car, the Astra, which was briefly sold as a Saturn in America just before that brand bit the dust.  There was a bitter irony to the Astra's brief availability in America; though GM created Saturn to show that it could build a good small car for the masses in its home market, Saturn's homegrown Ion, a successor to the original Saturn sedan of the early 1990s, was replaced by a Belgian-built Opel that turned out not to have any mass appeal in the States.  The recent collaborations between Buick have borne better fruit of late for GM, giving Buick a good deal of respectability and, more importantly, good sales.  It's also made Opel more important to the American market as a product development partner for Buick than it could ever be as a stand-alone brand here.  But without Opel, how will Buick fare then?

A spokesman for Buick told the press that the division "will continue to deliver our product plans with excellence and precision," and that can mean a lot of things.  But, as Kyle Campbell wrote, it should mean that GM should look at the automotive trends in Europe and learn from them, even if GM itself will largely become absent from the European market, if it wants to continue Buick's  resurgence.  "Though General Motors will no longer have a foothold in Europe," Campbell says, "that doesn’t mean it can simply ignore the continent. Moving forward, it must keep a watchful eye on the trends that arise in Germany, France and the U.K., because, as history shows, it’s only a matter of time before they crop up here as well."

And outsourcing from China simply won't cut it.

The General Is Motorin'

General Motors reached a milestone of sorts today when it paid back all $6.7 billion it borrowed from the United States government - not to mention $1.4 billion owed to the Canadian government - five years ahead of schedule, putting it on a sounder footing for the immediate future. As it struggles to regain a respectable share of the North American auto market, the taxpayers' remaining interest in GM - $45.3 billion in stock -will eventually be offered for sale. If GM's new products are strong sellers in the showrooms, that could be sooner rather than later.

Thanks to CEO Ed Whitacre, the General is a leaner and more efficient car company, having terminated several brands (RIP, Pontiac and Saturn) and sold Saab. Chevrolet remains the entry-level division, Buick is the medium-priced brand, and Cadillac remains the luxury brand, with GMC Truck the choice of people who wouldn't be caught dead in a Chevy SUV. In Europe, GM still has Opel, whose German engineering is already having a positive effect on Buick's products as the technology gets spread around.

I saw several GM cars at the auto show in New York earlier this month, and while I remained a die-hard Volkswagen enthusiast, I left the GM displays rather impressed. (Actually, I left Cadillac disappointed, realizing that the XLR two-seater had been discontinued, but that's another story.) They have some very formidable product, especially with the electrically powered Volt, which is miles ahead of the Toyota Prius, and I hope Buick builds the GS version of its new Regal. These cars are among the most modern and advanced vehicles GM has offered in a long time, and a happy coincidence of events - a new health care law that benefits its workers, debts wiped out in bankruptcy, corporate restructuring - have made the company more competitive.

Never has they saying that what's good for General Motors is good for the country been more true. Although folks like Senator Bob Corker, Republican of foreign-transplant-car-factory-rich Tennessee (VW is building a plant there too: full disclosure!), opposed this bailout, there were 77,000 good reasons to support it. That's the number of jobs saved by the government's action.

Having saved automobile manufacturing in this country, the government now ought to turn to developing more regional public transit.