How did we miss Colin Bird’s Cars.com post about Buick outselling Lexus for the second month in a row? I suspect it’s because we aren’t on the GM-blogger approved-stories distribution list. Typically, writing a GM puff-piece after going on the free parrot-the-party-line trip means you’re then rewarded with a sweet whip to roll around and impress your friends. The only way your humble author is getting a Buick this week is by renting one. As Peter Green once said, oh well.
Back to the topic at hand. Buick outsold Lexus in February. Does it matter?
A quick search of this site for “Buick” and “Lexus” will reveal that GM’s been peddling the “American Lexus” image for Buick since at least 2007, possibly earlier. Forget the utter humiliation of pitching a 108-year-old automotive brand with a fabulously storied history as a competitor to an alternative Toyota distribution chain founded for the sole purpose of giving middle-class American women suppository-shaped faux-prestige transportation modules. Forget the fact that GM felt the best way to accomplish that goal would be to destroy every last bit of the company’s heritage and to rename Buick’s renamed Chevrolets with names so moronic, so hastily plastered-on that they almost ended up selling the cars in Quebec as “The Buick Jerkoff”. Forget the fact that Buick virtually invented the idea of the restrained, conservative luxury car, only to fumble the ball to the point where the automotive media felt compelled to place that particular crown on a Toyota Camry with a “gold package”.
Even if you can look past all of that and accept that “American Lexus” is somehow a reasonable goal for the Buick brand… it would be nearly insane to think that GM’s managed to wiggle under that particular limbo bar. The Regal starts at $25,500 right now including the inevitable incentives, while the Lexus ES starts at $36,295. Even the crummy little CT200h is four or five grand more expensive than a Regal. Put another way, the same price gap between the Regal and the ES, applied in the other direction, puts you into Kia Rio territory.
Did I mention that it’s usually possible to rent a Buick for $19 a day in most major cities? Consider it mentioned. Call Enterprise and see if they can pick you up in an LS460. Laughter will follow.
You get the idea, right? This isn’t the target General Motors should be chasing. Using government assistance to discount-price one’s way into a market and then offloading one’s inventory to the rental fleets isn’t competitive, it isn’t prestigious, it isn’t “luxury”, and it sure as hell isn’t worthy of the Buick name. I suppose that is why we haven’t mentioned it — but that PR-unfriendly deficiency has been rectified. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to plug in one of my Heritage triple-fives and wait for my free car to show up…
The Buick Jerkoff? I must have missed that story.
In Quebec French* slang, “lacrosse” is (sort of) a reference to masturbation.
In 2005, GM Canada, alerted to this, must have convinced the mother ship to change the name of LaCrosses sold in Canada to “Allure”.
The new LaCrosse, however, is also the LaCrosse in Canada. I have no idea if Quebecers are yukking it up and frankly I don’t really care.
*quite distinct from “Parisian French”.
It’s more “Buick Wanking” than “Buick Jerkoff”. The difference is noun and verb
And no, Quebeckers don’t care. Considering that “Lacrosse” is also the name of Canada’s national sport** I don’t think it really occured to them.
** And no, Canada’s national sport isn’t wanking. Or at least not officially.
Psar: And no, Canada’s national sport isn’t wanking. Or at least not officially.
Unless you’re speaking of the dismissive variant whenever a federal politician opens his or her mouth…
E –
There is no minimum price for Luxury any more than there’s a maximum price. If Lexus wants to overcharge for tarted-up Camrys and Land Cruisers, that’s their prerogative. If Toyota is going to bring Lexus to America and establish it as the best-selling luxury marque while Buick languished, GM felt it was time hose down the tarnished trisheild and try to make something of it by doing the exact same thing Lexus does and succeeded at it, I say Kudos to them. I’d probably never buy a Buick (unless I find a near-mint GNX I can afford on ebay).
