There has been mumblings across the internet for a few months over whether a full-size, production Buick Avenir has been internally green lit by the brand. We’re here to burst a few bubbles: it’s highly unlikely.
We’ve been told on multiple occasions by a respected source that the Avenir concept was purely a design study, with no real plans for a production vehicle. Further adding to that evidence are words from Duncan Aldred, Buick’s man-in-charge, himself.
When we spoke with Aldred during the 2017 Buick LaCrosse reveal, he was determined to portray the all-new LaCrosse as the brand’s flagship sedan. Verbatim, he stated, “this is very much our flagship.” That doesn’t bode well for a larger sedan to slot above it in the form of an Omega-based Avenir.
Take a quick glance at the fiery hot crossover market, and further hopes for a production Avenir are even more dim. While the 2017 LaCrosse takes over as a lovely full-size sedan for the brand, the 2016 Buick Envision and 2017 Buick Enclave will play a larger part than ever in Buick North American operations, and abroad.
Do we want to see a production Avenir? Absolutely. Is it likely to show face any time soon? Unfortunately, no.
Comments
why wouldn’t they build such a beautiful car, i would buy one for sure
They may yet build it after the CT6 has been on the market and established for a few years or if the sedan segment starts to rebound a little with increased sales.
I always figured the CT6 is the only reason to not build the Avenir, a production version would not help with establishing a foothold for the CT6 which is kinda sad.
There is still room for both the CT6 and Avenir off the Omega platform if there is enough differentiation between the two both in content and price.
This car makes a BMW 7 Series look downmarket and the S Class look uninspired, yet they relegate Buick’s finest effort to date to “design study” status? Do they want to win or not? Are they afraid this will threaten Cadillac? Well, a little brotherly competition never hurt anyone except in the rare case when one of the brothers went postal and Cadillac’s already got that part covered with its supercar baiting sedans running amok.
BMW and Mercedes take their fine luxury sedans very seriously yet each also has a full stable of Crossdressers for the Americans. Reason enough that the Avenir shouldn’t be held back and they should waste little time turning it out.
No one is saying that it won’t ever be built, but the most important new car that Buick needs to show right now is the Enclave, its become the old man in the Buick line up, it will be nearly a decade old by the time the new ones come out, all the Lambdas have withered on the vine, think about it we’ve gotten 2 generations of full size BOF SUV’s (2007-2014/2014-Present) in the current Lambdas entire generation (2007-Present). The Lambda platform has done well for GM, and it needs some love if its to remain current, the Explorer is selling well and Honda just introduced a new Pilot and there is a new Ridgeline right around the corner.
The Enclave has helped to bring Buicks average customer age down and customer income bracket up, but some of these people might be a little bored of being on their 2nd or even 3rd Enclave lease, Buick needs to make sure that the new customers it gained with the Enclave don’t abandon Buick for other makes.
The Avenir is a very pretty car, but realistically you won’t see it until at least a year after Cadillac full launches the CT6, but I assume that Buick is eyeballing it as the replacement for the Commodore based Chinese Park Avenue, as far as I’ve read, Zeta production will be around until 2017-2018. The sedan market is slumping right now so another sedan, and an expensive one at that, perhaps isn’t the best use of resources right now.
Buick has a pretty full plate already for 2016 with the Envision, Cascada and 2017 LaCrosse launches, in addition to a new Regal and Enclave that are around the corner, plus a new Verano and an Encore refresh, along with the rumors that the Astra hatch will be joining the Verano line up too.
What I would like to see, since Buick is always talking about the “white spaces” in the market, if 2 sedans is 2 many vis-Ã -vis CT6 vs the Avenir, how about a new Riviera? Based on the CT6’s Omega platform, essentially an Avenir coupe, I think there is a “white space” that Buick can fill in the market for a premium luxury coupe, say something like an Bentley Continental or Mercedes CL/S Class coupe type car, at a sub $200,000 price range. GM hasn’t really had a luxury coupe since the CTS coupe was discontinued in 2015, the ATS is too small and sporty, and there still seems to be no rumors about a new Cadillac coupes, so why not let Buick fill that space?
I could see a $50-$60K priced Omega based Riviera, with the twin turbo 3.6 as the only engine choice, fully loaded, you choose the colors and interior and maybe a choice of AWD or RWD, since Omega supports that. Such a car could help lighten the Omegas load within GM, even if it sells 10,000 a year, it would be an excellent halo car for Buick.
Agree with your post except the ‘sub $200,000’ luxury coupe suggestion.
I think Buick has even less cache (brand equity) than Cadillac and even they would currently have a difficult time selling in that price range.
A few articles that I have read have alluded to the fact that Acura may have priced their new NSX to high and will have difficulty selling them after the initial shine has rubbed off it’s return.
Cadillac should eventually try to fill the at or near $100K luxury sedan/coupe space but I could definitely see a stylish sub $60K ‘Riviera’.
That’s why I priced the Riviera at $50-$60K, by under $200K, I meant something that had a lot of the flair and style of those coupes, but priced in an attainable price range, not that Buick is should sell it for $100K.
