1986 Buick Grand National on 2040-cars

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Buick's big boxy crossover design sketch looks surprisingly good

The current Buick lineup is fairly bland, consisting solely of amorphous crossovers in small, medium, and large. Fortunately, the brand is showing signs of life at the General Motors design studio with new products like the Envista, and where designers have envisioned (no pun intended) a large, boxy vehicle that looks like a Kia EV9 competitor. The unnamed premium crossover was penned by designer Geoffrey Richmond and has a well-defined profile with a traditional SUV's squarish greenhouse. It could portend the next-generation Enclave, which shares a similar fishhook headlight design. However, the illustration's front end is a lot more cohesive, with foglamp housings that meet at the outer edges of the headlights.  The front end has sort of the Tesla EV duckbill thing going on, but a wide lower intake indicates that there could be an engine under the hood. In any case, this is just an ideation so there may not even be a platform to put this body on yet. That would be a shame, as the Enclave has been out since 2018 and could use a makeover. The V6-powered crossover was supposed to reposition the brand, and we found it quiet and surprisingly comfortable in our review. However, that hasn't been enough to catch on with trendsetters — Enclaves are rarer than Bentleys here in L.A. The "bar of soap" crossover trend is over. Nowadays, for better or worse, buyers want aggressive, rugged looking crossovers even if they're just going on a Target run. A bold design like the one Richmond painted might change the Enclave's fortunes. And maybe they can bring back the portholes. Related video: 2024 Buick Encore GX Nalgene water bottle test

Buick mulling more powerful Encore; diesel too

Looking to set itself apart in the mid-luxury segment, Buick is looking to introduce a diesel engine somewhere in its US lineup. And according to Edmunds, the two best chances of a diesel Buick rest with the Encore and Verano.
In both our First Drive and Review of the 2013 Encore, our chief complaint about the compact crossover was the the lack of power from the 138-horsepower turbo engine. Edmunds says that the recently introduced 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine (with both gas and diesel variants) from the Encore's overseas cousin, the Opel Mokka, could make its way into the Encore delivering the much-needed boost in power.
Then there's the Verano. As a close relative to the Chevy Cruze, which just added a diesel engine for 2014, the article speculates that a Verano Diesel might actually be the more "probably candidate" if and when Buick decides to add a diesel model to its portfolio. Either way, offering such an engine in one of its products could be a great way for Buick to differentiate itself from Cadillac and possibly even attract buyers from Volkswagen, Audi and Mercedes-Benz looking for a luxurious, fuel-efficient vehicle.

Malaise Era Junkyard Gem: 1979 Buick Electra Limited

In the fall of 1973, the Arab members of OPEC shut off the oil taps, and Detroit got busy making many of their full-sized land yachts a lot smaller. By model year 1977, the downsized fifth-generation Buick Electra was ready to go ... just in time for the 1979 Iranian Revolution to squeeze the supply of the black stuff even further. You won't see many of the 1977-85 Electras these days, but I spotted this faded but solid '79 Limited sedan in a Denver self-service yard last week. General Motors must have bought up the entire world's supply of blue velour around this time, because you'll see this stuff in just about every car they made for the following decade or so. By this time, GM was doing a lot of mixing-and-matching with engines from its various divisions, which meant you could buy an Oldsmobile 88 with a Chevrolet 350 V8 engine, a Chevrolet Monza with a Buick 231 V6 engine, or— as in this case— a Buick Electra with an Oldsmobile 350 V8 engine. Do you want to know how many horses this engine delivered to this 3,631-pound car? 155 horsepower out of 5.7 liters of engine displacement. Times were tough during the Malaise Era. Related Video: Featured Gallery Junked 1979 Buick LeSabre in Colorado Junkyard View 20 Photos Buick Automotive History Luxury Classics Sedan malaise era