I’d never buy a Lexus either (again, unless someone wants to donate an LFA to me). Neither would you, it seems. You drive a BMW M Coupe, for goshsake. You’re set. The point is, many will. And it seems, many who would buy a Lexus are going with a Buick instead. Either because they like them or because they’re cheaper. What’s wrong with that? Why so angry about Buick? What does it matter? Luxury is in the eye of the beholder. As Sajeev mentioned yesterday, a Corolla is essentially a luxury car in India. It’s all relative, man!
Sorry to point this out, but check that byline again.
Hey! Just because this reads like one of Ed’s articles, doesn’t mean he gets credit for it!
To be precise, however, Buick is *not* doing exactly the same thing Lexus did. Other than the early years of the LS400, where the car was kind of obviously sold at a loss, Toyota never loss-led any Lexus automobiles. Nor did they give them away to rental agencies.
Buick may start low, but that’s the same as saying that you can get any BMW (or Porsche) at their base model price without waiting a year for your stripper to be custom-built – good luck finding one on a dealer lot.
Case in point – Buick Enclave – in theory, the model range starts under $35k, but it goes as high as $50k for the AWD CXL2, and routinely transacts at $40k and up.
Nor did they give them away to rental agencies.
Sure they did – tons of GS300’s ended up in rental fleets.
Whoa, sorry about that, Jack! I could’ve sworn Ed was in the byline.
And yeah; Buick really needs to stop selling cars to rental fleets.
It seems GM wants Buick to battle Lexus while Cadillac takes on the Germans…but then something like the XTS shows up and you think…uhh…shouldn’t that be a Buick?
As we saw with the XLR, any X-caddy is a placeholder for something else. Caddy knows the XLR is a half-step, or they’d call it a DeVille / Seville.
Rental sales are not all bad (assuming they are paying near retail these days). I rent cars 30+ weeks a year for work. I’ve gotten to sample everything from Corvettes to Camaros to Mustangs to a Caddilac STS the other week. Cars I would never even consider looking at for myself. And of course every single mid-size car on the market. I’ve driven more Camrys than the car jockey at a Toyota dealership. :-(
I rather liked that Caddy, not enough to buy one, but enough to change my previous opinion of them. I still think Corvettes are utter crap, but they are really, really FUN crap!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t Buick been the best selling luxury marquee for some time?
Also, why the Lexus bashing? They have their one major re badge, but the rest of their lineup is unique (In the US, anyway) and actually pretty good at what it is (Except the awful SC). I would think a man who drives a Panther could appreciate a large, refined, comfortable Luxury car, but maybe you’re just mad that an LS or GS would blow your doors off?
Still channelling Farago this week, I see, Jackie boy.
That’s cool. Some of us miss his rantage.
Hey, marketers lie. That’s what they do. You can’t expect the GM flacks to say, “We are selling tarted up Chevies and Opels here.”, now can you?
Buick isn’t an American Lexus as much as Lexus is a Japanese Buick: soft ride, conservative style, understatedness, impressive noise reduction, and dramatic coupes. Lexus (and most recently Hyundai) have been out-Buicking Buick for almost 2 decades. For shame that their competitors have to remind Buick of what it is.
Exactly right. When Toyota create Lexus for the US, they claimed to target Benz, but actually ate Buick’s lunch.
Now, it’s only right that Buick does the same as they recover.
Either way, it’s the same entry lux market, looking for a large, comfortable car without the float & bloat of a Panther chassis.
Oh don’t sell Lexus short, they did eat MB’s lunch too. You can definitely date Benz reliability along a BL/AL scale, Before Lexus and After Lexus. W140 is the latest Benz I would own, any others would need to be leases or free, with warranty and loaner cars. I daresay BMW and Audi suffer from this as well, though I don’t recall Audis being terribly reliable before Lexus either.
Heh, I picked a good time (last night actually) to change my display name (formerly xyzzy) to honor my LS400. I swear I did it before this article and these comments came out!
You’ll enjoy your new ride, Japanese Buick. Just rust-proof it annually for the next 10-15 years and you’ll see the the kind of buy-and-hold durability that’s made me a customer for life. Assuming Hyundai doesn’t steal my business if/when Lexus loses it’s way.
