Two weeks ago we showed you spy shots of a 2010 Buick Regal caught testing in China that appeared to be nothing more than a rebadged Opel Insignia. (As you may recall, we'll be getting the 2010 Buick LaCrosse in the States.) All three of those cars are based on GM's Epsilon II platform, which we will also likely see under future vehicles from Saab, Saturn and Chevrolet. The Buick brand, and the popular Regal, are doing very well in China. As such, it's no surprise to see these latest spy shots of the barely disguised four-door Regal dipped in red, and it looks great despite being a badge job. The production version is expected to debut at the Guangzhou Auto Show in November.
We don't feel slighted anymore over the Chinese getting what appears to be a pretty nice looking Buick Regal, not after those spy shots from earlier today showing the 2010 Buick LaCrosse that we'll get in the U.S. After all, the Chinese Buick Regal appears to be not much more than an Opel Insignia with a new front end based on these spy shots, while the U.S.-spec Buick Lacrosse gets an entirely unique interior and exterior design. All three cars - the Opel Insignia, Chinese market Buick Regal and U.S. market Buick LaCrosse - are based General Motors' Epsilon II platform. Of course, the Buick brand is much bigger in China than here in the U.S., and the redesigned Regal, one of the cars that helped the brand gain popularity early on in China, looks ready to continue that trend.
Let's forget about the Pontiac G3 for now and focus on what General Motors is doing right. Case in point is the upcoming 2010 Buick LaCrosse, which has just been caught undergoing testing wearing very little camouflage. We can clearly see now that Buick designers drew heavily on the Invicta concept for inspiration. Even the concept's character line remains that kinks just ahead of the rear wheels to create a smooth arch over the rear fenders. Photographers actually caught two LaCrosse models out testing, one of which showed a clean rear bumper and the other was brandishing two large, rectangular tailpipes and wearing demonstrably larger wheels. They even managed to snag a clear shot of the interior that shows an impressive dash design with what appears to be very high quality materials like a double-stitched leather dash and real wood accents. Thankfully, the 2010 Buick LaCrosse looks like a winner along the lines of the Cadillac CTS and even Buick's own Enclave. It may even add ammunition to the argument that GM can build a world-class car when it wants to, but we'll wait until we see one in person and get some seat time to make our final judgment.
Oh sure, we've already shown you spy shots of the 2010 Buick LaCrosse that reveal the kit and kaboodle, but don't let that take away from GM's release of a teaser shot showing the upcoming sedan's new grille. Along with the pic, GM confirmed that the new LaCrosse will debut at the upcoming LA Auto Show in November. We'll be there to cover the reveal, as this smallest of Buick sedans (for now) will be a big player in the brand's future success. It's nice and all to have a critically acclaimed full-size crossover in the Enclave, but more and more buyers are moving away from big CUVs into smaller vehicles at the moment, and Buick hopes they'll move right into the new LaCrosse.
Though the newish Buick Enclave has received plenty of accolades, it's the right vehicle at the wrong time for GM's smallest brand. The other two vehicles in Buick's lineup – the LaCrosse mid-size sedan and Lucerne large sedan – might better appeal to gas-conscious buyers than a large CUV, but they're far from leaders in their segment. A new LaCrosse, however, will reportedly be arriving as a 2010 model. Car and Driver just published these spy shots of a pre-production model caught with its camouflage pants down, and they reveal its design will borrow heavily from the Invicta Concept that was revealed at this year's Beijing Motor Show. That's not a bad thing, as the Invicta is a fetching sedan that went over well with the Chinese crowds. And while we could be mislead by the grainy quality of these spy shots, we swear there are two rows of portholes on the hood.
The '10 LaCrosse will likely arrive atop GM's Epsilon II platform that also underpins the upcoming Insignia and will next find its way to the '11 Saturn Aura and '12 Chevy Malibu. Engine choices are anyone's guess, but don't expect another V8 Super model. We guess the next-gen LaCrosse will get a smattering of four- and six-cylinder engines, the smaller of which could employ turbocharging and direct injection. Also check out C&D's pics of the new LaCrosse interior, which looks like a smaller version of a Cadillac CTS interior. Since we know have pictorial evidence of preproduction prototypes this far along, it's safe to assume that Buick will debut the 2010 LaCrosse during the upcoming auto show season.
