Buick getting more models?

[buickguy]

There is an article in autonews.com today about that.

[Paolino]

???

Care to elaborate? Post the article? Talk about it?

[buickguy]

unfortunately i am not a subrscriber, i was hoping someone out there is and knows something about the article, but the headline is encouraging

[Oracle of Delphi]

GM considers expanding Buick lineup

Jamie LaReau

Automotive News

August 27, 2007 - 12:01 am EST

DETROIT - Buick's high customer satisfaction rankings and its recent jump to tie Lexus at the top of J.D. Power and Associates' 2007 Vehicle Dependability Study has General Motors executives considering more vehicles for Buick.

"We think we've got room for expansion in the Buick lineup, and we see Buick over time hitting that space in the market where today Acura is, Volvo is - that's its historic position, where it's a cut above Dodge, Chrysler and Ford," said Mark La-Neve, GM's vice president of vehicle sales, service and marketing in an interview with Automotive News. "It was always a near-luxury premium car."

LaNeve said GM is considering molding the future Buick lineup to resemble Buick China's offering: "By leveraging some of the products that we're going to be introducing in China over a period of years, we can augment the Buick lineup to really slot it in a very sophisticated place in the market above the mainstream."

But Buick apparently will not get a large rear-wheel-drive car like Pontiac's G8 sedan, due early next year. Buick dealers this year rejected the model because it would overlap with the Lucerne.

Pontiac, meanwhile, will get a V-8 version of the G8 priced close to $40,000 and a V-6 version priced "well below" $40,000, LaNeve said. The mix will be skewed toward the

V-6, he added.

It's built off a new rwd platform by Holden, GM's Australian unit. La-Neve says the car is aimed for the Dodge Charger, Honda Accord or Nissan Altima buyer, "who pays a little more but wants a lot more performance and a different image."

"It won't be a tremendously high-volume product," LaNeve said, "but it's going to be significant to the Pontiac brand and a real continued image boost like Solstice was for Pontiac."

[Sixty8panther]

Buick dealers have to be dumber than a box-of-rocks!

So you overlap Lucerne sales... WTF is the problem with that?

You can't STEAL sales away from yourself, jackass!

Edited August 27, 2007 by Sixty8panther

[K.C.]

<shaking head no> Buick dealers need the Chinese Park Avenue here to help bring down the average age of buyer. The old buyers are going to be dying off or becoming unable to drive quickly, so they need these new younger products quickly. The Enclave is a good start, but not bringing the new P.A. is not a good move on Buick's part. If I were GM, I'd shove the new P.A. down their throat. It's amazing how exciting salesmen will be when a model with a 360 hp V-8 and rear wheel drive architecture that automatically draws comparisons to Lexus is on their lot.

[Sixty8panther]

More im[portantly you know who a Zeta Buick would steal sales away from???????

Toyopet/Lexus

Hon-Duh/Acura

Nippon/Infiniti

I swear GM can be so damn blind at times!

[Z-06]

More im[portantly you know who a Zeta Buick would steal sales away from???????

Toyopet/Lexus

Hon-Duh/Acura

Nippon/Infiniti

I swear GM can be so damn blind at times!

That is what I said in the previous thread, why do middlemen get so much of a say in what GM wants to do. It is like Sony declining to bring LCD screen display because Bestbuy does not want it?

[Northstar]

Buick really only needs the Enclave, a mini-Enclave (5-pass) on TE about the size of the Edge/Equinox, the EPII LaCrosse, and then a Zeta-based Lucerne. I don't think Buick needs anything smaller than the LaCrosse on the car side or anything below a mini-Enclave. The only other vehicle they could use is something like a Velite. Let Saturn handle the smaller premium cars, having both would create quite a bit of overlap I think, and Saturn is known for selling compacts, anyways. The Aura and LaCrosse would be the only vehicles that overlap at all.