Thanks Waftable, I’ve already been enjoying it for quite some time. It’s a 1998 that I bought CPO in 2001 and it just turned 200K miles this January (hence the new avatar). As you said, it’s been bulletproof, a total buy and hold car, just as solid now as the day I bought it, with very little unscheduled maintenance.
Nah, a Lexus is too nice to be a Japanese Buick. The Japanese Buick is a Camry.
Jack, you are awesome! Most people would look at this as an example of Buick picking a target in Lexus that’s way too prestigious to be in the same ballpark. You, my friend, have taken the position that given the heritage of Buick, it is a sin for such a great marque to lower itself by comparing with a series of glorified Toyotas. You seem to add that it is even a greater sin that Buick has marched to the bottom.
It is a great sin that the maker of such great cars has taken to making such bad cars, but take away the CTS and you can say the same thing about Cadillac. Take away the Corvette and Camaro and Chevrolet’s been whoring itself out since the last Impala SS rolled off the line in Arlington.
Here’s a picture of a Colonnade Buick Century “Luxus” to put thing in proper perspective. Btw, I love Colonnade cars.
http://mclellansautomotive.com/photos/B38831.jpg
Jed, my mom had a ’77 Colonnade Cutlass Supreme with a 403. Bad ass car.
And if you put a 403 in that Century at the top of this page you’d have a bad-ass car too. (Sadly it would be a Olds-Buick cross pollination, but then Olds had more interesting engines IMHO for most of the 1960s and 1970s. But what do I know, I always worshiped at the altar of torque.)
I was hoping you would like GM Colonnades. I always thought that the 68-72 models were plain looking and had terrible interiors, compared to their swoopy successors. The 403 Olds was definitely a badass engine, but you could get a ’73 Gran Sport version with a 455. There’s a guy who lives near me who owns two of them. One is a 4-speed manual and the other is a “Sun Coupe,” with the steel sunroof. I will always regret selling my ’77 Grand Prix SJ. The 400 Pontiac engine was a real powerhouse in the tradition of big engines with low horsepower (180) and high torque (365). It also got an impressive 20mpg on the highway.
The real craziness is that the heaviest of these 73-77 intermediates was easily 400lbs lighter than that baby buggy looking Nissan Murano convertible.
It’s true. I can’t imagine the Buicks of my youth–the ’60s–as lowly rentals
As Buickman might say, “these guys wouldn’t know how to sell buckets of ice to people in hell.”
Memo to GM management and marketers. You can talk about heritage without wallowing in the past. But I still fear that none of this is possible while GM still has the “excess capacity” to feed. And frankly they missed the boat on killing excess capacity during bankruptcy.
I thought the entire point of the bailout was to retain & protect “excess capacity” in the form of UAW voters, guys who’d have been let go en masse under established bankruptcy law.
That was the point of the Government sponsored bankruptcy. I would have put the whole damn thing in Chapter 7 and let the Chinese buy up the pieces if they wanted them. (I know there were people and pensions at stake but I honestly in my rational economic heart think that would have been best for the country and economy.) Heck with the billions we spent we could have given every GM worker (white or blue collar) a nice fat check.
I have been car shopping for the last month or so. It happens that I drove the new Regal turbo and a Lexus IS350 AWD in the same day. I didn’t particularly care for either car but there really was no comparison between the two. Given the price difference, there shouldn’t be but I can’t imagine too many people cross shopping. I drove the Regal to see whether it was good enough (it wasn’t). I felt like I was wollowing in a sea of the cheapest plastic money can by (or Chevy is giving away for free). The better comparison if probably the LaCross and the ES350. Frankly with all the talk about well Buick is doing, I really expected more.
If Buick is the American Lexus, then what is Cadillac?
A one trick pony – the (rapidly aging) CTS and it’s variants. All the rest of the Caddy lineup is irrelevant. (Well, the SRX looks good, at least.)
If Buick is the American Lexus, then what is Cadillac?
Severly lacking in product.
Caddy is an Audi-fighter.
