GM at it again

So... of all of the brands GM had about three years ago, they decided to save 4. Two of them, Cadillac and Chevy made a lot of sense... but the other two? Well, GMC is the truck division, so I suppose that made sense, but why it still makes passenger cars, who the hell knows. And the final one? Buick. Yes, Buick. Personally, I would have taken Pontiac or even Saab over Buick, but the big draw was China, where Buicks are considered... well, like Buick was here until the 80's rolled around.

So, GM's plan is to have a three-tiered strategy, where Cadillac fights BMW/Audi/MB, Chevy takes on ToMoCo/FoMoCo/Chrysleriat/Honda/Hyundai/etc/etc/etc and Buick takes on... well, no really sure. The new Regal shares its bones with the new Saab 9-5, and is a sporting sedan straight of Germany with a powerful turbo and a stick shift.. so a sporty Buick. But Buick is also meant to take on Lexus - which originally was started to take on Buick, ironically.

So what the hell is this then?

Its the Buick Verano. Yes - the spanish word for summer. It is based on... the Chevy Cruz. Now, the Cruz is meant to be a big step up from what it replaces, the outdated Cobalt, which (other than the fantastic SS) was a pretty shitty little car. But, it is still a small economy car designed to be a small economy car. What the hell are they doing turning it into a Buick? I mean really, is the small luxury car segment doing that well? The BMW 1 series has not been popular over here, and it actually drives well. The A3 has sold in such small numbers most people probably dont even know the little hatchback Audi exists, and the Volvo C30 (yes, I see them all the time... in... err.. what is that car again?) rounds out this very forgettable list. And all of those cars are inherently better than the Verano... because they are not based on $15,000 compact economy cars.

This is really just idiotic. You are trying to establish a luxury brand and you put this thing out. Just take a page from the history books and look at the Infinity G20, which was a horrible joke, just as Nissan was trying to make Inifiniti a brand, they sell a car based on the Nissan Sentra...

Yes - it was that ugly