How close are the 2010 Insignia and the 2010 LaCrosse…considering their size, price, power, and general mission? I think Buick needs a supple little sedan in the likes of a Chevy Cruze or even something based on the Astra (but with a decent power plant).

Oh…I meant to add that any way you look at it, Buick is fortunate to have been spared (in the US) and I look forward to seeing new products on their lots. The current 2009 LaCrosse and Lucerne are nice, but they feel outdated…they have a limited audience…and the perpetuate the “grandparents car” image.

Makes good sense. Although, you kinda have to think about where Buick is positioned and the kinds of cars/prices they want to charge for their luxury (or pseudo luxury/comfort luxury) style vehicles

i hope they get the wagon variant of the insignia. and i think if they bring the Astra over to Buick, they should bring the twin top as well… but i see it somewhat hard to market a luxury based hatchback, though now that i think about it, the Mini S is about 30 grand so maybe a leather wrapped Astra would do ok.

Meet the new Boss, same as the old boss…

The Astra would be a terrible Buick. If it failed as a Saturn is will be massively worse as a Buick. No youngster or even a socialite would be caught dead in a Buick dealership. Think about it. People walk into a Mini/BMW dealership and WANT to be seen. People walking into a Buick dealership don’t care because they can’t see around their wraparound glasses and hunched backs. I’m sorry but it’s the truth. Saturn was meant for youthful people. Buick, no matter how much any consumer or GM executive disagrees, is meant for old timers. If they even brought back the GNX what respectable person what get that over a Camaro or even Firebird if they brought it back too? Old people. They like Buicks because the seats are like sofas and they can melt into them. That’s mistake number one. No wonder I’ve been hit by 2 Rendezvous’s and a Regal. Every driver was old, nearly blind, and one just had heart surgery and tried to sue me. Shame he shouldn’t have been driving and swerved in front of me. Get Buick’s off the road and you get old people off the road.

P.S.- The Regal nameplate/badge should be burned. They will kill Opel putting it as a Buick. Bring over OPEL and the OPEL BADGE. Or even goddamn Vauxhall. Start fresh here. This American retro **** needs to stop.

This can be historic. Now if they assemble the new car in Japan we could have the Buick Opel by Isuzu again.

Seriously, VR666 is right. They should have carefully kept Saturn as their youth/small car brand. Instead we have abominations such as the Relay and especially the Outlook. So they named a car after something that’s bloated and crashes a lot? Gee, no wonder it didn’t sell.

Anyone having any doubt to the reasons why GM is going bankrupt now? Haha

Completely agree with VR666. And I like the Opel Astra, it badged as a Saturn was already a turn off for me(along with other reasons, such as crappy trim levels and them being overpriced here) but as a BUICK!?!?! HAHA No way would I ever buy one!!!!

I’m confused…Why does GM need two luxury brands again? Also, which GM brand has/had the highest customer loyalty?

The Regal? Are you kidding me? Yeah, that sounds youthful and imported.

I don’t get it, why don’t they use Pontiac or some other brand, isn’t Pontiac supposed to be the Sporty/Youth brand anyways.

I think, Zcar is saying that Saturn and/or Buick had the highest loyalty. I know Saturn is best at customer service.

The two premium brand thing confused me too when GM had been planning to put Hummer/Saab/Cadillacs in the same dealership like they did Buick/Pontiac/GMC. I know because the Cadillac dealership where I go was freaking out they would have to sell Saabs because the dealership that tried to next to them had Saabs with two year birthdays(!) until they finally sold them to someone on the east coast.

I think this is good news though. I’m happy to see these products to keep coming over. Ironic that Opel GT’s were sold out of Buick dealerships in the lates 60’s-70’s. History repeats itself once again!

What many of you overlook is the brand recognition and history that Buick has, not just in the US but increasingly so in China. GM can’t just “get rid of” Buick like they will with Saturn/Saab/Hummer. Buick has enormous respect and loyalty within America, especially among its target buyers, that GM cannot afford to abandon.

There is no question that the brand-new Lacrosse and the Opel Insignia overlap, however I wouldn’t be surprised if GM finagles each model to differentiate them with assorted engine options, perhaps a coupe/wagon, and especially with Hybrid variants. By the time the first Buick Regal arrives, the Lacrosse will be due for a refresh anyway. I believe GM can work around this, especially because Buick has always had at least 2 full-to-mid sized sedans ‘competing’ with each other. This won’t be a new phenomenon come 2012/13.