Right now, Caddy is dominated by 2 products: CTS sedan & SRX CUV.
Hopefully the coming XTS is just an interim bridge to a proper (RWD) DeVille & Fleetwood.
>>If Buick is the American Lexus, then what is Cadillac?
A good car to drive, after a war.
(first thing that came to my head, nearly forty-five years later).
“If Buick is the American Lexus, then what is Cadillac?”
A brand for the more “elite” folks in the retirement community who won’t settle for the Buick.
Buick is about as much “American Lexus” as Hyundai is Korean Lexus.
This sounds like a hangover from the Jalopy-fest of yesterday, of which I regret posting on. Is it me, or are these articles being more mean-spirited? The reality is, if heritage mattered at all, we’d still have genuine hardto – oh, forget it. I’ll stick with my humble Chevy, as I’m not a luxury guy, faux or not. I gave up on tradition many years ago when I accepted my 2004 “Bel-Air” as an Impala and made it work for me. If badge-engineered imports serve as the Buicks or other storied names, that means the American auto industry is finished except for the shouting. Jack could write a fitting obituary.
Zack,
I wrote this in a state of profound annoyance that:
0. Buick isn’t the company (the hell with “brand”) I remember and it will never be that company again;
1. GM is targeting Lexus, which is my opinion is the most cynically conceived brand (and now I DO mean “brand”) on the planet after Tommy Hilfiger;
2. The GM strategy to basically pay for positive news from third-rate sources is absolutely paying off and bad content will eventually drive out good.
3. My 944 is being kicked out of its storage space which means I have to put some money into making it run correctly;
4. XTube is running way slow today.
I’d love to take a crack at guessing Jack’s Xtube play-list but I’m at work right now. ;)
To be honest, my interest in pornography took a nosedive once I started meeting some actual sex workers and people in that industry. (As Jonny Lieberman loves to point out, I grew up very sheltered from that sort of stuff.) I’m not even reading 4chan that much anymore due to total burnout.
With that said… to paraphrase the Dos Equis Guy:
I don’t always look at xTube, but when I do, I take particular interest in the videos of the delightfully plump, yet freshly gorgeous in a very Midwestern manner, user “genuinelysanguine”.
The GM strategy to basically pay for positive news from third-rate sources is absolutely paying off and bad content will eventually drive out good
It works right up until you hit the likes of a) Consumer Reports and b) actual customer experience. Blogosphere cheerleading might make ad execs feel good, but it’s akin to paying for sex: s/he might say you’re great between the sheets after you’ve passed over the roll of bills, but the truth is that you’re still getting turned down by “normal” people day-in, day-out.
Jack, halfway through my comment, I started feeling anger welling up too, so I decided to let it end where it did, as I don’t have your insight. I 100% agree with you!
Jack – Lexus is definitely at a different average price point than Buick but there is significant overlap and both are aimed at the buyer who want maximum isolation from the whole driving experience. It should also be noted that if Buick sells Chevys with leather then Lexus sells gussied up Toyotas – particularly the ES that you mentioned in your article.
cadillac is well cadillac they are in their own world, mentally. You know they “Build Cadillacs” Funny mine has a mind of its own too, the CUV is crazy, and mental.
I do think Buick has made great strides in their line up. For a brand that was kept during the 2008 shutdown, and everyone was wondering why. They’ve emerged with some mainstream products that people like. Now they just need to bring back the Grand National built off the CTS-V, yummy.
I feel your annoyance. I actually posted about this on Autoblog yesterday, only to be told that, no, it’s perfectly appropos to consider Buick as a Lexus competitor. In fact, Buick is *better* than Lexus. Much better. And better than Mercedes, too. And BMW. Because they’re also Lexus’ competitors.
It reminded me why posting there is an exercise in pissing in the wind.
Autoblog’s cheerleadingeditorializing only made it that much more annoying, partly because it was so simperingly sycophantic, but mostly because it belittled Buick’s actual chievement (rising from the grave in a little less than two years and having three fairly good offerings. The crack about Buick’s transaction price being much better was a good one, mostly because I recall that Buick’s transaction price had nowhere to go but up.
