This Is How GM Design Head Ed Welburn Envisions a Buick Pickup
Would Buick consider producing a pickup truck? Now that the brand’s lineup has been fleshed out to include sedans, SUVs, and a convertible, what’s stopping General Motors from adding a Buick-badged variant to either its midsize or large-truck portfolio?
According to Ed Welburn, who oversees global design for GM, there’s a simple answer.
“No, I don’t see it,” Welburn said, wincing. “Wow. I haven’t gotten that question from anyone.”
At that point we expected silence, as it’s not if anyone is clamoring for a Buick pickup truck, despite a market that’s moving toward softer pickups that err on the side of comfort and convenience — but Welburn went on.
“If we did a Buick, it would be totally different than the GMC [Canyon], that’s for sure,” he said. “It would be an interesting design project to do it. I can envision it, but I can’t see doing it for production. If you’re not going to do it for production, I wouldn’t put any energy into it.“
It wouldn’t be the first time that GM tried to produce a pickup truck with car-like features, as the SSR ( remember that one?) emerged under Wilburn’s eye.
He acknowledged that the front fascia of the Avista is going to be the new face of the brand for the near future, and mentioned that the Enclave makes a fine substitute for a minivan in the lineup — just in case we were going to ask.
Our version of a Buick pickup truck would skew toward elegant roughness, more of a lifted Avista with a lengthened rear deck. And we’d toss in the 2.8-liter diesel, for good measure.
More by Jeff Jablansky
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someones missing a niche by not making an el camino/ranchero variant. theres gotta be some pent-up demand for it somewhere, enough to at least make it worthwhile for maybe a 5yr generation.
I'd rather see a new Riviera. Build it so it's not outrageous a overly priced. The Crossfire and Solstice were nice cars but overly priced. Same for the last Thunderbird.