Buick Regal Announced

by Edward Niedermeyer

November 12th, 2009 5:06 PM

The American version of a Chinese rebadge of a German sedan to be built in Canada will be available at your local Buick dealer starting in the second quarter of next year. According to GM’s presser, the new Regal will initially be offered with the direct-injected 2.4 Ecotec, making 182 hp. Which, you gotta say, doesn’t sound like luxury-level motivation for a 3,600 lb car. A 2.0 turbocharged version with 220 horsepower will be offered later next summer. There will be no manual transmission option (both get 6-speed autos), and in a weird turn towards the Acura side of life, only one trim level (CXL) will be available. Accordingly, the 2009 Acura TSX and Volvo S60 are shown as competitors, although the 2.4l Buick comes up short of both in standard horsepower and rear headroom. In the real world though, GM picked some pretty safe competition: the S60 sold under 9,000 units in 2008 while the TSX sold just under 32,000 units. The Regal competition that Buick should really be worried about is its slightly-larger, more-optionable Epsilon II platform-mate, the LaCrosse.

#Buick #EntryLuxury #Insignia #Opel #Regal

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Pch101 on Nov 12, 2009
Buick makes money for GM. Why would you presume that a company that just filed bankruptcy due to its inability to appeal to car buyers is making money from car sales? how many large Luxury sedans sell in the 40k range a year in the US? Er, this car sells for about the same price as a higher trim Honda Accord or Toyota Camry. As in, cars that easily sell 350,000-400,000 units per year, consistently. Referring to this as a "luxury car" is a real stretch, when luxury sedans tend to sell in the $35-50k range and up. This car stickers in the high 20's to low 30's, and is already carrying a $1000 incentive. Buick is stuck in the "near luxury" trap that Saab has long been in -- luxury car volumes, at non-luxury prices. That isn't a profitable place to be. Either they need to sell the same number of cars at higher prices, or else they need to sell a lot more units at the current prices. But if we have learned anything about GM, it's that the company is talented at losing money, so you can bet that neither of these will occur.

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Bridge2farr on Nov 12, 2009

"Those numbers tell you that the car is a loser.' Perhaps you need to know that just about every one shipped to dealers is sold. For MSRP as well. Loser?

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Nick on Nov 13, 2009

Well, Porsche had a 3.0L 4-cyl a long time ago and GM has 2.9L. I imagine there will be a lot of fours in this size range in the future.

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Pch101 on Nov 13, 2009
Perhaps you need to know that just about every one shipped to dealers is sold. That sounds like salesman hype to me. (And we have established that you are a salesman at a GM dealership, so I suppose that's to be expected.) This sounds more realistic: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/autoblog-explains-90-day-buick-lacrosse-inventory-over-supply-promise/ And there is the $1,000 incentive. It seems likely that there are more incentives to come.

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