Had the article read “Buick taking sales from ES350, RX350” would have been fair and accurate. The “Buick Beating Lexus” was so credibility-stretching that it actually lowered my opinion of Buick as a whole. I’m also certain that Autoblog and it’s fan base would be singing a different tune if it wasn’t General Motors and Buick.
There’s no shame in Buick making two or three very good cars. Leave it at that for now and try and fix Cadillac’s lack of a competitive product outside of the CTS. There’s nothing wrong with criticism of a job half-done, and everything wrong with echo-chamber cheerleading.
Aside from the ancient Lucerne, Buick only *has* 3 models: Enclave, LaCrosse & (new) Regal.
It’s one hell of a job for such a small line.
OTOH, for all intents and purposes, GMS is only 3 models as well: Sierra, Acadia & Terrain. The Yukon is basically a low-volume “halo” wagon for the brand.
So you figure, if Buick can get a proper “halo” Park Avenue sedan to lead the brand, on top of the coming compact, they might see another 15+% sales growth.
I don’t think Buick really needs a “proper” flagship. The Lacrosse and Enclave do that job just fine, though I will admit you could make the Lacrosse a little wider and perhaps a bit longer. Call it a “Lacrosse XL” and call it a day.
Leave the ultra-lux flagship for Cadillac, who sorely needs it.
A slightly larger & longer LaCrosse “L” / “LWB” under a “Park Avenue” moniker would be just fine.
I’d look at a nice 1959 or 1960 Buick 2-door hardtop or 4-door sedan. They were the best-looking of the 59-60 GM cars. Anything they’ve built since 1978, not so much.
When you write something in a ranting meander, you can end up with a reader take-away of “ha-ha” or “whoa”. There’s a thin line between the two inferred tones. This aricle catapulted over that line somewhere around the part where Toyota was selling medical goods to women. In fact, I’d say it overshot “whoa” and landed squarely into “seek help.”
I get the anger. I really do. GM has done a wonderful job of screwing the pooch over the years, but it’s hard to take ths article seriously, and it’s frankly nasty tone detracts from the credibility of an author who I’ve seen write at a much more professional level.
Nah, don’t seek help, Jack, you’re entertaining this way. I’ll take passion and snarkiness over professionalism any day.
I would pick an RX over an SRX, Avalon over Lucerne, or Camry over Regal in a heartbeat.
And the market agrees.
Oh, and Genesis sedan over DTS/STS.
@WSN…… Dude, go out and buy the Cadddy, and I will buy the Genesis.
Well do a straight trade eh?
The big question seems to be, do these 2 play in the same arena? This was something that I felt the article never addressed and gave it the “brought to you by Buick” slant.
If you do some rough math of comparing Feb sales to base msrp (I know it doesn’t reflect real world pricing and discounts but it does give a usable base for a price/sales mix).
Buick average msrp based on sales, $32.3 vs. $40.9 for Lexus and $41.5 for Cadillac.
So is Buick in the same class or does the 26% Lexus premium make it apple to oranges?
Price-wise Cadillac and Lexus compete. But in the whole “Chevy with leather vs. Toyota with leather” arena then it’s Buick vs. Lexus. Cadillac with the CTS and STS is trying to be “BMWs that swill Pabst Blue Ribbon.”
“BMWs that swill Pabst Blue Ribbon.” Dan, my friend, you’re making me thirsty! A nice, cold beer will temper my increasing anger, as I’m channeling Jack’s frustration the more I re-read the article.
Base MSRP isn’t a good reflection for comparison. To properly compare Buick vs Lexus, you need average transaction prices out the door. In all likelihood, the brands are closer than their base MSRPs might suggest.
If you go to TrueCar.com, and do a digging, the average Buick sold in 2010 transacted at $36.5k. That’s well up from the $29k industry average, but not as good as the $42.8k for a Lexus.
Of course, when you look at the very top top, average transaction prices are:
$48.2k for Caddy.
