oh crap, I'm turning 49 this year, no wonder i like it, at least I'm a little ahead of the curve....

Here, the grandparents have bought more expensive, fuel-efficient cars, while the grandkids putter about in the Buicks and steal gasoline from each other... and me.

Most of us poor folk around here drive nice cars now, because nobody can afford to really drive them and they're being virtually given away. I moved up from a moped to a blizzard-proof V-8 SUV that will climb a wall--and use a gallon of gasoline to do it.

Why? Because I paid much less for that monster than I did for my silly little moped. Even with a $20 a week increased fuel cost I can drive that thing for another six months before its total cost over time reaches the up-front outlay for my 50cc scooter.

The most important reason is that my girlfriend has been much safer and happier this winter, which is priceless.

I hate the expense, and the pollution, and the disgustingly profligate consumption, and its ripped but sumptuous leather heated seats that sing to me in a siren's voice, reminding me how solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short my life was on that frigid little clown bike. But it's also several levels above my minimum-wage grade and pretty much the only formerly nice thing I own, which suggests that even though I pretend I don't care about status, I really do.

It's entirely possible that it's going to become the first home I've ever owned, too.

much more of a youthful/performance heritage than stuffy Buick.

them. I'm still driving my 2002 pontiac grand prix gt. I'm 38 btw.

My son is driving it now - over 225,000 miles on it and we've done little except regular maintenance on it since the warranty went out. (Thankfully the head gasket went out under warranty.)

Figured I'd try to find one used to replace it, but everyone who has one seems to love it and doesn't want to sell. Very few out there that aren't run to death.

loved that car. my only complaint was that the transmission couldn't handle the torque from the motor, and I blew it up. I did have it repaired, drove it a few more years, and eventually gave it to my mom when I bought my Element. that car was real nice, and I beat more than my share of Mustangs GTs with that supercharged V6.

The first car I remember my parents having was a Pontiac and I knew they made a good car. My mother got a new one every 10 years, LOL. *Knock on wood,* the only issues I've had were the battery going dead and a leaky tire, plan to keep it since I love the car and I never can replace it.


(not mine, but just like it)

Not sure what I will go for when/if I have money to replace my L200.

At some point, your own models are competing against, and scavenging from the same model under your alternate brand badge. At that point you're just burning advertising dollars on people who were going to buy one version of your product anyway.

Need more differentiation than just a badge and some trim. Most multi-badge auto manufacturers don't even offer substantially different power trains when jumping to the upscale badge.

And GM, as you suggest, offered too many confusing products that were basically built on the same platform. They were once more clearly defined.

I don't want to feel old, even if I AM old. I wanna get on my Pontiac and RIDE!!!!

God, I miss my Grand Prix!

Was shocked that was the line the chose to end!

Julie

I owned a 1980 Buick Regal.

It was beautiful.

Silver and black on the outside, black cloth interior.

I babied that car to the bitter end.

Had it painted several times.

I had a new transmission installed.

It was done incorrectly !!!!

The transmission blew up while I was driving it back to the business that installed it.

They told me I lived to far away to send a tow truck, and instructed me to drive it in for repairs.

The engine caught on fire and my Buick Regal burned to a crisp.

I switched to Mercury and now it's gone. Darn! If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

they borrowed it from their parents, or the folks got a new one and the offspring had it handed down to them.
The typical Buick diver is gray-headed, driving below the speed limit in the left hand lane, several miles from where they need to turn left. That's not an easy demographic for a car company to shake off.

the 64 Rivera. Make it all aluminum and all electric.

In the days of old, 1920 to 2000, GM had five divisions, on top was Cadillac, for the one percenters (or people who wanted to look like they were the one percenters) . Cadillac was created out of the remains of the original Ford Motor Company (after Henry Ford left to from today's Ford Motor Company), but always aimed at top marketing niche,

On the other end of the economic spectra, GM put Chevrolet, Chevrolet had started as a race car maker, but had been converted to a mass car maker by William Durant during the 1910s as part of his plan to regain control of GM (Which he did, then then lost again), Chevrolet was placed to compete against Henry Ford's Model T for the low end market, in the 1920s mostly farmers, post WWII working class people who opt to buy a new car.