[buyacargetacheck]

Once again GM is telling us a little campfire story. Again read between the lines. Buick NA won't be getting the Holden Park Avenue more likely because GM, wisely for once, figures that they can sell out all the Aussie Zeta capacity in China and elsewhere without the expense of federalizing it for NA AND taking the risk that the car doesn't do well here because it doesn't look enough like what Americans expect a Buick to look like. This "decision" has nothing to do with what the dealers "want" (that's just positive spin).

The question, then, becomes how long will the G Lucerne remain? This car IS Buick in America. What, if anything, will replace it? Perhaps a lengthened Ep II? If nothing, then it's the swan song for Buick in NA. Probably about the same time frame when Mercury (2012?) peters out from a lack of replacement product.

[Northstar]

Once again GM is telling us a little campfire story. Again read between the lines. Buick NA won't be getting the Holden Park Avenue more likely because GM, wisely for once, figures that they can sell out all the Aussie Zeta capacity in China and elsewhere without the expense of federalizing it for NA AND taking the risk that the car doesn't do well here because it doesn't look enough like what Americans expect a Buick to look like. This "decision" has nothing to do with what the dealers "want" (that's just positive spin).

The question, then, becomes how long will the G Lucerne remain? This car IS Buick in America. What, if anything, will replace it? Perhaps a lengthened Ep II? If nothing, then it's the swan song for Buick in NA. Probably about the same time frame when Mercury (2012?) peters out from a lack of replacement product.

You act like you know everything, yet you know nothing at all. The dealers were given a vote for either a Zeta-based vehicle or the Lucerne, and they picked the Lucerne. Why would GM try to spin it so that it seems like the dealer's are the reason we don't have one? Why wouldn't they say that the car is doing so well elsewhere that they don't have production capacity if that is the case?

The next LaCrosse is already going to be on the LWB EP II. If you actually read any of the posts of people around here with knowledge, you'd already know that the Lucerne is being moved to Zeta after it runs it's course (2011-12 MY).

[ZL-1]

The question, then, becomes how long will the G Lucerne remain? This car IS Buick in America. What, if anything, will replace it? Perhaps a lengthened Ep II? If nothing, then it's the swan song for Buick in NA. Probably about the same time frame when Mercury (2012?) peters out from a lack of replacement product.

About the same time Pontiac could be getting the 'fade away treatment'?

[dimitri0917]

Why does every thread lately turn into "Get the pitchfork! Kill (insert brand here)! GM is dumb!"?

Sure there's lack of product @ GM's brands, but It's not like Buick's been better off lately. I'd rather Buick have a small number independent or near independent (shared with another brand or two) models as opposed to a mess of SUV rebadges and a retarted minivan.

I don't think Buick is going anywhere fast.

[buyacargetacheck]

Yeah, yeah I read the same news article you did about the dealer vote. It doesn't make sense. I'm sure that the top dealers did "vote" and planted a bug in Lutz's ear, but no car company makes a planning decision solely based on what their dealers say. Capital investment realties trump all. Have you not spent any time at all in a corporate environment?

What would you expect GM to say if production was constrained on a RWD Lucerne replacement that Lutz gets asked about, oh, every five minutes? The reason they spin it is so they don't have to say something like, "We're at capacity with the new rave-reviewed Park Avenue so our NA markets will have to soldier on with the lame duck Lucerne for another 3 agonizing years." Nobody's "being blamed." It's called putting a positive spin on things Northstar.

I haven't seen any evidence that anyone wasting their time typing on message boards knows anything about Zeta plans for Buick. There's just a lot of "I wish" and "wouldn't it be nice." Nobody even knows if Buick will be around in 2012. That includes China, by the way.

You act like you know everything, yet you know nothing at all. The dealers were given a vote for either a Zeta-based vehicle or the Lucerne, and they picked the Lucerne. Why would GM try to spin it so that it seems like the dealer's are the reason we don't have one? Why wouldn't they say that the car is doing so well elsewhere that they don't have production capacity if that is the case?

