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Junkyard Gem: 1978 Buick Electra 225

The Buick Electra was a big, plush, dignified land yacht for the 1959 through 1976 model years, but certain events in the middle 1970s, coupled with increasing sales of imported cars, convinced The General that a weight-loss program would help Electra sales. For the 1977 model year, the big Buick became 11 inches shorter and shed close to 900 pounds. Sales took off. Most of these cars are gone now, but I was able to find this faded '78 in a San Francisco Bay Area self-service yard a few weeks back. Just to be clear, the Buick Electra in the iconic Sir Mix-a-Lot video, My Hooptie, is a 1969 model. That car was much bigger and more powerful than today's Junkyard Gem. This car has the optional Oldsmobile 403-cubic-inch V8 engine under the hood, which was good for 185 horsepower and 320 pound-feet of torque. This is the same type of engine that was badged as a 6.6-liter plant in the Pontiac Firebird Trans Am of Smokey and the Bandit fame, and GM's mix-and-match games with engines from different divisions went on to cause great disgruntlement among buyers who wanted a Buick engine in a Buick. The silver-faced gauges were pretty cool-looking by late-1970s standards. The interior is standard-issue Detroit luxury car for the era: much vinyl, many molded-in fake stitches, plenty of not-trying-very-hard-to-look-real "wood." These cars rode very comfortably and looked sharp, so who cared if the interiors were plasticky? According to Glenn Ford, the '78 Electra carried on an ancient tradition of Buick luxury. Related Video:

2020 Buick Encore drops more powerful 1.4-liter four-cylinder option

It's not just Chevrolet Equinox, Terrain and Traverse crossovers and Cadillac CT6 enjoying the engine and trim switcheroos this spring. Based on the order guide, CarsDirect reports that the Buick Encore, Buick's most popular model by far, will lose one of its two engines. The 2019 Encore offers a 1.4-liter four-cylinder in two guises: one with 138 horsepower and 148 pound-feet of torque, the other with 153 hp and 177 lb-ft and stop/start. The more powerful version will not be an option on the 2020 Encore. The upgraded motor is a $250 option, but only after spending an additional $2,600 to move up to the Sport Touring trim, or shelling out $6,100 to reach the Essence trim. Aggressive deals could make the higher trims more economical, though; at the time of writing, the Sport Touring Encore includes $3,250 cash allowance, making it $650 less expensive than the base Encore 1SV. The more powerful 1.4-liter engine also delivered better gas mileage, with buyers getting one more mile per gallon in combined driving. Even so, buyers didn't dig it. In comments to CarsDirect, a Buick spokesperson said those purchasing 2019 Encores have only chosen the burlier motor 12 percent of the time. The weak take-rate could end up doing Buick an easy favor. The Buick Encore GX is expected to make landfall on U.S. shores sometime this year, riding on a different platform than our present Encore, and bringing a longer wheelbase with it. It will slide into the lineup between the $23,200 Encore and $31,995 Envision. This is all hypothetical at the moment, of course, but that seems a perfect place to insert the 153-hp 1.4-liter as an exclusive standard feature.

GM cutting vehicle trim options to save money for electrification

Information continues to filter out about GM's plans based on comments the automaker made during its Capital Markets Day event in February. GM President Mark Reuss said the company's push to save money by rationalizing the number of build combinations will continue in 2020, carrying on the work done in 2019. As GM Authority covers, last year, the carmaker cut 3,500 components across model lines, a 12% drop in the number of parts it needed to stock in its plants. Reuss used the next-generation Chevolet Equinox and GMC Terrain as examples for more cost efficiencies, saying build possibilities — which include international markets and their options — will be cut by more than 50%, and use more shared parts. "We will reduce total trim levels on Equinox and Terrain from eight to six," Reuss said, "reduce engine variants from 11 to 5, reduce build combinations from more than 200 to less than 100 per program, and see significant cost savings of an already paid-for architecture that took the mass out, helping us self-fund electrification programs." GM will plow a large amount of the money it saves into its ambitious EV program. In 2017, the automaker said it intends to have 20 electric vehicles on the market by the end of 2023, some of which could be shared between brands. An automotive analyst at Seeking Alpha and a piece in Automobile attempted to put specifics to what we should expect. As Automobile points out, the first two EVs in the 20-car program are already on sale, being the Ariv Meld and Ariv Merge eBikes available in Belgium and The Netherlands. We've seen the Cruise Origin autonomous rideshare taxi, although we don't know when it will hit the road. The next three, which we should see in the metal shortly, are two Cadillac EVs and the GMC Hummer EV pickup. The Cadillac pair are expected to be sized like the XT4 and XT5, and along with the Hummer, should hit the market starting in late 2021.