It was then that I discovered the Rendezvous was already out of production! When I was introduced to the Enclave, I thought, “good grief, they’ve replaced the Rendezvous with a bigger, heavier, more expensive model … what is this, the Ranier II?” Boy, did I learn how wrong I was!

A test drive with my wife was so impressive that we bought the Enclave we tested (had 36 miles on odometer). It happened to come with exactly the options we’d have picked with exactly the color we wanted.

The ride is impressive. EXTREMELY quiet (unbelievably so), VERY smooth … almost no appreciable roll on cornering (reminds us of the Porsche 924 we had way back when … also an Audi A4 AWD my wife had). We got the FWD version as we are selling NJ home and relocating south.

This car is a vast improvement over the Rendezvous and is not style-challenged either! Handles as a competent car would, but with amazing storage and carrying capacity. No longer will we be concerned with relegating the fifth rider to the small third-row of the Rendezvous. I’m no slim Jim and I was able to easily get into the third seat, adjust the second seat for comfort in the third seat, then adjust the passenger seat for comfort … and the second row “captain’s” seat was comfortable even with adjustments for comfort in the first and third row seats in front and behind! Also, using the alternate exit mode from the third seat (the center aisle, rather than popping the second seat forward), I was amazed at the ease and comfort of exiting by that route … plenty of headroom and a suffiiently wide corridor to make an easy, comfortable exit.

I am very impressed with this Buick!

On the critical side, interior convenient access storage is a bit on the light side (where to put CDs? Tissues?). Everything else is superior to the Rendezvous … and it’s not a truck!

Buick has a winner with this one … and I feel fortunate to have bought the first one sold out of the Vero Beach dealership!

“Beyond Precision”

I’ll buy one for sure.

GM needs to decide if it wants to sell cars, or sell cell phones and cell phone service. It can’t do both, and do them well.

GM, get out of the cell phone business! Leave that to Verizon, Cingular, Sprint, etc. Start to re-focus again onto cars.

The interior woodgrain and other new features and toys will definitely sell. But you know adding any of them will be at a cost that will crank the overall sticker price up sky high. Let’s hope this Rendezvous replacement will retain all the comfort and hopefully some of the roominess and keep the price down (yeah…like that’s gonna happen). More importantly, let’s hope this is just a “concept” car and that Buick is open to making changes to the body that will make it more appealing. I’ll buy one then.

Now that you’ve grabbed me, please ensure that this vehicle will PERFORM. I’m hoping for dynamic handling, a whole lot of “pep”, safetey and reliability, and hopefully all of the above in a fuel efficient package.

The exterior is catchy, although the 21″ wheels seem a bit overboard. My only negative comments on the interior are: 1) The fold-out trays detract significantly from the otherwise sleek interior; 2) An option for a fold-down third row seat (rather than the bucket/console combination)will prevent losing potential buyers who need more storage space; and 3) The number of DVD players seems excessive and will unnecessarily raise the price. Hopefully the final production model will not be an “all or nothing” proposition. I would like one or two DVD players, but don’t want to pay for four.

Thanks for creating some real excitement in the auto industry, and speed the process up if possible because I don’t want to wait much longer!