Autoblog reader Mike dropped us a note the other day to let us he had spotted this car tooling around in Troy MI. Being a vigilant Autoblog reader he had a camera handy and snapped off a series of photos. Mike was unable to identify the car in question, but we've seen this machine before. It's the next generation Buick LaCrosse although it's not known if GM will retain that branding. The new Buick is built on GM's Epsilon II platform which is shared with the new Opel Insignia.
GM Vice Chairman Bob "Maximum" Lutz published a new post today on the corporate GM Fastlane Blog that addresses the automaker's newest concept that debuted recently at Auto China 2008 in Beijing: the Invicta. The concept heavily hints at what the next-generation Buick LaCrosse will look like, but Bob points out that the global architecture underpinning the vehicle will be the basis of new cars for Chevy, Saab, Opel/Vauxhall and more. In the past, we would've expected those accompanying models to be rebadged versions with different grilles, headlights and taillights, but Bob explains how GM's new global platform sharing process is different than the rebadging of old. In a nutshell, he says that the money saved from sharing common platforms see will be put into making everything that customer's will see - exterior and interior design, specifically - completely different. While it's great to hear Bob talk about how GM finally "gets it" when it comes to producing common products across an empire of brands, it's something that other automakers like VW/Audi have been doing for years while the General kept feeding us "triplets" of every model it made. So kudos to GM for finally getting it, but it took 'em long enough.
A new, small sub-Lacrosse Buick luxury sedan could fit the bill to meet future federal regulations requiring an average fuel economy of 35 mpg by 2020. If given the go-ahead, General Motors would build the new car based on the upcoming Buick Excelle, itself set to debut in China by early 2009 and thought to look like the car you see above. The Excelle is a small, Toyota Corolla-sized sedan that will be manufactured on GM's new global rear-wheel drive Alpha architecture developed out of Germany. If General Motors decides to proceed with the plan, executives will have to determine what North American plant gets to build it, but its proclivity to be driven by its rear wheels should set the small car apart in a sea of FWD compact sedans.
Shanghai GM today introduced the first mainstream hybrid in China's upper-medium vehicle segment: the Buick LaCrosse Eco-Hybrid. The car is part of Shanghai GM's push to earn truly worthy green credentials -- the kind that surpass Chinese requirements and meet European standards.
The LaCrosse is the first car to get the two-mode hybrid system for the Chinese market. With it the, the new car gets 28 mpg as opposed to the non-hybrid's 24. From next year until 2012, GM will offer 11 more increasingly fuel-efficient engines, including the E-Flex drive and the Fuel Cell E-Flex. For this year, Chinese customers will get new powerplants in the form of the 1.2-liter S-TEC, an HFV6 3.6-liter dual mode DI V6, and a mystery two-mode hybrid that will better its gas-powered cousin by 50-percent in fuel economy with no drop in performance.
The LaCrosse Eco-Hybrid is the first hybrid in Buick's lineup, and will use a development of the Belt Alternator Starter hybrid system akin to the Malibu Hybrid. Unlike the Malibu Hybrid, though, we won't be seeing the LaCrosse Hybrid here in the States.
When the Buick Riviera concept debuted at the Shanghai Motor Show last summer, many didn't give the car a second glance because, while imminently snazzy, no one though it would have much impact on the U.S. market. We all may have been wrong, according to TheCarConnection, which is reporting that the Riviera Concept offers a sneak peek at what the next-gen Buick LaCrosse will look like. We've seen the next LaCrosse in spy shots and can maybe find a few similarities between the two, but otherwise we don't really see the resemblance. Aside from the obvious discrepancy in door count, you can see the grilles are markedly different, with the Riviera's upturned into a smile and the LaCrosse prototype's turned down in a frown. The Riviera also has three air intakes below the front bumper, while the spy shot shows only one on the prototype. Both cars exhibit a certain amount of Buickness in their look, though the Riviera definitely turns it up notch. For that alone we hope the connection between the two is real.
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