U.S. Buick Sales Rise To 95-Month High, GM Claims Best Retail Start Since 2005

Timothy Cain
by Timothy Cain

A July 2016 surge to 22,960 sales produced the best month of U.S. sales for General Motors’ Buick brand in nearly three years.

“Year to date, Buick retail deliveries have grown 6 percent,” General Motors claimed in its monthly release, “and Buick has gained 0.1 percentage points of retail share.”

GM also said 2016, with 114,105 retail sales through July, represented the best seven-month retail start to a year since 2005 in the United States.

But don’t get too excited, LeSabre lovers, Skylark supporters, and rooters of Regals. We’re talking about 2005, when U.S. Buick sales had already fallen by more than a third in only three years.

In fact, year-over-year, total Buick sales in 2016’s first seven months are only 62 units stronger than they were at this stage of 2015. Total Buick volume in 2016 is down 3 percent compared with the first seven months of 2014, when Buick reported 131,155 sales. That doesn’t sound like the best start to the year since 2005.

But remember, the claim that this was the best start to the year since 2005 pertains only to the retail front, Buick spokesperson Stuart Fowle confirmed last week. GM did not historically report separate retail/fleet/total sales figures, as is the industry standard, and GM still does not report retail figures for specific models.

To substantiate the claim, Fowle supplied TTAC with a decade’s worth of Buick brand retail numbers for us to evaluate.

Year-to-date, Buick’s retail volume is up 6 percent compared with the first seven months of 2015 and 8 percent compared with the first seven months of 2005. Again, not since 2005, when GM says Buick sold 137,880 vehicles through the retail network, has the brand had a better start to a year.

JULY’S TOTALS


In July, specifically, Buick’s 10-percent year-over-year total sales uptick easily outpaced the industry’s 1-percent rise. Even without the help of 1,421 sales of the new Envision, Buick’s Chinese-built mid-range crossover, and 633 sales from the new Cascada convertible, Buick sales still increased total sales at the same rate as the industry overall.

Don’t thank the car division. With the cancelled Verano falling 13 percent and the LaCrosse entering a replacement phase that brought volume down 32 percent, a 50-percent jump from the low-volume Regal, and the additional Cascada sales, Buick car volume still fell four units shy of the total three Buicks achieved one year ago.

But the Buick Enclave jumped 10 percent to 7,249 units, outselling the LaCrosse, Regal and Verano combined in its best July ever.

SUBCOMPACT


Although the Encore subcompact crossover reported a more modest 1-percent year-over-year boost, the 6,923-unit sales result was the best month ever for the Encore. Just like the Enclave, the Encore outsold the three best-selling Buick cars combined.

Together, the Buick Encore and its Chevrolet Trax twin owned nearly one-third of the U.S. subcompact crossover market in July 2016.

Including the Envision, 68 percent of Buick’s U.S. sales in July were powered by utility vehicles; only 32 percent with traditional cars.

With the Verano dying off at the end of this model year and the Envision set to capture a far greater chunk of the market when the 2017 model offers a significantly lower price of entry, expect those numbers to shift higher and lower, respectively.

Timothy Cain
Timothy Cain

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  • Operagost Operagost on Aug 23, 2016

    I'm pretty sure, without even checking, that the Skylark was already at least seven years dead in 2005. I loved mine, but it decided to start burning out its ignition coils repeatedly.

  • APaGttH APaGttH on Aug 23, 2016

    Predictions of the Encore demise once other makers started making subcompact CUVs appears to have been completely, totally, and absolutely wrong.

    • Shaker Shaker on Aug 24, 2016

      And sales of the Trax (usually in the price range where the Equinox started) are doing well too. People like "tall".

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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