In between were the Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs (and later the Saturns), These were aimed at the upper middle class, the people NOT in the top 20% of the population (Which Cadillac was aimed at) but also NOT in the bottom 50% (Where Chevrolet were aimed at). i.e. people making more then 1/2 the population, but not the 1%.

Notice of these four, only Buick has survived over the last 10 years, and then only due to sales in China. Thus another sign that the Middle Class is dead.

Financing makes most of the this badge or that badge price decision moot. So why differentiate? At best you're spending double the advertising dollars on the same customer that was going to buy one or the other anyway.

Kill the badge with the baggage, or don't carry model overlap with slight trim differences between badges. Offer different cars entirely.

There was a move within GM, to market all GM cars as GM instead of the various makes and models sold. I have NOT heard of the move since about 2006-2006 but they were articles about it (i.e. abolish ALL GM brands). The plan was two step, first tie in all the existing models with GM, i.e Chevrolet by GM, Cadillac by GM etc. Then after 5-10 years just switch to GM, i,e Today it is a "Cruze by Chevrolet", then for a few years go with "Chevrolet Cruze by GM", then a "Cruze by GM".

Have NOT heard of the plan in the last couple of years, but it was Kicked around enough for people to write articles about it.

They called it Pontiac. I never understood why they kept Buick and dropped Pontiac. Exactly ass backwards if you asked me. They already had Cadillac to absorb their Buick customers. The Pontiac buyers moved to Japan and Germany.

I never could figure it out either. Seemed like the dumbest thing. But then I owned a Pontiac I loved at the time and wanted another one. Now I own a Saturn, and want another one.

So I'm probably looking at Japan or Germany for the next car, too.

GM seems to have problem with domestic sales. They made their choice.

I'm sorry, but this is one of the reasons why Oldsmobile was killed off, was to resuscitate this still obsolete brand.

But hey, what do I know? Two of the last three new(ish) cars I bought were Oldsmobile and Pontiac. Buicks are fugly. Cadillac is a veneer of luxury on a basic car.

Both were excellent cars, and I was only in my early 40s then. Had the second one - Buick Regal GS - for 10 years when I went through a rough patch, including unemployment, and it got me through to better times. Finally got rid of it at 180,000 miles, but never had any trouble with it except for a blown water pump one time. The 3800 V6 was a super dependable engine and moved.

I hope Buick does well, but they are frankly pricey compared to many. Better value out there now, but maybe these will level the playing field.

Last edited Tue Mar 26, 2013, 07:54 PM - Edit history (1)

But my daughter would not even think about buying one for her to replace her Volvo. I don't think she ever ridden in it.

It was freaking FAST and sharp as hell!

what an awesome car that was!

on edit: looks like they are!

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/11/26/buick-grand-national-rumored-to-return/

Hell, they could stuff the turbocharged, intercooled v3.8 back in it!

what a great motor. I gave that car to my mom and she still drives it.

First one was "inherited" from my grandmother - a 1958 Buick Special 4 door sedan. Huge land barge of a vehicle - we could stuff eight to ten teenagers in the passenger area. I could haul two bales of hay and a couple of bags of feed in the trunk.

My grandmother bought it new, passed it along to my parents when she bought her new 1964 Buick. My older sister drove it for a couple of years, then I got it when I turned 16. When I went off to college in 1970 my parents sold it since freshmen were not allowed to have cars. It never needed anything more than routine servicing the entire time my family owned it.

My second was a 1968 Buick Skylark. Cool muscle car, but useless for driving around on dirt roads, not enough trunk space for much feed or hay, and only two doors so the back seat wasn't easy to use. I drove that poor car to death and it ended up in the junk yard. I did manage to blow a tire on it while driving over 120 mph - very exciting!

My family always has preferred GM vehicles - Buicks or Cadillacs, mostly, though I like a GMC truck or Suburban.

a few months ago. It was stylish, perky, handled well, had the latest electronics as standard equipment. The mileage was decent, too. A tall, big person might not be as comfortable in it though, compared to the LaCrosse or Regal.

I'm considering a hybrid, but the cost differential is still too high. I might get the Verano.

Unfortunately for Buick, I'm only young at heart.

Technically, Pontiac and Buick shared the platform, but Pontiac was the performance brand that attracted youthful buyers. Efforts to replace the Pontiac with hi-po Chevys has failed, despite the specific success of the Camaro.

GM still builds a Pontiac clone in Australia under the brand name Holden, and they're a big seller. The soon to come ElCamino will likely be a rebadged Holden Ute replete with SS trim.

On edit:
One of my first cars was a '62 Buick Special convertible. It had a V-6. I soon after bought a '68 Electra 225 that I absolutely loved. My dad, an econo buyer, used to shake his head in puzzlement until he became a Buick owner himself with retirement looming.

Personally, I always liked Buicks and currently have a Regal. Performance is available in my life long love of British sports cars. The only Pontiac I ever liked was the '05 Holden Commodore that they called the GTO.

GM has been dangling that carrot in front of us since before they killed Pontiac. I'll believe it when I see it on a dealer's lot.

But this is what the rumor mill says they'll adapt it from:

Put the damn things on a boat already.

That's an awesome ad, too! Thanks for posting.

And she just turned forty.

I have to admit, I like it too.

It is a nice, well built, elegant car without the snobbish BMW or Mercedes mentality.

They haven't made a decent looking Buick since the Regal.

They were making some cooler stuff then Bam no Saturn.

Buick could succeed if they didn't try so hard to find a market and just built a great car to build a great car .

The fact that Buick would claim to be targeting younger buyers, and then offer up a photo of a brown four door sedan with a beige interior as "evidence", really tells you all that you need to know about their cluelessness.

GM needs to poach some people from Ford. Or pull some people in from their Euro operations (a Buick branded version of the Vauxall Adam would sell well IMHO). Heck, even their Chevrolet designers have been doing passable work recently.

The problem is that GM wants to have it both ways with Buick. They want to attract younger buyers, and yet they don't want to scare off their existing older customer base. To try and suit both goals, they release these ugly compromises that just look like old fashioned sedans with a bit of bling glued on in a pathetic attempt to ratchet up the "cool factor". It doesn't work.

I seriously don't know a single person under 50 who owns a Buick. They are boxy, ugly cars built for old people who need crumple zones and marshmallow suspensions.


IMHO, GM should actually go the other way with Buick. I think they'd be more successful if they started designing and building for performance luxury, and instead targeted the Mercedews/BMW space. That's a much easier sell. Their cars would need a serious boost in quality and performance, but the price points would allow them to pull it off. It would be much easier to sell the public on the idea that Buick is returning to its luxury car roots, than it would be to convince 25 year olds that their grandpa's car company finally figured out what "cool" was.

I'd rather have a Lucerne than a
than a lot of other stuff
on the lot

Those buyers went to Buick.

The Buick brand is huge in China which is why they kept it.

They need a brand that focuses on technology and gadgets to grab the younger crowd. If they do it inside of an existing one or a new one, needs to be like knight rider inside but moderate in price. Be a tough road to travel.

seller.

The problem with Buick today is they do not have enough diversity in their car lines where they offer a more "affordable" car

The verano is a start, but if they had a model less than 20K they might be able to attack a younger demographic

I have a friend that still owns a 63 Riviera that he bought new in 63. It has been in his barn for the last 30 years or so. As a 17 year old kid, I stayed a summer with an aunt and uncle who owned a 65 Wildcat 2 door hardtop. I got to drive it quite a bit. Very nice, very cool car at the time.

They made some good cars with excellent mileage. My dad still drives his with close to 200,000 miles on it.