Dash wrote:
DFK! wrote:
Except for their Chinese market, I still don't understand why they kept Buick over Pontiac. It has no good target audience.
I know what you mean about Pontiac over Buick, but lately I'm understanding why.
The LaCrosse is actually really nice and the new Regal is very promising. It's a rebadged Opel Insignia which won car of the year over in Europe last year. The base model is kinda meh in terms of power, but they're coming out with a turbo and eventually... The Buick Regal GS:
Car looks sweet and should have decent power. Probably will be too rich for my blood, but still.
But the question is: who is the market for the Buick?
Young people think of them as Old People cars, by and large. Plus, American's don't want "almost luxurious," we either want a luxury car or not. Look at some of the extremely successful brands out there:
Honda/Acura
VW/Audi
Toyota/Lexus
Nissan/Infiniti
Where is the "almost luxury," middle-brand in those four nameplates? There isn't. There's the base model and the luxury model. The idea of the graduated car market fostered by GM/Ford/Chrysler for 60 years is gone, defunct. Continuing to act like it exists is.... bad management, IMO.
They're shooting for 30-40 year olds with the Regal, it's being built as an Audi A4 / Acura TSX fighter. AWD available, entry level luxury, sport sedan. At least that's what they say. I hear the base version is underwhelming in terms of sporty, but the turbo and GS should address that. I'm gonna try it out most likely and we'll see.