$49.1k for Benz
$52.2k for BMW
So in context, Buick is doing quite well, slotting between Caddy & Chevy, while Caddy is competitive with BMW & Benz. Based on their position and pricing, Buick probably can grow quite a bit more.
the Buick dealers are the strength of the division. it’s heritage has survived, although bruised internally by the holding company GM, moreso than anything done by the Japanese or Europeans. find it astonishing that the once strongest corporation in the world came to be populated by the worst failures in the industry, hence my theory that it had to be on purpose, no one is this stupid.
Buick dealers are the strength of the division. ownership by GM is the greatest weakness.
Forget Lexus, Buick’s main competition is that pathetic, near luxury Brand at Ford…Lincoln.
Buick: 15,807
The brand of rebadged Fords: 5,948
GM is doing something right…much to the disappointment of TTAC.
How many jobs has Lincoln’s shitty baleen grilles cost?
Silvy, give it a rest. When nobody’s talking about Ford and you bring it up your obsession becomes way too obvious, and annoying.
I feel like I’ve been here before. I wonder if this recent sales success is do to the recent introduction of the Regal. If so, how soon can we expect the typical sales drop-off like the Malibu, Solstice/Sky, etc?
@ John R……..You forgot to mention the Camaro. “Typical sales drop-off” it seems that was the common refrain around here a couple of years ago. BTW Camaro is still selling 6000 a month….and the convertible isn’t in the showrooms yet.
Who mentioned the Camaro save for you? I didn’t forget about the Camaro and I didn’t mention it as its selling, the others don’t…now. It may be the exception that proves the rule.
@John R……Its like a broken record…..and all the GM bashers repeat over, and over, again. BTW.. Malibu is still selling well. Oh yeah I forgot…. “fleet sales”.
Buick division would have gone the way of Pontiac or in the place of Pontiac were it not for China during the bailout or reconstruction. There is no denying that fact. They make serviceable cars no doubt now but they honestly shouldn’t be compared to Lexus. Buick for all its history is still a mass-market brand, Lexus has never been.
A Lexus ES is a leather Camry. And a RX is a tall-roof leather Camry wagon That’s still mass-market.
History? Buick survived because of China and the last emperor who drove a Buick. Putting anger (frustration is probably a better term) aside, Buick has done well regardless of the lineage of its cars. Yes, GM has sacrificed its heritage, but what company hasn’t? When was the last time you could buy something with the names of “Zenith”, “RCA”, etc? My inner feelings go all over the map, and Jack replied to one of my comments above with a list of factors (the car-related ones) that, when I read them, I thought to myself: he’s right.
You’re right, A friend of mine got an ES several years ago and I got him pretty upset by calling it a Camry every time I saw him. I was thinking of the LS and GS cars not being mass-market.
My wife had a gen 2 ES. Like the gen 1, the doors and glass were identical between the Camry and the ES. Lots of parts were clearly interchangeable. Since then Lexus has done more to differentiate the cars.
Of course, Ford has yet to learn that particular lesson with their Lincolns…
As far as I’m concerned, Buick as a brand mainly exists to provide an appropriate marque for similes about having been thoroughly thrashed by something or other. To wit:
“Jesus, man, what happened to you? You look like you got run over by a Buick!”
“‘The Matrix Revolutions’? I’d rather get hit by a Buick than watch that crap.”
It just doesn’t work with other names. “Hell, I drank way too much last night; I feel like I got crushed by a Hyundai.” “Whoah, check out Steve – he’s not looking too good… Hey, Steve, what happened? You get into a bar fight with a Lexus or something?”
Buick must live on. Case closed.
Or to quote Jack Nicholas “its like putting on the hood of a Buick”
six-nine Buick
deuce keep rollin’
on hubcap
’cause three got stolen
There has been a lot of GM-haterade on TTAC lately. Yeah, Buick isn’t what it used to be. Welcome to 40 friggin’ years ago. Time to get over it. Buick is a different car brand, and it ain’t going back. You sound like a bitter old man, and it seems that GM can do no right these days on TTAC.
