New Compact Buick Crossover Likely To Be At Detroit Auto Show
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Last week, GM’s head of product development Mary Barra shared in a press release that there will be four all-new General Motors vehicles revealed at the 2012 North American International Auto Show in Detroit next month. Officially, the Cadillac ATS is all that the company has confirmed at this time. But the latest intel builds on the official statement.
What we’re hearing is that, along with the new Cadillac, GM will reveal a small Buick crossover, which will most likely be named “Encore.” The baby Enclave is likely to be a close relative to what we will see from Opel in the near future as well. Visually, it will resemble today’s Enclave, but will be small for a crossover — possibly smaller than an Audi Q3 or Volkswagen Tiguan — and is said to utilize GM’s FWD Gamma II platform.
Source: Inside Line
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that’s kinda small
Yea, the equinox is as bigger than the tiguan so shouldnt chevy get this crossover to compete with the escape and equinox move upmarket to compete with edge, while traverse competes with highlander, pilot.
I think that GM would make this “Encore” about equinox size, possibly based on the delta platform.
Edited: This compact CUV should (theoretically) compete with the likes of the Q5 and GLK in size… although not in performance.
Ideally, there should be something analogous to a compact, midsize, and full-size crossover not only for Buick, but for Chevy as well.
Alex,
Im pretty sure the Pilot and Highlander compete with the Traverse
The edge and murano and cx-7 compete with the Equinox
And like you said all of its competitors are entry level automakers, i dont think such a crossover has a place in the “premium” buick lineup. It should belong in chevy.
I think itll be delta too, the Gamma just doesnt make sense to me.
Yupp, you’re right. For some reason I thought we were taking about a sub-Equinox Chevy 🙂
I just don’t understand why the future acadia is going a size smaller than lambda not unless acadia is going after Explorer which is selling so well
In order to compete with the Explorer, the Acadia would need to stay the same size. I think the goal with the next-gen Acadia is to effectively make a Grand Cherokee competitor; although at that point, I’m not sure what would happen with the Terrain…
Because this gen of Explorer already sold very very well and then they do offer 4WD/AWD even though it got stuck at auto shows.
ATS
Encore?
Trailblazer
Granite.
That’s my guess
I agree that Buick should have a smaller crossover. I sell at a Buick, GMC & Cadillac franchise. There definitely are some buyers who are after Buicks — in their mind, the Chevy vehicles are too mainstream, the GMCs too trucklike, the Cadillacs are too showy & upscale. The Buick name is entry-level luxury. All the options you need, with less fluff than Cadillac. But the Enclave is more than many empty-nesters need. A small AWD crossover would be a great addition.
Still waiting of GM to come to the table with something to compete with other small CUVs like the Honda CRV, Hyundai Tucson, Nissan Juke, MIni Countryman, Suzuki SX-4, Subaru Outback…..something smaller and more efficient than the Equinox with better handling.
Wait but then the guys at Insideline says it’s going to share with the platform of Chevrolet Captiva though
The Captiva is on the Theta, as is the Equinox. They’re variations of the Theta, but Theta nonetheless.
So you think it won’t be based on Theta?
I think the Buick could be on the Theta, but it’s not likely. I think it could equally well be on a Delta. We’ll see in a month 🙂
isn’t there used to be a shortened Theta??? like the Saturn Vue?
Yupp, still is in certain markets. It’s sold as the Opel Antara in Europe and the Holden Captiva 5 in Oceania. And for fleet only — as the Chevy Captiva in the States:
http://gmauthority.com/blog/2011/03/chevy-to-launch-captiva-in-us-market-for-fleets-only/
I’m really hoping this will be a Theta or Delta and not a Gamma — as fine and competent as some vehicles based on the Gamma are — that’s not what Buick needs. It needs a compact or midsize CUV to slot in under the large Enclave. A Gamma-based vehicle will make that a subcompact…
Gamma would just be too small
alex you will be happy with the baby buicks and the way it will fit into the lineup and cover a wider customer base but not step on gmc or caddy
Thanks for the heads up! I’m sure as heck enthusiastic 🙂
But I hope that GM’s market strategy doesn’t involve aligning Buick with GMC in some sort of way while “coming in under” Caddy. Each brand needs to be able to stand on its own and have a product portfolio of its own based on the market, regardless of what some of the other GM brands are up to.
For instance, I wouldn’t call it “crazy” to see a variant of the SRX as a Buick — but one that’s much more luxurious and “soft” (Lexus-like) vs. an SRX that’s tuned for performance (BMW/Audi-like).