Cx Auto Ac Abs Power Optns 7 Pass Well Matned Must See!!!!! on 2040-cars

Auto blog

The 2020 Buick LaCrosse we won't get looks exceptional

GM is killing off the Buick LaCrosse in the United States after the 2019 model year, but elsewhere it lives on. Buried by all the Geneva news this week, GM quietly took the wraps off a 2020 Buick LaCrosse facelift for China. It only makes sense to keep selling the big Buick in the popular Chinese market (now Buick's largest), but we're a tad jealous of what we can't have stateside. The changes Buick has implemented make the LaCrosse into a far more handsome option. Both the front and rear get massaged here. A new horizontal patterned grille, slimmer headlights with a neat LED design, plus new lower bumper surround all work together to provide a more upscale look. The view out back is an even larger departure from the old and somewhat awkward rear end on the 2019 LaCrosse. Smaller, flowing taillights mesh well with the chrome strip on the trunk lid, then dual exhaust outlets offer a sporty flair to the squat rear end. The Buick badge looks cohesive with the look as a whole now, instead of just chilling out alone on the expansive trunk lid. An updated powertrain package goes along with the new looks, too. GM is snagging its new 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder LSY engine it uses in the Cadillac XT4 for duty here. It makes 237 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque, and is mated to GM's nine-speed automatic transmission. China will be the only market to see this generation of LaCrosse as GM plans to exclusively produce it in its Shanghai facility. The Detroit-Hamtramck plant that previously made it for all North American markets was among those facilities GM announced would close, bringing with it the LaCrosse and other vehicles. Related video:

Junkyard Gem: Heavily personalized 1997 Buick Skylark Custom Sedan

Normally I wouldn't be much interested in a third-generation GM N-Body (a family that includes the Chevy Malibu and Olds Achieva) spotted in the junkyard, though a case could be made for such a vehicle's historical significance. This '97 Skylark, however, arrived in a Northern California self-service wrecking yard well-plastered with stickers, reflectors, and other personalizing touches, making it an interesting document of its time and place. It appears that both of the original white fenders got mashed and then replaced with blue ones, almost certainly obtained cheaply at a yard like this one. If you're not going to paint your new fenders to match the car, then you're already well down the slippery slope to making the car a giant mobile canvas to display your interests. A 20-year-old GM N-Body, regardless of how nice it was when new, isn't worth much, and you could stretch a line of these cars from Lansing to Lahore with all the used-up Ns sitting in American wrecking-yard inventory right now. Perhaps it was the grandchild of the car's original owner who indulged in White Widow cannabis and listened to Siouxsie & the Banshees. The odds against finding the original window sticker in a car like this are mighty long, but here it is. Sold new at Putnam Buick in Burlingame. It appears that this car spent most of its final decade in or near Mill Valley. Mill Valley is a mere 30 miles from Burlingame, or about three hours of Buick driving (you have to go past SFO, through San Francisco, and across the Golden Gate Bridge, a journey featuring apocalyptically terrible traffic at just about any time). Drive east across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge and you'll get to this Skylark's final parking space, about 20 miles from Mill Valley. This car lived its whole life near the shores of San Francisco Bay, and it will die there. Feathers and a political-party charm adorn the headliner. This car's final owner had a practical side, as we can see from the many reflectors and lengths of safety tape. Just the thing for avoiding a T-bone wreck in the dead of night! "Essentially, Skylark embodies all of the features customers expect from a Buick, in a smaller package, with a very attractive MSRP."

Buick Encore production increased to lift supply by 50%

Trying to zero in on the Buick Encore leads us to the conclusion that the only place it really fits is in buyers' driveways. Every member of its so-called competitive set – we've read everything from the Ford C-Max to the Nissan Juke to the Volkswagen Tiguan to the BMW X1 – is so different in small yet fundamental ways that the Encore neatly slinks between them all, and with 48,892 sales in 2014, it doesn't stop slinking until it reaches consumer garages. That success, and preparation for the aggrandizing of the compact CUV segment, is why General Motors is upping production for the US market by 50 percent. Analysts keep predicting there will be more shoppers for tiny crossovers, and that's why those that don't have them are getting them. Yet the Encore came out in 2013 before people realized the power of the segment, and it has substantially out-performed GM and observer expectations: analysts predicted 18,500 US sales in 2013 and 25,000 in 2015; in 2013 we wrote, "We admit it. We have no earthly idea how this whole thing is going to shake out." It shook out 31,046 sales in 2013, puffing that number up by more than 50 percent last year. GM thinks that this year it will it will go from Buick's third-best-selling vehicle to its best-selling vehicle. GM wants that to continue, what with the Honda HR-V, Jeep Renegade, and Mazda CX-3 on the way. Dealers say they'd sell more if they could get them, and the four-month lead time at the moment between a dealer ordering and taking delivery – about double the normal time – creates a handicap. Plants in Mexico, Korea, and Spain will hive off production to bolster US inventory to keep the "downsizing empty nesters" who love it, happy. Seeing as the coming competition is falls meaningfully outside the Buick's combination of traits, there's a chance its popular tale can continue.