Random Car Thoughts

[TheBenior]

Buick is basically under the same pressure as the remaining near luxury brands (IMO, Acura, Volvo, Lincoln, and what VW has tried to be), plus the old person stigma.

Mainstream brands sell some pretty nicely equipped cars these days, as even Chevy's compact is no longer a penalty box.

The growth of leasing (more than half of all luxury sedans these days) and CPO programs has made outright luxury brands more accessible to more 'buyers.' With ze German cars, it also eliminates the worries of pricey out of warranty repairs for the first two buyers.

[novicius]

GM sales in China rose 17% in May.

Buick sales rose 61% to 100,864 vehicles, with nearly half of those (47,332) the Excelle family sedan. Sales of Buick's SUVs and what, in China are known as multi-purpose vehicles climbed 24% from May 2015.

100K vehicles is far from a million Camrys but it should be enough to keep Buick around for awhile.

Article about Buick in China 2015.

It might sound surprising to American ears, but 2015 was the best year for Buick in the car make’s 112-year history... Still, Buick managed to sell 1.2 million vehicles worldwide last year, a third consecutive sales record.

And that’s thanks to China.

Eighty percent of all Buicks are sold in China these days. Last year, that amounted to nearly 990,000 vehicles – 4-1/2 times as many sold in the United States.

I don't think they need a rally car.

[novicius]

...now I do think that Regals are overpriced.

[thesameguy]

100K vehicles is far from a million Camrys but it should be enough to keep Buick around for awhile.

Curiously, it wasn't enough to save Saab.

I think GM thought that Buick was going be a foothold in the Chinese market that would let them be the Chinese American Toyota GM and that hasn't panned out. They're just a low volume near luxury niche brand just like Saab was or Volvo is. Fail. We lost Saab and Pontiac so GM could sell 100,000 Buicks. Lame.

[novicius]

(I think that was 100K sold in 1 month.)

[thesameguy]

Oh.

Shit.

[Kchrpm]

http://jalo.ps/zBqJr0N

Chevy Colorado ZR2 looks pretty good.

[thesameguy]

I don't want to jinx it, but it does seem like GM got the new Colorado right.

[21Kid]

Seems like they have been doing quite a few things right lately.

[novicius]

$50K USD price tag, IFS and no V8 means these will be the go-to trucks for the Home Depot/Lowes set.