2014 Buick Enclave Leather on 2040-cars

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2014 Buick LaCrosse

A Nice, New Buick Aims For Middle Of The Road
Any time someone describes some portion of a car or a driving experience as being "nice," I want to either A) throttle them or B) run as fast and as far as I can from that vehicle. "Nice" is among the most insidious words in the English language - at best it's vague, and at worst, it conveys the exact opposite of its literal meaning. Yet it seems to be used with damnable frequency when it comes to verbally illustrating vehicles. "It looks really nice," or "These seats feel nice," or, heaven forefend, "It's got a nice ride," are all windy signifiers of absolutely nothing resembling a concrete opinion. "Nice" is the adjectival equivalent of meekly smiling and nodding your head.
Of course, I'm as guilty as the next person of having thrown English's least powerful descriptor around. There's even a chance that, rant aside, you'll catch me making nice in reviews to come. That's fine, but you should know that when you stumble upon such usage, past or future, that you've found a sentence in which I'm simply applying a bare minimum of effort to the task.

Junkyard Gem: 1978 Buick Skylark Sedan

Around the time that OPEC shut off the oil taps, The General realized that it was time to sell more small cars from GM divisions not previously known for such machines. The logical candidate for this project was the Chevrolet Nova, a rear-wheel-drive compact that shared much of its chassis design with the Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird. The Nova-based Pontiac Ventura came out in the 1971 model year, and the Buick and Oldsmobile Divisions began producing their own badge-engineered Nova siblings for 1973 (Cadillac was late to the party, but eventually created the Nova-based Seville for 1976). At first, the Buickized Nova got Apollo badges, but the better-known Skylark name was applied to these cars for the 1975 through 1979 model years. Today's Junkyard Gem is one of those Nova-based Skylarks, found in a Denver self-serve yard. From the 1964 through 1972 model years, the Skylark lived on the A-Body chassis and was sibling to the Chevrolet Chevelle/Malibu, Pontiac LeMans/Tempest/GTO, and Oldsmobile Cutlass/442. After the 1975-1979 rear-wheel-drive X-Body phase, the Skylark name then went onto the unrelated front-wheel-dive X-Body chassis developed for the Chevrolet Citation. It's a Nova, sure, but Buick made sure that it had a bit more swank than its Chevy counterpart. Checked seat fabric with big square buttons! The base engine in the '78 Skylark was the 3.8-liter Buick V6, rated at 110 horsepower. GM had invested in a new crankshaft design for this engine the year before, so it no longer had the "odd-fire" cut-down V8 crankshaft that shook the fillings out of so many drivers' teeth in earlier years. An assortment of low-compression V8s from Oldsmobile, Chevrolet, Pontiac, and Buick were available as optional equipment as well, eventually leading to the "Chevymobile" lawsuits of a few years later. The base transmission in this car was a three-speed manual (I'm not sure if you could still get a three-on-the-tree column-shift manual Skylark in 1978, but a three-on-the-floor manual was available for sure). The very last three-on-the-tree car Americans could buy was the '79 Nova and its Olds Omega/Pontiac Phoenix siblings, while the final three-on-the-floor cars were the '81 Malibu and siblings. This car has the optional three-speed automatic.

Buick resurrects the Electra nameplate on a science fiction-like electric concept

Buick plans to broaden its range of electric cars in the coming years, and it still owns the rights to the heritage-laced Electra nameplate, so it was only a matter of time before the past and the future met head-on. Buick resurrected the name it used between the 1959 and 1990 model years on a futuristic, battery-powered concept car. Created by a Shanghai-based design studio, the Electra concept takes the form of either a tall sedan or a low crossover, depending on your perspective. While it's not officially a preview of an upcoming production model, it ushers in a design language named Potential Energy that will permeate most of the electric cars the firm will release during the 2020s. It's inspired by a space capsule, according to Buick, so its greenhouse was drawn to resemble a glass pod. Its surfaces are sculpted but not chiseled, and its front fascia wears LED lights with a three-dimensional effect. Fear not: Stylists didn't forget the seemingly obligatory back-lit emblem. Butterfly doors provide access to the cabin, where the space capsule theme continues. Buick packed the Electra with cutting-edge technology features, but it concealed them rather well to avoid a tech overload. The driver faces a rectangular steering wheel that retracts when it's not needed, behind which is a wide, curved screen that replaces all of the buttons, knobs, and switches normally found in a car's interior. An electric motor is far more compact than a comparable four- or six-cylinder engine, so designers were able to carve out a generously sized interior. Engineers embedded technology into the Electra from the project's earliest stage. It's equipped with software named eConnect that supports over-the-air updates, provides on-demand information about a specific trip, and gives details about the various electronic driving aids. An artificial intelligence-powered assistant lets users perform various tasks, such as setting the air conditioning or controlling home devices, with voice commands. Buick noted the Electra offers about 410 miles of driving range thanks in part to the Ultium battery technology developed by General Motors to power a wide selection of electric models, including the Cadillac Lyriq, the GMC Hummer, and a pair of Honda-badged models scheduled to go on sale for the 2024 model year.