A July 2016 surge to 22,960 sales produced the best month of U.S. sales for General Motors’ Buick brand in nearly three years.
“Year to date, Buick retail deliveries have grown 6 percent,” General Motors claimed in its monthly release, “and Buick has gained 0.1 percentage points of retail share.”
GM also said 2016, with 114,105 retail sales through July, represented the best seven-month retail start to a year since 2005 in the United States.
But don’t get too excited, LeSabre lovers, Skylark supporters, and rooters of Regals. We’re talking about 2005, when U.S. Buick sales had already fallen by more than a third in only three years.
In fact, year-over-year, total Buick sales in 2016’s first seven months are only 62 units stronger than they were at this stage of 2015. Total Buick volume in 2016 is down 3 percent compared with the first seven months of 2014, when Buick reported 131,155 sales. That doesn’t sound like the best start to the year since 2005.
But remember, the claim that this was the best start to the year since 2005 pertains only to the retail front, Buick spokesperson Stuart Fowle confirmed last week. GM did not historically report separate retail/fleet/total sales figures, as is the industry standard, and GM still does not report retail figures for specific models.
To substantiate the claim, Fowle supplied TTAC with a decade’s worth of Buick brand retail numbers for us to evaluate.
Year-to-date, Buick’s retail volume is up 6 percent compared with the first seven months of 2015 and 8 percent compared with the first seven months of 2005. Again, not since 2005, when GM says Buick sold 137,880 vehicles through the retail network, has the brand had a better start to a year.
JULY’S TOTALS
In July, specifically, Buick’s 10-percent year-over-year total sales uptick easily outpaced the industry’s 1-percent rise. Even without the help of 1,421 sales of the new Envision, Buick’s Chinese-built mid-range crossover, and 633 sales from the new Cascada convertible, Buick sales still increased total sales at the same rate as the industry overall.
Don’t thank the car division. With the cancelled Verano falling 13 percent and the LaCrosse entering a replacement phase that brought volume down 32 percent, a 50-percent jump from the low-volume Regal, and the additional Cascada sales, Buick car volume still fell four units shy of the total three Buicks achieved one year ago.
But the Buick Enclave jumped 10 percent to 7,249 units, outselling the LaCrosse, Regal and Verano combined in its best July ever.
SUBCOMPACT
Although the Encore subcompact crossover reported a more modest 1-percent year-over-year boost, the 6,923-unit sales result was the best month ever for the Encore. Just like the Enclave, the Encore outsold the three best-selling Buick cars combined.
Together, the Buick Encore and its Chevrolet Trax twin owned nearly one-third of the U.S. subcompact crossover market in July 2016.
Including the Envision, 68 percent of Buick’s U.S. sales in July were powered by utility vehicles; only 32 percent with traditional cars.
With the Verano dying off at the end of this model year and the Envision set to capture a far greater chunk of the market when the 2017 model offers a significantly lower price of entry, expect those numbers to shift higher and lower, respectively.
ALL SUVs ALL THE TIME
We’ve never suggested Buick is a nonexistent force in the United States. But we have called attention to the fact that Buick, quite recently a high-volume brand in the United States, now relies on the U.S. for a fraction of its global volume. Buick sold 432,017 new vehicles in the U.S. in 2002 but is on track for little more than half that in 2016.
Buick is now a China-centric brand, a fact made more tangible by the arrival of a Chinese-built model in the United States.
We most certainly have expressed aloud our curiosity over the future of Buick cars, however. Only four years ago, seven out of every ten U.S. Buick sales were produced by cars.
That figure completely flipped in four years as Buick wisely responded to market trends. Americans bought and leased more SUVs and crossovers than cars for the first time ever in July.
[Images: Buick. Chart: © TTAC]
Timothy Cain is the founder of GoodCarBadCar.net, which obsesses over the free and frequent publication of U.S. and Canadian auto sales figures. Follow on Twitter @goodcarbadcar and on Facebook.
Envision so pretty!
Am I reading this correctly that the Envision will have a significantly lower entry price than the Verano? If so, wouldn’t that mean that acceptance of Chinese cars will be driven by the same force that bred acceptance of Chinese tennis rackets? Where I live, the Verano seems to have been bought by the last holdouts of the great generation. I’m not sure how many would be shopping for a new car, and I’m guessing that there wasn’t that much point in keeping one around that they wanted. Will the boomers go for the Chinese CUV? I guess they’re up for a second Chinese POTUS.
No economy Envisions here until next year. Just top of the line version for this year.
Cue the Dollinger/BuickMan outrage in Three…Two…One
Bingo! Stop the Envasion! I’ve personally stopped over a dozen so far.
I have an aunt that has had 2 Enclaves since 08. She was looking at getting her third but saw the Envision. She stated that it looked ok and was smaller and she thought that she might want to look at it. She asked what did I think since the family always ask me for assist with vehicle background knowledge. I told her that they are selling fairly well and that she might have to pay close to sticker (which she didnt mind). The last thing I said was “you know this is the first Buick made totally in China but sold in America”.