I’m really getting tired of the constant GM bashing. I’ve got no problem with calling them out on their issues, but you guys seem ready to turn every achievement into a “This is why GM still sucks” rant. Lexus sales are down. Buick sales are up. GM is marketing Buick as the American Lexus. It could be a coincidence, better products, or better marketing, but whatever it is it seems to be working. Would it kill TTAC to say something positive about GM for a change?
Chris, when you’re starving a few crumbs take away the pain. that my friend is a far shot from well nourished.
@Chris DeMorro….”there has been a lot of GM-haterade on TTAC latley
lately?
GM has done plenty worth hating on, and I always appreciated when TTAC called them out on it.
But posts like this one, and lambasting GM for bringing out four bloggers to the Detroit Auto Show (when Ford brought in 100 bloggers, including me, from around the world) seems like hatin’ just for hatin’s sake. Is that buying off bloggers, or trying to use social media to get back into the good graces of car buyers after a very public bankruptcy?
Instead of Jack celebrating the rebirth of Buick as a brand car buyers are once again considering, at the expense of the once-indomitable Lexus, he is complaining that GM should be comparing Buick to…what, exactly? Mercury is dead, Lincoln is languishing, you could make the case for Chrysler, but what else is there really? So GM aimed the Buick bullet at Lexus, and they came out ahead. For once.
Small steps for a brand that was all but dead three years ago. Give GM some damn credit.
“I’m really getting tired of the constant GM bashing.”
Says the infamous Prius basher.
See, the ad hominem game sucks, doesn’t it? Please try to stick to the valid, on-topic points (you make several) without making your disagreement with this piece into a sweeping critique of TTAC’s editorial policies. If you would like to discuss TTAC’s editorial policy, please message us via the contact form.
No, Ed. Chris is on point, whereas Jack (and by extension, TTAC) is ranting like a lunatic.
Yes, Buick releases pricing for “strippers”, but those aren’t what Buick sells. Buick’s average transaction price is roughly $10k higher than the $26k number that Jack rants about. You simply can’t extrapolate from one factiod to the entire brand that way. Not when GM and sites like TrueCar make it easy to look up actual facts.
If you look at average luxury car transaction prices, Lexus isn’t particularly impressive. They do marginally better than Acura & Infiniti, but marginally worse than Lincoln & Audi. The big dogs are BMW, Benz & Caddy, averaging over $48k each – a solid 10% above the second tier that Lexus runs in.
Buick transacts 10% below Lexus today, but is moving up fast. It’s highly conceivable that they close half the gap in the next few years as they (re)build reputation. Certainly, even if they do basically nothing, word of mouth alone can propel them upward on a “value luxury” basis.
OK. GM should satisfy the author (and Buickman). Immediately re name the lines to Wildcat, Electra 225 and Park Avenue. Make them larger. Vinyl bench seats, white walls on everything! Portholes for all!
“Sorry, not a match and the board goes back.”
Given their relative sizes it should be “Regal (or Century), LeSabre (or Skylark, or Special depending on the decade), and Park Avenue (or Electra or Roadmaster again given the decade.) Give me a choice of cloth, leather, or Naugahide and I’ll take the naugahide (ya know since I’m planning on having lots of children and they tend to be heck on cloth and leather.)
And they better get the dang number of portholes correct. (No it’s not based on the number of cylinders, it’s based on the ‘trim level’ of the vehicle in question.)
(No it’s not based on the number of cylinders, it’s based on the ‘trim level’ of the vehicle in question.)
Damn – here I’d been hoping to see what they’d do if they brought out a straight five.
PeriSoft: I have an answer for you: Buick Colorado! You could buy one with the five-cylinder engine. Not a good choice, I hear.
People are forgetting that the HS is just a gussied up Corolla with a hybrid system.
