Results 1 to 14 of 14

Thread: The Last Buick

  1. #1

    Exclamation The Last Buick

    The Last Buick

    https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2019...he-last-buick/

    By eric - February 17, 2019

    It hasn’t been announced yet, but Buick won’t be around much longer. It’s already mostly gone.

    GM just announced the cashiering of the Cascada convertible – after less than three years on the market. This follows on the heels of the cancellation of the LaCrosse sedan, which leaves the Regal as the last Buick standing.

    Well, the last Buick car.

    There are still three Buick-badged crossover SUVs – emphasis on the badging. They are “Buicks” in the same way that Crest would be Colgate if you switched their boxes. The three models – Enclave, Encore and Envision – correspond to the ChevyTraverse, Trax and Equinox (respectively).

    None differing in their essentials.

    Or rather, their mechanicals.

    Buick – like Pontiac – outlived itself. The name limped along for a surprisingly long while after GM had sucked any real meaning out of it. Which in a very sad way tells you just what GM pissed away; buyers still came – though not enough to keep it going – even though there was nothing left to buy but marketing.

    Buy an Enclave – and get a Chevy Traverse with a different grille and blue rather than white backlighting for the instrument cluster.

    Envision an Equinox – without the bowtie.

    Buick, Pontiac – and Oldsmobile – were once upon a time car manufacturers in just about every way that term has meaning. They independently designed and built their own engines, which differed from the engines you’d find under the hoods of Chevys. Not that there is anything wrong with Chevy engines, but that isn’t the point. When you paid more for a Buick, you expected to not get the same thing as your neighbor who bought the lower-priced Chevy.

    Think about Buick’s great ones – Super 8, Wildcat, GSX, GNX. Did any of them have a Chevy engine? And wasn’t it their Buick engines, specifically, that made them great?


    The last truly great Buick engine – the 3.8 liter V6 – was used in Chevys – and also what was left of Oldsmobile and Pontiac, too. In turbocharged and intercooled form, the 3.8 V6 made a “Pontiac” – the 1989 Turbo Trans-Am – faster than the Chevy V8-powered Corvette.

    In a bigger, heavier Buick – the Regal GNX – it was even faster.

    Instead of capitalizing on that achievement, GM killed off the car it was installed in and replaced it with a dreary front-wheel-drive forgettablebox that got thrown away almost as soon as the owner made his last payment.

    The 3.8 V6 eventually went away, too. The plant that made them closed in the fall of 2008 – leaving Buick with rebadged Chevys powered by Chevy engines like the 3.6 V6 and 2.0 liter turbo four that are found in every remaining Buick car except the just-euthanized Cascada.

    Which, ironically enough, is powered by an engine GM doesn’t sell in Chevys.

    The Cascada’s 1.6 liter turbocharged engine isn’t a Buick-built engine – it is sourced from Opel, GM’s European operation – but it will probably go down in the history books as the last unique to Buick engine GM offered for sale in North America.

    But it didn’t indent sufficiently with buyers. Last year, Cascada sales were down 26 percent from the year prior – a hideous number given that in 2018 the car was barely two years out of the gate.

    GM never really gave the car a chance. Not unlike the leash-yank treatment meted out to the last real Pontiac, the 1984-1988 Fiero – which was pulled from the market just as most of the bugs had been ironed out. It might have saved Pontiac by giving Pontiac something you couldn’t get at a Chevy store.

    Of course, times have changed and GM is not what it was. The entire operation – Chevy division, GMC, Buick and Cadillac – have less market share combined today than Chevy had all by itself circa 1970.

    Keeping the husk of Buick around is frankly disrespectful as well as duplicative. At one time – some of us can recall it – Buick was among the automotive greats.

    Today, it’s Crest in a Colgate box.
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11



  2. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  3. #2

  4. #3

  5. #4
    Ya , guess none of Americas youth will get to enjoy the 1955 Buick Roadmaster . Will more of them turn gay ? Of course.
    Do something Danke

  6. #5
    Corporatists have murdered American Culture. Theyve slowly and systematically replaced both our culture and counter culture with cheap garbage that does not represent a reflection of a persons identity. Its very similar to School Uniforms stripping students of their individuality. The natural groups that we used to form, such as family or even a group of friends that enjoyed certain activities have been replaced with cheap corporate garbage making us the product for sale.
    1776 > 1984

    The FAILURE of the United States Government to operate and maintain an
    Honest Money System , which frees the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, is the single largest contributing factor to the World's current Economic Crisis.

    The Elimination of Privacy is the Architecture of Genocide

    Belief, Money, and Violence are the three ways all people are controlled

    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    Our central bank is not privately owned.

  7. #6
    Why couldn't it be the Prius?
    "Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration is minding my own business."

    Calvin Coolidge

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Globalist View Post
    Why couldn't it be the Prius?
    Last edited by Origanalist; 02-17-2019 at 11:53 PM.
    "The Patriarch"

  9. #8
    I'm still considering buying a used Buick Park Avenue. Never should have traded in the old one.



  10. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  11. #9
    So the last Buick is a Buick Regal with a base price of $40k? https://www.buick.com/buick-luxury-cars

    I am trying to imagine who a $40k Buick would be marketed to. I am imagining the smell of mothballs and Bengay and a driver going 15 miles under the speed limit would be the constituency for this car. For 40k, a Buick Sedan might be the last car out of every car on the planet I might pick.

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Krugminator2 View Post
    I am imagining the smell of mothballs and Bengay and a driver going 15 miles under the speed limit would be the constituency for this car.
    And 98% of all the other Buicks ever built.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    You only want the freedoms that will undermine the nation and lead to the destruction of liberty.

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by acptulsa View Post
    And 98% of all the other Buicks ever built.
    Didn't James Dean drive a Buick?
    "The Patriarch"

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post
    Didn't James Dean drive a Buick?
    Not that I ever saw.

    He raced a Porsche. He hauled its trailer around with a Country Squire. His character in Rebel Without a Cause drove a '49 Mercury, which is why half of the '49-'51s you see today have his name on their license plates.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    You only want the freedoms that will undermine the nation and lead to the destruction of liberty.

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by acptulsa View Post
    Not that I ever saw.

    He raced a Porsche. He hauled its trailer around with a Country Squire. His character in Rebel Without a Cause drove a '49 Mercury, which is why half of the '49-'51s you see today have his name on their license plates.
    Sorry, forgot the
    "The Patriarch"

  16. #14
    LOL - My son drives a Buick.




Similar Threads

  1. GM may import a Buick built in China
    By Anti Federalist in forum U.S. Political News
    Replies: 20
    Last Post: 08-20-2015, 11:45 AM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •