Buick is GM’s flagship brand in China, without Buick regulary pumping up sales figures for GM, what shape would they be in now? Its no wonder that GM give Buick China extra special care, in such a boom or bust environment they would be foolish not to.
Many people comment that the Chinese Buick line up is far better than the American one, an odd observation seeing as much of the Buick China line up is taken from other GM divisions, such as Daewoo and Opel, and then badge engineered for the Chinese market. Its a win-win situation for the customer, who for the most part require smaller cars, but also want to believe they are getting a premium brand for bargain bin money. The only real ‘Buick’ that Buick offer to China is the Buick Regal, but it seems that is all about to change…
The Chinese media hinted that the popular Buick MPV, the Buick GL8 maybe shelved in favor of the Opel Mariva. The Mariva is a small MPV, so it could be that the Mariva is slotted in below the GL8 to be aimed at family use rather than business use, which the GL8 is aimed at.
Buick Regal
The Buick Regal was a bread and butter car for Buick in and around 2002 when there wasn’t much other competition in the luxury sedan segment where the Regal was placed. Buick sold thousands of Regals across China, and they are a common sight on the roads today. Wikipedia says Chinese production of the Regal have stopped, the truth is that Shanghai GM are only producing two specifications of the Regal model now, a 2.0 and a 2.5 V6 model, priced 140,980rmb to 190,000rmb. The Regal is in desperate need of a replacement, hence the Opel Insignia has come to take its place.
Autoblog have a very comprehensive post on the Opel Insignia. The Chinese Buick version of the Insignia is reportedly going to hit the market in October 2008.
There is also chatter on the internet regarding a limited production Buick Lacrosse, possibly based on styling cues from the Buick Invicta concept car that GM previously released. Further rumours include that the Chevrolet Cobalt maybe coming into China to broaden the Chevrolet brand, although as the Chevrolet brand already has the Chevvy Epica, we wonder if there is any truth to the rumors.
Along with the Lacrosse hybrid that is rumoured to be launched before the Olympics (not a lot of time left for this now) and the Chevy Malibu also rumoured to be launched here in both hybrid and standard forms - this would be sensible replacement for the Epica or the Regal!
How is Buick going to differentiate between this new Regal (rebadged Insignia) and the LaCrosse? Both seem to fit the same slot in their lineup.
Also, don’t forget that the current LaCrosse is in fact a “real” (American) Buick - it’s just been greatly improved both inside and out.
And the Park Avenue, even though it is based on a Holden, is still superior to the large Buick sedans sold in North America so the statement that many Chinese Buick models are better than their North American counterparts still holds here.
I’m not familiar with their smaller cars but I think here they are riding on the reputation of their larger cars and brand.
The excelle is a a Daewoo and the now out of production Sail was an Opel.