MikeAR – China did play a part but since the donor cars are Opels and European cars cost more than US cars (Base Euro Passat in US costs $27K, Honda Accord in Europe is Acura TSX here, base price $30K etc) then Buick made more sense. Since Buick can command more of a price premium than Pontiac could. Also Buick was international which did Pontaic in and will do Lincoln in.
I will be very interested in what the new Ford Fusion is like, since it is meant to be the same as the new Mondeo – which based upon the Honda and Opel examples above means starting around $27K – obviously not going to fly in the US where mid-sizers start at $20K. We will see what gives.
Isn’t the wild Nauga on the endangered spcies list?
Please adopt a NAUGA today. http://www.naugahyde.com/promoitems_nauga.html For the cost of just a weeks worth of lattes you could help save this endangered species.
I understand that the Alcantara is even more endangered.
I know a Buick dealer who was extremely unhappy when the LeSabre was dropped from the lineup without a proper replacement. Even though the car was aging in the early 2000s, he could always count on selling decent numbers of them at a good profit, and the admittedly older customers were almost always quite happy with their cars. The follow-on Lucernes have gathered dust on the lot. Up until 2001 the LeSabre sold in excess of 200,000 units and even in its last year (2005), Buick managed to sell more than 120,000.
Please correct me if I’m wrong but I was under the impression that the Lucerne replaced the Park Avenue and the Lacrosse replaced the LeSabre.
FWIW my local Buick dealer has a 2009 Lucerene sitting on his new car lot (fairly basic model, V6, not many options) that he still hasn’t be able to sell.
The LeSabre was a high-quality car which appealed to a shrinking audience. I know one guy who owned three in a row. The Lucerne and LaCrosse didn’t strike the right value chord with those folks, particularly with the infamous Northstar involved.
I inherited a 1994 LeSabre in 2008 in pristine condition and with only 26,000 miles on the odo (it had belonged to my mom). After some debugging and fixing of some mechanicals (mainly because it had sat in a garage almost undriven for 12 years), it has been my daily driver. While I’m a longtime Honda fan, I’ve learned to appreciate the Buick quite a bit – it’s smooth, comfortable, fairly economical to drive, reasonably torquey, roomy, and easy to fix. In short, a better car than I expected and I can see the appeal of these. I get fair number of compliments on my car, and not just from old folks either.
The Lacrosse was really more a replacement for the 1997-vintage Century. Since the LeSabre was dropped, Buick hasn’t offered a moderately-priced “family” biggie, unless you want to include the SUVs.
Forget the utter humiliation of pitching a 108-year-old automotive brand with a fabulously storied history…
Replace “pitching” with “terminating” and you’ve got Oldsmobile! At least Buick is still around.
I think your outrage is a few years too late Jack.
I still like the IS (in RWD version – allows me run different rubber front and back). Jack’s scorn at its brakes and Michael’s scorn at the steering do not faze me.
Jack,
I must be confused about your age. Thought you were younger than me (I’m 54). One would have to be my age -at least- to remember Buick as having a heritage. Either that or one would have to read Buick history and realize that it once did have a heritage. I can remember the doctor making house calls and pulling up in his dark (black or midnight blue) Buick.
For people under 50 Buick has never, in their memory, been anything but a Chevy with different badges and a different grill. The “heritage” was lost before Lexus was conceived.
On the matter of Lexus being the “the most cynically conceived brand (and now I DO mean “brand”) on the planet after Tommy Hilfiger;” –IMO that’s the brilliance of the Lexus brand. No pretense of being a “drivers” car (While actually selling to fat-assed businessmen who can’t parallel park much less push the car to it’s limits in the corners) No pretense at appreciating German “craftsmanship”. In fact there are only two selling points for the Lexus – One: Here’s your Buick (or Caddy) but this one will actually hold up in the long run and start every time you turn the key. Two: You pay several thousand more for this Badge as compared to the Toyota badge because you want to show people you have more money than they have. That’s what “luxury” is all about – a display of wealth. Actually Lexus is probably the only honest luxury brand.
TTAC research shows there was really nowhere for Buick to go than up.
http://images.thetruthaboutcars.com/2010/05/Picture-40.png