She looked at me and asked, whats the new Enclave is suppose to be like.
I told her that she might not have much to worry about since it would be new and under warranty but she would have nothing of it. She has owned Buicks for the last 30 years.
I also told her that there are several parts of other cars that are made in China just not the whole car but she didnt care.I brought up (like so many of you do here) that her Iphone is made in China and her response was what I expected. She said ” I dont drive me phone”.
Needless to say she will be getting an Enclave when they come out sometime at the end of the year.
+1 to your aunt! Though she’ll probably be one of very, very few that give a rat’s patootie where the car is built. I’ve yet to see one of these (Envision) on the road, but it saddens me to no end that it even exists on our roads.
Not sure what my own mother will look (assuming she is still driving!) when the Verano turns 10. So far, four years of ownership in, and she’s still fairly happy with it. This coming from a serial, long-term Toyota owner…
way to go Auntie!
I believe one has to attribute the surge to the 20% off in July. I vaguely recall seeing a similar add recently for 16% off. A sale of that nature can certainly help to ease congestion in the pipeline so to speak.
As an aside. I love the Buick Lacrosse; it is one of the nicest cars you can find at the National lot, seconded only by the Enclave. Both are joys to drive if you are in need of an extremely quiet place to be with comfortable seats.
There’s still many 1992-2005 LeSabres rattling around these parts. Beat, worn out, tired, on their 4th owner, purchased for peanuts – but still going.
That’s not something I “Envision” for this current crop of Buicks.
My grandparents had one (a 2000 I think), transmission crapped out at 50k miles!
So grandpa says “I’m tired of this!” and buys a new 02 Century as replacement. That one had electrical problems.
“No more!”
Brand new Terraza.
But that Terraza made it to 200K trouble-free, right? Right?!
Sh!t, it’s an 05 and has maybe 60k on it. It’s always had rattles and weird electrical things though. Not really “faults,” but more flickering lights around the cabin. The leather has not aged well after being garaged 100% of its life, and driven by clean people with no children. Seat bottoms are too flat, and uncomfortable for any distance at all.
Lousy acceleration, weird transmission programming that makes you constantly either lose speed or shift a lot on hills, and 19mpg highway. Winner winner! It wallows about much worse than my Cadillac.
It has nice gauges though, and I like the blue metallic paints and grey/black contrast leather.
My ’03 LeSabre has been a terrific car – 130K and still going strong, knock on wood. The trick is to buy one that was previously owned by a duffer (which mine was).
“duffer”
Is this Canadian?
Ah, so now I stumped you with an obscure reference!
(duffer = old dude…)
I have never -ever- heard that term! I’ll remember it now, it’ll get filed with “showing out,” “dander up” and “Odd Lots.”
I have family in the upper midwest, which is seemingly where 99% of the Lesabre production run ended up. Every time I go up there, it never fails to surprise me just how many of them have made it so long without dying. Lesabres did come at the pinnacle of “Our car run bad longer than most cars run at all” GM strategy, I guess.
Buicks are totally a midwestern thing. The ones in Florida just get brought down.
Where I live I see a lot of well-cared-for, low mileage LeSabres, Park Avenues and LaCrosses driven by senior citizens. It isn’t going to take much to push these people into a new LaCrosse, Enclave, or Envision, if the Toyota dealer doesn’t manage to push them into an Avalon, Highlander or 4runner first.
Oh, LeSabre I wish I could have loved you while you were still alive.
In that commercial, what the hell! The Buick shield was never red-blue-green!
Also the Enclave is a very lousy Photoshop job.
Heh, yeah, trees look like they were applied with shrimp sauce.
Oh, wait… EnCLAVE!
That just looks like an overexposed background of standard digital crudeness.
‘But the Buick Enclave jumped 10 percent to 7,249 units, outselling the LaCrosse, Regal and Verano combined in its best July ever.”
Jeez. Buick should just re-introduce the Rendezvous to see how many suckers will buy it. I’m predicting quite a few actually would…because, CUV.
I adore the Rendezvous. New, with an mpg-superior turbo-4, I’d absolutely short-list it.
But that glorious proud & tall assness along with serious windowing will never return.
Somewhere, some ex-Pontiac exec is saying, “if only this CUV mania had hit when the Aztec was on the market…”
They still sold a goodly number of Azteks because the ergonomics, utility and driving ease trumped all snark.
Most Wrongly Maligned Car of the Century!
Oh, it could be maligned, all right…
Came from the factory with the Lifetime Malignment!
“Lifetime Malignment”
Kudos for the funny but you’ve merely found a synonym for “styling”. And it’s certainly gotten worse since the Aztek.
I’m pretty sure, without even checking, that the Skylark was already at least seven years dead in 2005.
I loved mine, but it decided to start burning out its ignition coils repeatedly.
Predictions of the Encore demise once other makers started making subcompact CUVs appears to have been completely, totally, and absolutely wrong.
And sales of the Trax (usually in the price range where the Equinox started) are doing well too. People like “tall”.