Boy! This is a design better suited for a Cadillac flagship than a Buick in my opinion! But it would be great to see the Avenir in the Buick lineup. I guess it’s simply not in Buick’s interest to have a prestigious RWD flagship sedan in the portfolio, but none of this negates the fact that there could be some potentially exciting AWD-based Buicks to grace our shores. Perhaps an Omega-based 2-door or 4-door cope could top out the lineup. This’ll fill some of that “white space”.
For one thing why would Duncan Aldren explain to anyone what internal secrets GM has in store. Or for that matter any GM executive. I cannot see the Omega platform only being regulated to Cadillac for 2 sedans(CT6, CT8) when GM can easily make as much if not more back on the investment with a RWD Buick. But getting back to Duncan, how many future plans are already greenlighted that the public will not know about until GM feels the need to let us in. On the Ford front, Look at the new Continental. Its been in development for over 5 years and we just got our first look last year. This Buick got way too much attention for the New GM to ignore, the old GM might have laughed all the attention away but not the new entity. I would bet that they did not ignore it and this car is currently in development. That’s my two cents.
A full sized RWD Chevy to replace the SS Commodore/Caprice PPV would make more sense. I think with growth of Uber there would be nice demand for such a vehicle.
So your idea is to take a premium platform and make a vehicle for fleet and commercial use out of it?
It’s premium now, but that doesn’t mean it will be premium forever, or that it couldn’t be configured for less expensive cars, Alpha is used in cars costing between $26,000 and $100,000. I predict a version of this platform will underpin some sort of global RWD car that will replace the Commodore in Australia, the RWD Chevrolet badged Middle East market Commodores, the Chinese Park Avenue Commodore and some sort of Impala/SS/Caprice PPV replacement for the US. Who knows, we might even get ElCamino/Ute out of it?
Though I wouldn’t expect to see any of this until 2018, when Zeta production ends in Australia and elsewhere.
Sure. The concept of spreading the development costs over multiple brands and creating greater economies of scale makes business sense for the possibilities that you mention but I still do not see a PPV version off of it.
The Caprice PPV isn’t exactly “cheap”, base price, as far as I could find from a quick web search, is between $32-$36K, there are fleet discounts I’m sure, but I’m sure they could work a version in there if there is demand for one.
Demand for sedans in the law enforcement segment has gone the way it has in the civilian market as well which is to say piss poor.
They sell more Tahoe PPV’s than they ever did of this generation of Caprice.
Case in point; YTD for the Caprice PPV is a lousy 1625 units through November.
It hardly seems to make sense to redo another sedan to supply that market.
Would make more sense make a version of the pending midsized SUV ( Blazer/Trailblazer or whatever they decide to call it) instead of diluting an otherwise fine platform for law enforcement duties.
Happy New Year one and all!
Buick is in a tough spot with the Avenir. I don’t think that it was ever intended to be anything more than a design study, roughly laying out the styling direction for Buick in the near term future. The problem is that it absolutely stole the show, as the sexiest Buick we’ve seen in ages, even gaining positive attention from those that aren’t typically interested in what Buick is doing. The platform is already in place to bring it to market, and I don’t think that it would have to be a huge seller, as long as it isn’t a money bleeder. In fact, if the program would just break even, it would seem worth it just for the image boost that it would provide for the whole Buick lineup -more of a halo car than a flagship. The biggest problems come from the car being way hotter than the CT6. The CT6 has a nice, if derivative, presence in person, but it mostly looks like a warmed-over, and slightly less advanced version of the CTS. The other issue is that a Lacrosse can top off at $50k (most likely to move even further up with the 2017 model), and the CT6 bases at just over $53k. There isn’t much breathing room in between. The Lacrosse is a very nice car, but the problem with it is that it isn’t an Avenir.
they won’t build the Avenir because it would be a threat to the CT6 since it looks better than the CT6 and the same size……I think they will hold off on the Avenir till after the bigger more stylish CT8 comes to market….or maybe the Buick flagship will be on a large Alpha platform instead of Omega.
News Flash, show cars always look better than production cars, the comparisons to the CT6 don’t mean anything until you see a production Avenir, with real mirrors and door handles, production bumpers, tires that aren’t black rubber bands on 24’s etc etc.
People also need to realize that it takes more than 3 months to sh*t out a car, the Avenir was shown as a concept last year, and even Buick had said “we 100% going to make the Avenir” at last years Detroit show, if we used the Camaro as a guide to show car to production.
Camaro concept-Jan 2006
Camaro production confirmed Aug 2006
Camaro Job 1 rolls of the line-Feb 2009
So even if the Avenir was 100% GO, you still wouldn’t see a production Avenir until 2018
Dose up on the Ritalin people, it takes time to develop a car.
Completely agree that it takes time to take a vehicle from concept to reality and that Avenir is at least 3 years away (if ever).
This is why I have no use for concept cars. Show us an Avinir, give us the not bad Lesabre. Show us the Elmiraj, give us the CT6 (bigger CTS)
Quit being such a tease, Buick. Build the Avenir and the Avista.