Buick is in the middle of a brand-wide transformation, launching a redesigned logo and brand identity, as well as new vehicle styling, all of which arrives ahead of a transition to a fully electric lineup by 2030. Interestingly, Buick’s current transformation is independent of any cross-brand sharing with regard to design, providing Buick with the liberty to do some pretty interesting things. In fact, GM’s decision to cut Opel loose provided Buick with a “clean slate,” per Buick design chief Bob Boniface.
2024 Buick Envista
In a recent interview with GM Authority Executive Editor Alex Luft, Boniface touched on how GM’s decision to sell the Opel brand in 2017 affected Buick.
“I spent six years at Cadillac and moved to Buick. When GM had both Opel and Buick, the two shared a design language. We came up with some great looking cars but once Opel was sold, Buick was untied, giving it a bit of a clean slate,” Boniface told GM Authority.
Without the need for design considerations across both the Buick and Opel brands simultaneously, Buick was given more freedom to establish its own unique identity.
“Anytime you don’t have to do any [cross-brand] sharing, it frees up design to do interesting things,” Boniface added.
Wildcat EV Concept
Now, seven years after GM sold Opel, Buick has a design language all its own, as informed by the Buick Wildcat EV concept that debuted in 2022. Highlights of the new design language include thin, pointed lighting signatures along the upper corners of the vehicle fascia, as well as a dual-level headlight treatment, a large grille, and a forward-leaning nose.
The first production models to incorporate the new language include the 2024 Buick Encore GX and Buick Envista, followed closely by the refreshed 2024 Buick Envision and 2025 Buick Enclave, the latter of which was recently caught by GM Authority spies completely uncovered. The fourth-generation Buick LaCrosse is another good example of the new language, although the LaCrosse nameplate is now exclusive to the Chinese market.
Wildcat EV Concept
GM Authority previously covered how the new Buick design language was born, per Buick design chief Boniface. The new design language also includes a new logo, with Boniface once again illuminating how the logo came to be during his interview with GM Authority. Check out those stories for more information, and don’t forget to subscribe to GM Authority for more Buick news, GM business news, GM design news, and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
Comments
Well I mean, we lived through it, but it is still painful to read on the printed page that Buick, the founding brand of GM and producer of the Riviera, Grand National, Wildcat, Electra (original, not cynically named EV) and 1983 Skyhawk, had to play second fiddle to a second-tier GM brand when it came to presenting its face to the buying public. The exec that signed off on that decision should be drawn and quartered in the public square.
Translation (…IMHO):
“It’s allowed us to focus entirely on designing, building and selling what only the Chinese customer wants. BTW…what’s a Riviera?”
I was going to say, “great! Now we only have to redesign Chevy crossovers instead of actual cars like the Regal GS” 🤣🤣🤣
My 2019 Opel, sorry Buick, Regal TourX might be one of the best cars that I have ever owned. It has certainly been more reliable for the same mileage than my previous 2011 Enclave and my current 2018 Enclave.
Well, Opel was GM, but it was not BUICK (even though they were sold alongside Buick in the 50’s-70’s). I do like the TourX even if its only ID as a Buick was the grille.
OMG! More BS public relation con job from GM… They failed to figure out Opel unloaded it and now it was a master stroke of brilliance
Once there was an Opel. Now there is a Buick. What’s not to understand?
Love the red, white and blue Buick emblem when all their line of vehicles (what, 4 total?) except the Enclave are made in China or South Korea. And what’s worse is most of the buyers of the totally Chinese made Envisions probably don’t know or care. At least South Korea is an ally.
People are more concerned with posting stupid dance videos or sexualizing their under-aged child for money and attention over national security with TikTok. You expect them to care if their car is made in China? It won’t be the Chinese that will be the end of our democracy. It will be our own undoing.
Yet another example of GM management ineptitude in attempting to link the appearance of a foreign brand with an American icon. Sounds like another automotive marketing decision from a former toothpaste executive.
Quote from the article: “GM’s decision to cut Opel loose provided Buick with a “clean slate,” per Buick design chief Bob Boniface.”
I think based on the new and current design Buick is taking, they would have been better off sticking with Opel.
“Once Opel was sold, Buick was untied, giving it a bit of a clean slate”
And from that unhindered clean slate you gave us… the new Enclave.
This and the story about Buick design inspiration. . . Laughable attempts at damage control.
