New Buick Regal – First Drive

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Lets get one thing straight from the start, Im no Buick fan, the reason being that all Buick automobiles from the 70′s to 2007 have been giant land yachts, especially the American designed vehicles. The rebranded Korean Buicks that came to China under the Buick branding are perfectly acceptable, but they are not a ‘real Buick‘. The old Buick Regal was a ‘real’ Buick, in the sense that it was designed and made in the USA (later mass produced in the PRC in December 2002), it came in a series of models from a base 2.0 16V 4 cylinder models that barely moved to 2.5 6 cylinder models.

The original Buick Regal only ever seem to come in one color in China; Black. It was largely bought by government officials (usually the cheapest models with plastic wheeltrims) and businessmen, when the Buick Regal entered China, there werent many other cars in its class, which left it with a wide open market to capture. It conquered the segment in a short time, but the addition of other automakers models into China, such as the Germans with their BMW’s and Audi’s, and the Japanese with their Accords, and Camrys, soon saw the Regals massive market lead slip away. This lead GM to rebranding the current Opel Insignia to become the new Buick Regal, it’s a smaller car when compared to the previous generation, but its certainly a step in the right direction for Buick China.

The Looks

I honestly had to walk around the new Regal twice, could such a nice car have come from Buick? It’s sleek, it’s stylish, its quite frankly amazing. It has the stance of a sports sedan rather than a regular sedan, the rear end is tiny compared to the old Buick Regal’s, which was more reminnesceint of a US Navy Aircraft carriers top side in sheer size. The new Regal also comes in a variety of beautiful colors, from standard black, to a champagne/gold color. Never has an executive car looked so good. The side profile of the car also carries that sports style, the slight crease in the door leads down to the headlights, which stare like a hungry cats big eyes. The front wings carry the chrome vent, is this borrowed styling from the Cadillac range? If so, we approve. The front grill has been changed to the new Buick vertical style offering, where as the EU get the horizontal Opel branding, I maybe biased, but the Buick version looks much better. The wheels come in a variety of styles, ranging from 17inch to 19inch. If there’s one good thing about Buick, they give you a massive range of options to choose from when buying a motor.

The Interior

The insides of the Regal match the exterior in terms of good looks. As soon as you open the incredibly heavy doors (and reach over with your stronger right arm to pull it closed!) the interior envelopes the driver into a sense of relative luxury. Once the doors have been closed, the design of the dashboard and the door inserts become one nicely executed sweeping loop from left to right. The seats support the driver extremely well, the steering wheel is easy to adjust to a suitable height. The plastics are excellent to the touch, they feel solid, like a premium car would do, except is the Regal a premium car? Price wise, it certainly isnt, but in terms of looks and comfort levels, the Regal could teach the BMW, and Audi a thing or too. The steering wheel is a fat chunky model that makes the BMW 3 series feel rather pathetic in comparison, the Regals is small and heavy, which gives off that quality finish feeling. One thing that I didn’t particularly like about the new Regal was the myriad of buttons.

The Drive

The new Regal doesn’t get as many fun engine options as Europe. The Europeans get nine engines, ranging from a standard 1.6l, a 1.6T, 2.0T, 2.0T diesel engines, and a 2.0 twin turbo diesel offering, the flagship model gets a 2.8l V6 twin turbo model. So what does the PRC get? Early rumors indicated that the same range of models would be coming to China, but current offerings are limited to a 2.0l 4 cylinder producing 147bhp, and a 2.4l four cylinder model producing 170bhp.

So, I started the engine up, slightly dissapointed that China wasn’t getting a 2.7 V6 Twin Turbo model, but I was still left surprised by the amount of poke that the 2.4l can produce. The car is by no means a sloth when leaving the traffic lights, on the straights, or cornering. It handels all of it with relative ease, and all with the driver sitting in relative luxury. The six speed semi automatic gearbox does its work without noise, or even noticing it working. The Regal sits comfortably at speed just like its predacessor, however, it can corner at speed too, something which the previous Regal could never do. The brakes work just as brakes should do, hit them too hard and you’ll halt straight away, or give them a light tap and they’ll give you the confidence you need to turn whilst at speed. This review may sound like I’m a speeder, but the car does hold itself very well. At low speeds, it performs equally well.

Overall

As already stated, the previous generation Regal was mostly purchased by businessmen, and government departments who needed a large sedan to show off their wealth, or to be chauffered around, they mostly bought black cars. The new Regal blows the old one out of the water, its stylish, it’s a premium vehicle with an ecomical price tag, its sporty, its basically everything the old Buick wasn’t. But would those government departments trade their old Buick Regal for a new Regal? Probably not, the new Regal is simply too stylish, too swarve, for a government minister to drive in. Should the people see civil workers driving such well designed cars, then they are surely to protest! Several of my neighbours are civil servents, and although they may wish for a new Regal, we doubt their deparment heads would allow them to trade in their old Regal and old Brilliance BS6 in (both vehicles are naturally black). I would love to own a Buick Regal, Buick can consider me a Buick convert, if they were to produce cars like this in the USA, their financial worries would be over within the year.