Reviving Buick with Opel models is as much a purely cost-related move as it is a design decision. Why not have more athletic, sporty cars at Buick? The Buick brand already attracts older clientele (and will have an increasingly growing market share as more and more Baby-boomers retire), so the market for exciting, solid, and good-looking Buick sedans does exist. Remember, not all retirees can afford, nor want, a Cadillac.

Cadillac exists for a specific purpose and that is to target luxury automotive buyers. Similarly, Buick tackles the “I can’t afford a Cadillac but I don’t want a Chevy” perfectly well. Pontiac has less of a business case, hence GM’s move to effectively scupper the brand by making Pontiac’s only ‘exclusive’ models in Chevrolet dealers. If Pontiac is completely killed off in the future, no one will be surprised.

One of the Dope dealers in Watts during my youth drove a “Buick/Opel.”

In my youth, you could get Opel from Buick dealer. I believe that Opel became part of GM due to Buick acquisition of Opel.

What now??!!??

Might as well flush Buick down the potty now. The invasion of the Opels is what killed Saturn… you can’t sell an imported “domestic” car and make any money… especially now as the dollar stands vs the Euro.

Borat – Opel was bought out in Germany in 1926, they just used Buick dealers as a outlet to send a limited amount of cars to the US in the 60’s and 70’s. nothing more.

Interesting, during WWII GM wrote off Opel as a complete loss only to reopen the brand post WWII and have it grow to what it is today. Opel is GM as much as Ford Europe is Ford.

GM is F**ked, simple and plain, and if Volvo gets sold to the Chinese company Chery, Malcolm Bricklins dream of crushing american car companies will come true! very sad day for me…….. Who wants to move to china, that might be the only place left for american car (by brand name anyway) soon!

Its all about … CHINA… and potentially the rest of Southeast Asia.

Buick is… get this… the best selling and most recognized foreign nameplate in China. Among the nouveau riche, Shanghai-GMs (Holden based) Park Avenue has no problem selling out its production which bases at $50,000 and climbs to $70,000. Buick in 2006 sold over 800,000 cars in China, which is about 6 times the number of Buicks sold in the US and nearly as many passenger cars (non SUVs or light trucks) that Chevrolet Division sold in the US in 2006.

Yes we are talking about a country where the average skilled IT employee earns $400 per month.
Most of the Buick sales are re-badged Daewoos (remember GM’s Korean arm) that are assembled in China.

What two consumer automotive markets are going to increase geometrically along with their populations in the next two decades?

CHINA and India.

There are currently 190,000,000 registered private-use passenger cars in the U.S. In other words 75% of licensed Americans own a car.

That rate has held steady for the past decade. The majority of private car sales continue to be based on replacement needs. Currently US consumers hold on to their cars on average for 9 years. Barring a government subsidy of alternative fuel cars to gradually replace the current gasoline fleet, that 9 year duration of car ownership in the US isn’t likely to significantly increase.

In China and India current private car ownership is at 10%. Ten years ago it was less than 1%. In China the rate of private car ownership is increasing by 15% per year. For both India and China private car ownership is projected to to rise to 35% by 2025. That could translate to 800 million privately owned cars in those two countries.

So should i learn to have a fake indian/english accent to get a job there in india….. there wont be any jobs left here except fast food and car washes!

^^^ if you plan to stay here get “south of the border” accent: employment guaranteed.

i don’t see how this will be a good thing for buick other than better possible exterior looks. buicks are known for soft boat like rides, not so with opel brands and their chassis

No wonder why this company is going bankrupt, because is run by idiots. They should go away an fade in history. Might be a good lesson to other mfg.

I don’t understand why we get both the Insignia and LaCrosse. Aren’t they the same thing mostly? It’s like having the Enclave and Acadia sold at the same store. Oh wait….

Let me make myself clear though. Buick will now have the best midsize lineup in it’s history. Maybe the best in GM’s history. These two cars are not only competitive, thy downright are better than anything close to their price. They make the new Malibu look like a half-hearted rental car, not to mention the Fusion that will be a sad afterthought.

I hope GM lasts long enough so I can see these cars together.

I’m 48 years old and I think I’m about 15 years too young to walk into a Buick showroom. I would like to own an Opel Insignia very much, but I will not buy a Buick Regal.

Great!

Athens: “Buick is… get this… the best selling and most recognized foreign nameplate in China.”

Not so sure about that. Yes, Buick is doing very well in China, but VW sells a lot more cars. Like, a ton more, although admittedly a good chunk of those are probably taxis. The real prestige brands are (in descending order of how common they are in mainland China) Audi, Mercedes, BMW.