The next LaCrosse is already going to be on the LWB EP II. If you actually read any of the posts of people around here with knowledge, you'd already know that the Lucerne is being moved to Zeta after it runs it's course (2011-12 MY).

[thegriffon]

unfortunately i am not a subrscriber, i was hoping someone out there is and knows something about the article, but the headline is encouraging

For anything in Autonews, check Autoweek. They often have republish Auto News articles (including this one) a little later, and without a subscription required.

[Northstar]

Yeah, yeah I read the same news article you did about the dealer vote. It doesn't make sense. I'm sure that the top dealers did "vote" and planted a bug in Lutz's ear, but no car company makes a planning decision solely based on what their dealers say. Capital investment realties trump all. Have you not spent any time at all in a corporate environment?

What would you expect GM to say if production was constrained on a RWD Lucerne replacement that Lutz gets asked about, oh, every five minutes? The reason they spin it is so they don't have to say something like, "We're at capacity with the new rave-reviewed Park Avenue so our NA markets will have to soldier on with the lame duck Lucerne for another 3 agonizing years." Nobody's "being blamed." It's called putting a positive spin on things Northstar.

We would have had to soldier on with the Lucerne anyways. The PA was not going to be a replacement, but rather it was just going to be another model.

I haven't seen any evidence that anyone wasting their time typing on message boards knows anything about Zeta plans for Buick. There's just a lot of "I wish" and "wouldn't it be nice." Nobody even knows if Buick will be around in 2012. That includes China, by the way.

Oh really? That's funny. I know of at least 4 people on this message board (3 of which post frequently) that know quite a bit about Buick's Zeta plans. There is at least 1 other that I think may know a little something, but I'm unsure. And oh by the way, there's plenty of Buick's coming in China, would you really like me to list them or are you just going to deny that there happen to be people who know a little something about the future and aren't just guessing?

[thegriffon]

That is what I said in the previous thread, why do middlemen get so much of a say in what GM wants to do. It is like Sony declining to bring LCD screen display because Bestbuy does not want it?

err, the latter is quite possible. It's been known to happen, after all if the retailer won't order it, then the consumer has no chance to decide whether they want it. Plenty of products have died sight unseen because retailers (or even one major retailer) wasn't interested. Some products (and the companies that make them) have even been killed because a retailer accidentally stops stocking it (it happens more easily than you'd think—trust me I work in retail and I've seen product lines killed because a clerical error blocked orders somewhere in the distribution point, or someone never got around to putting on the floor so people could buy it, and no-one bothered to ask why we weren't selling any, or believed the reason if they were told).

[thegriffon]

…Pontiac, meanwhile, will get a V-8 version of the G8 priced close to $40,000 and a V-6 version priced "well below" $40,000, LaNeve said. The mix will be skewed toward the V-6, he added.

It's built off a new rwd platform by Holden, GM's Australian unit. La-Neve says the car is aimed for the Dodge Charger, Honda Accord or Nissan Altima buyer, "who pays a little more but wants a lot more performance and a different image."

"It won't be a tremendously high-volume product," LaNeve said, "but it's going to be significant to the Pontiac brand and a real continued image boost like Solstice was for Pontiac."

This is what I like to see, sensible pricing that separates the brands.

[NINETY EIGHT REGENCY]

Why does every thread lately turn into "Get the pitchfork! Kill (insert brand here)! GM is dumb!"?

Sure there's lack of product @ GM's brands, but It's not like Buick's been better off lately. I'd rather Buick have a small number independent or near independent (shared with another brand or two) models as opposed to a mess of SUV rebadges and a retarted minivan.

I don't think Buick is going anywhere fast.

This is one of the main reasons why I said I was going to posting less and I was not enjoying my time here. I have not been in on "the kill the brands thread" and every thread is turning into that. even when some offers a slightly different opinion on things besides killing brands on other threads, as you said it turns into a lynching and get a pitchfork. It gets nasty....

