Pontiac had a huge marketing budget..probaly multiples of what Buick has now. As for rebadges..pretty much everything GM has made has been rebadged into something else outside of Sigma. It still cost money. It will cost a lot of money to make Buick a full line vs. the two cars it has now.

Enclave is outsold by the Acadia in the same delaership..despite only being a few thousand more. No matter how good the LaCrosse is..it still has a lot of negative image attached to the outgoing model, and the old Buick. You can't build crap for years, and ruin a brands image, then put one good brand out and expect things to happen over night. I think with 10 years of consistantly good products Buick may turn around. However GM has not shown the intestinal fortitude to wait that long in the past.

Who cares if Buick sells well in China? It does not sell well here, and has a fairly bland, unappealing image here. Most people under the age of 55 would not list Buick on the top 15 of brands they would consider. Buick should be China only..as it is the only place it is relevent.



Saturns were rebadged Opels..and still lost money.

 

Yup, just another 4-door sedan...

 

With ugly black fangs!

 

Halo? Maybe. Insigna needs to come here as something. Malibu, Regal, whatever but it needs to come here, offering the same level of luxury and options.
2.4 standard making 190hp, 2.0T making 270hp. At that point, dont know if its worth putting a 3.0 or 3.6 in there. But you might want to put a V6 in it for traditional American buyers.

But a flag ship....the Statesman. GM could turn around Buick into a true world class car company. I cant belive how close Buick is to actually being a solid car company with the addition of this and the Insigna.
Throw in some sort of four seater coupe/vert, and Buick could almost outshine Caddy in luxury and quality.
Buick can be so much more then Caddy because it doesnt have its hands tied behinds its back. Caddy has to overcome so many obsticals, hoops, not to mention image.

 

i don't think buicks image is better.

 

Unfortunately, I tend to agree with this. If the "new Buick" falls on its face, GM will have no problem pulling the plug.

However, in Buick's favor, I think the brand is probably isn't as "damaged" as some might think. It doesn't really require a wholesale reinvention. The new LaCrosse is pretty much the same kind of car as the old LaCrosse, just executed much better.

Also, by using international designs, GM is investing far less money into Buick than they did with Saturn or Oldsmobile or Pontiac.

 

I can't think of anyone my age whoe would go anywhere near a Buick dealership unless it was to buy a Pontiac or GMC.

 

I thought the purpose behind keeping Buick was to have a brand level above Chevrolet but below Cadillac... for the purpose of maximizing profits for GM. That philosophy couldn't be justified under Pontiac's brand name.

If GM can deliver product as good as Enclave for each of its intended market segment, then there is no reason to believe Buick won't find some new buyers.

 

Buck buyers are used to $25,000 plus cars. Saturn buyers were not. The owners who loyally bought SLs for years found that there was no longer an affordable small car at their Saturn dealer.

 

I believe the underlying point is a car, regardless if it's a well made opel or a well made honda, must be marketed correctly and allowed time to grow in the marketplace as a reputable product.

I have to add Saturns were not rebadge opels exactly. sky and astra were opel rebadges, but aura was just a G6 with fancier trim and opel style exterior design [and "vectra-inspired" interior design]. it was still a lame attempt at product imaging, and it came late in the vectra's development cycle to our shores. competition already had a leg up on it.

the new opel designs shouldn't and most likely won't wait more than one year to get here, rather than the three years it took the vectra-inspired aura to get here.

design aside, I personally believe engineering has a great deal to do with it too. aura was a very well engineered car.....so I don't think the affect would have been great. but what if vectra came over as is to our shores......instead of modified for american tastes [eg handling seriously downgraded]. i think that's what will happen with regal and new astra as buick models, instead of stupidly and wastefully designing a new car for our shores, the cars will be directly ported over, and we will be all the luckier for it.

 

I second this. I am the only one who I know would go and most people think I'm odd cause I don't drive imports

 

And I think that's why you'll never see the Statesman here. Cadillac will NEVER let that fly. They didn't even like the fact that Pontiac was getting Holdens. Buick would be a much bigger threat IMO.

 

That is a diff senerio since they are 2 differen't brands. Also, comparing a growing China market to saturated Europe. I don't see sales in China slowing down anytime soon.

 

Current Buick buyers are used to making the early bird special at Denny's. Actually aside from the Enclave, the LaCrosse and Lucerne are very cheap for what you get once rebates and all are figured in. I think that value scenerio is why it holds on to the older market it still sells to. If you replace the current cars with cars marketed to younger buyers..you risk alienating what blue hair set. I can see a lot of 60 year olds finding the new Lacross to "fancy" for them. It's the big catch 22. They moved Saturn upmarket as a mid-high end import brand...and lost the cheap friendly image. Then they did not have to guts to wait it out and spend money till the "new" saturn caught on.

Also, contrary to what you would read here...the fact that Buick is big in China IS NOT seen a positive reason to buy a Buick to most American's. Especially if it gets out how much work on the new ones is being done in China.

 

Very true, but 1993s technology is pretty well paid off by now. So those cars should be cheap.

This catch 22 was sprung years ago with the 1997 Regal/Century. That car should have just been the Regal OR the Century and been available with your choice of the 3400 or the 3800 V6 and bench or buckets. Not two cars with an either/or choice. They lost tons of buyers because most wanted a 3800 with a bench seat. You couldn't sell that to them. The blue hairs want a bench seat and a column shift - something no Buick has anymore. My dad, a Buick salesman for 30 years, ended up selling a lot of his longtime Buick customers Impalas because not only were they cheaper, but they could get them equipped the way they wanted.

People who buy LeSabres buy "LeSabres" so renaming that car Lucerne was also idiotic. I realize it's more of a Park Avenue/LeSabre hybrid than a true LeSabre, but if they wanted to keep more of the blue hair set, the LeSabre name would have helped.

They need to go all the way and completely alienate the blue hair set if they want to survive. There simply aren't enough of those buyers left to be the entire Buick market anymore. I think despite all of the "No one my age buys a Buick" protestations there would be a lot of people in their 40s and 50s who will consider a Buick in the future if the brand is marketed correctly - something that they may actually have the money to do sometime in the future. It's not like 25 year olds need to buy Buicks, 45 and 50 year olds do.

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Which was a gigantic mistake.

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What money? What money did they have left to invest in Saturn? They threw nearly their entire marketing budget at Saturn and the new Malibu a couple of years ago. The latter worked, the former did not. They spent all the money and still weren't able to do what they wanted to with Saturn. And they should have seen that was going to happen before they even bothered.

Saturn was a complete sea change. That's different than Buick who were, at least at one time, a respected near luxury brand. The right product line and advertising did a lot to revitalize Cadillac - GM just didn't have the money to maintain that. And now, Cadillac is floundering around again.

If you have 6 children and can only afford to feed a few of them at a time, well, it's not going to work out that well for the others.

With less divisions and less nameplates, there is much more chance to get the message about what the new product is about. There is no guarantee it will work, but they have to try something. Status quo plainly has not been and will not work for GM.

I don't think that anyone here thinks that Buick being big in China is a reason for Americans to buy Buicks (and if they do, they are wrong), it's just a primary reason to keep the brand around. When something is already paid for and you have a network to sell it through, you might as well sell it.

A Buick LaCrosse is less "Chinese" than 85% of the items in most American's houses. Most Americans now think of a Kentucky built Toyota Camry as an "American" car.

The auto business is international now. Design work is done all over the world. Most of Ford's current lineup is Volvo or Mazda based. Most of Chrysler's is Mercedes or Mitsubishi based. As long as they are being made by American owned companies and meet the standards for domestic content, they are American cars.