Even at $50k-$70k for a Park Avenue, Buick is a fair bit cheaper than the Germans. An Audi A4 starts at around $55,000 in China as I recall (for a 1.8 manual FWD), and a BMW 3-series is quite a bit more expensive still. You don’t see many A4s or 3-series around anyway; A6s and 5-series are far more common.

Eion,

My mistake.

GM sells a total of over 800, 000 cars per year, having passed up VW in 2005. However Buick branded cars alone account for over 300,000 sales. So you are correct Buick brand alone isn’t the top seller.

My guess is that the Park Avenue is cheaper than BMW and Audi because it is a Holden Statesman, also marketed as the Chevy Caprice in other markets, broken down into a Complete Knockdown Kit which gets assembled in China and therefore receives a lower tariff.

Funny. I think I said Buick should do this about two months ago. The Buick nameplate could fetch the higher price that Saturn never could. Besides, steel bodied Saturns are an abomination.

Everyone talks about Buick’s target market, and their boat like rides. That doesn’t sell like it used to. Why shouldn’t GM try to make Buick appeal to a wider customer base? You point out the problem, but refuse to acknowledge the solution.

Bring back the Grand National… then I’ll be interested.

RaineMan: What killed Saturn was GM’s decision to go away from its original mission. At that point, why not just buy a Chevrolet?

My stepfather had a Grand National. At the time, i didn’t realize how sweet it was.
It was a Buick, after all.

I’m merely hinting that GM does not need Buick. If China seems like the promising market they fostered than take Buick to China. This is the only brand with a last time buyers program. Does Buick have some sort of brand equity? Yes, it does. However, that is argument is irrelevant due to Oldsmobile.

Cadillac can fill in the holes in luxury in the USA market. This isn’t about who is making the better car. That argument has also been made irrelevant. In the past four to five years GM has greatly stepped up in quality and in gas efficiency. Its about flooding the market with its cars, its about GMAC making huge mistakes with sub prime mortgages, its about labor costs.

Saturn’s invasion of rebadged Opels appealed to a lot of people. The problem was tied in with marketing. In 2007 the Saturn AURA was North American car of the year. Subsequently in 2008 the Chevrolet Malibu made the same title with the same car. Which car was bragged about more?

GM’s treatment of Saturn was nothing short of corporate neglect. Saturn’s didn’t sell because they weren’t pounded into the press and media like Pontiac was during a college bowl game. I doubt more than a handful of people in this room actually have actually cracked the door on a Saturn ASTRA. With the exception of a few Euro-translation issues, is a great car. Look for it in the Chevy Cruze.

Saturn, as it turns out, was set up as a residual farm to set up lease rates for other GM badges. That, and to work out all the kinks before the vehicle turns into a Chevrolet. Now we have the Chevrolet Traverse. The original Chevrolet Equinox came out two years after the Saturn VUE was stuck with the experimental and problematic VTi (CVT). Chevy didn’t have to worry though, because they got the proven tranny.

I’m furious at the fact that the Pontiac Solstice gets to live on in a true coupe form, while the better looking and better equipped of the two, the SKY, will fade into memory.

Cadillac is gunning for BMW and Mercedes. Buick is being directed straight at Acura, Lexus, and Infiniti. There is a vast difference, and I think Cadillac lowering its’ sights would ruin the name they’ve been working so hard to rebuild.

I’ve got one of those ‘problematic’ VTi’s, and it’s going strong so far. That’s six years on a supposedly problematic tranny. And I’m not even the first owner. They did switch to the same 4-spd auto in ‘05. Really, the claims were that they would ‘routinely’ fail by 225,000km. That’s no lack of driving for something that is supposed to be problematic. What do you call VW automatics, when they used to fail every 50k?

So are we going to suffer and get some steeper prices than we would from a Saturn?

Mreh. This still probably would work.

-eat your cereal

oldraven, when I worked at a Saturn dealer, it got to the point that I would not sell someone a pre owned 2002 and 2003 4 cyl. automatic Saturn VUE. The two that I sold had awful problems, and I told my manager that I was done selling those.

I’m delighted that you’ve had an excellent experience with your VTi, but I’ve seen a large number of these VTi VUEs. After 2000 Saturn started to serve as GM’s lab rat. When we received the ASTRA and had one of our best sellers, the ION, taken away; we were told that this was a test market car.

Albeit, the ASTRA is a great platform, the USA’s version is hideously underpowered, and it wasn’t priced to move. To top that off, there was dick for marketing on this product line.

id only consider buying one if there was an opel badging conversion kit, no effing way im driving a buick.