It makes it uncomfortable for others..

They have beat this to death. The only thing I said jokingly was I was watching with PCS to watch things play out.

I do not want to see another brand die. The demise of Oldsmobile still haunts GM and it was a mistake. People still bring it up in their arguments. I have accepted my favorite brand is gone. GM has nothing that appeals to me or that I want. I accept that. I drive my cars because GM once built what I like to drive. While I do not always agree with GM politics or business practices, I still prefer their products over others. I do not believe everything GM says or does because of what went down with Oldsmobile.

It is apparent PCS works for GM just like F Body Father( I do not know his name) and they see things differently. PCS does not like Holden. I accept that. I am not going to berate that point or attack him in every thread every chance I get.

I read what the F Body father said and Griffon said. All were very good reads and very informative.

People.. This is a forum. People are free to make choices. People are free to have opinions. While we may not agree with the opinions of others, we have to respect them. It is not any ones job to sway someone one way or another. There is another way to tell someone you disagree with out it turning into pages of debates and back and forth and on and on and cursing.

Why? What for?

In the end time will tell how things shake out at GM. There will be fewer cars I am sure.

What is going on here? This place used to not be this way. The way people are carrying on is no different than the people carry on about their Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys and defending blindly....

Let me explain something. My cars I own are not cool at all in the gay community or to most buyers. Do you think I really care? They make me happy. I paid for them. In the end, why would I run out and buy a BMW 5 Series or Honda Accord to be approved of by people who really do not matter?

Be secure with who you are and what you drive. That statement I made above is to say this.. if someones opinions do not matter, it serves no purpose going round and round page after page about what brand is going to stay...

Here is the scary part.. All these arguments are started by articles, analysts, and outsiders who want to see GM fail.

All that is done to excite, get others upset and more. The whole Oldsmobile demise thing got started because of one reporter based on speculation.

This website is called CHEERS AND GEARS. GM'S BIGGEST FANS AND TOUGHEST CRITICS.

no, it has become BOOS AND GEARS. GM'S BIGGEST COMPLAINERS AND EACH OTHERS TOUGHEST CRITICS.

Thank you.

[Flybrian]

I'll still say C&G is better than certain other places where that's all they do and all they've ever done. At least we're constuctive about it.

[cire]

Since Buick is so big in China, this would be the perfect time to try to properly reposition the brand back here in the U.S. Other than making sure the cars meet government safety/emissions regulations, the development money has already been spent in China. If the models don't sell well, then it doesn't seem that it would be that big of a loss for GM.

I think Buick could properly fill its niche as a near luxury brand with six models:

* Compact FWD sedan (Skylark or possibly Century)

* Midsize FWD sedan (Regal)

* Large RWD sedan (Park Avenue or LeSabre)

* Midsize crossover (Rendezvous - a new updated, redesigned version on the Theta platform)

* Large crossover (Enclave)

* Halo RWD coupe-convertible (Riviera)

Some things Buick/GM would have to do to be taken seriously:

* Each vehicle receives its own distinctive, upscale exterior/interior design that is totally different from any other brands' vehicles. No more rebadged Chevrolet products (For example: Cadillac Cimmaron, Pontiac G5, etc.)

* Each vehicle would be loaded with the appropriate features, content, and technology for the vehicle to be a serious competitor in the near luxury market.

* No more outdated overhead valve engines and no more 4 speed automatics. The competition in the near luxury field moved on past these items a long time ago.

* Redesign the vehicles on a timely basis so that the model name stays relevant and the names do not have to be changed so often. Buick did well in the most recent J.D. Power report; unfortunately it was with models that the brand does not sell anymore. This could have been a publicity coup for the brand if customers could find the same models on a Buick lot today. Cut customer confusion and stop wasting marketing dollars changing names.

If Buick executes this plan correctly, then it might see a revival. It would be great to see.