Trump shouldn’t allowed the sale of Opel.
Everyone has their own opinion!!! The current Buick design boss speaks of a white paper after the OPEL sale in 2027!
Currently the Buicks, including the Buick Regal developed by OPEL with the huge radiator grille (mouth), look bad. The OPEL Insignia ala Buick Regal were always more beautiful and serious!
See the current OPEL here as very nice cars/SAVs/SUVs that have many new customers – especially from other OEMs such as Audi, BMW, Toyota-Lexus, VW and Hyundai-Kia. You can say that “Stellantis” is a good big OEM and OPEL fits in really well!
The most beautiful current OPEL – Astra, Mokka, Corsa, Grandland …
Now Buick is doing a terrible “mouth design” like Audi, BMW, Toyota-Lexus, Volkswagen-Porsche, Hyundai-Kia and many other OEMs who probably only work with “AI robot design”!
What’s also terrible is that the affected GEOs of these OEMs want this. Customers don’t buy these carts, they just lease them cheaply…
Thanks for giving us a European perspective. I understand Opel very quickly became profitable under its new owners, which makes me wonder if the books were being manipulated to justify gm’s sale of the brand to shareholders.
Thanks for your comment.
I would like to bring up something else as a topic here.
I’ve been driving OPEL cars for a very long time and now I’ve had a blue OPEL Tigra TwinTop Roadster with 90PS (88.77HP) MY2005 for a few days – i.e. a small car roadster that had a “GM-Buick-OPEL design” at the time.
Unfortunately, you have to say – GM has never understood how to design and develop vehicles outside of the USA/Mexico/Canada/China. Opel has now been part of the PSA/Stellantis group for 6 years and is successful despite small quantities – OPEL produces fewer cars/SAVs/SUVs than the supposed “premium manufacturers” worldwide, but is considered a mass OEM!
My conclusion!
I really enjoy driving my new/old exGM OPEL Roadster MY2005! What would have happened if Buick had offered this roadster in the USA? Well we don’t know because GM and Buick still don’t understand the market what customers really want…
Opel’s new owners were not hindered by GM miss management and total lack of understanding of how to run a auto maker…
The 2025 Buick Enclave is Buick’s new design language, and it says a lot. It says they need to quickly learn a new language, try Italian or French. It is clearly time for the Design Center to play musical chairs. I’m sure they have real car designers ready for a promotion to replace some chiefs.
My 2018 Buick Regal TourX (Opel) was one of the best performing and best designed vehicle that i have bought and owned (and I have bought and owned about 60 cars in my 70 years on earth). It was ‘best’ at nothing, not as fast as my Porsches, not as fuel efficient as my small Toyotas, not as luxurious as my BMWs and Cadillacs; but as a combination of all it was competent, comfortable, fuel efficient for its size and capabilities. After 85,000 miles, it has become the go to car of our 7 cars and it has been reliable and trouble free throughout its 6 years. It still draws admiring looks, including from me.
I get constant communications from Buick urging me to buy a new Buick, and I certainly would be enticed if they offered anything that interested me. They mostly sell boxy ‘utilities now and those lack style. Back in 2008 I bought an innovatively and pleasantly styled Enclave. Yes it was Chinese styled, but it was new, different and pleasant bordering on elegant. Its new replacement (exterior) is generic and disjointed. My new favorite GM car is the Lyriq and we are just ‘learning’ our new Lyriq.. Sorry Mr. Boniface, but your clean slate leaves me cold. Your best current product, the Envista from Korea looks decent, but even with that one the less expensive Chevrolet version seems to be the better overall product.
Buick used to have nice premium cars, now it is just a bunch of rebadged Korean and Chinese junk
Tell Boniface his new Buicks have butterface.
Except they don’t even have that.
Designs do not work very well with crossovers.
Buick needs to bring back Sedans into its stable of vehicles.
A V12 Buick would be excellent, but that is never going to happen, we will end up with a hummer ev powered buick sedan
Buick doing damage control for its current crop of failures and a joke of a lineup. From silly shark nosed front ends that literally nobody asked for to an entire lineup of buzzy gruff 3 and 4 banger engines to a cut and paste lazy replacement for the Enclave, no sedans or wagons like you had a short 4 years ago and zero idea which way to point the ship this clown should have been sacked long ago!
Total, transparent, and utterly laughable spin from this clown of a ‘design’ executive . Headline should read, GM sold opel, leaving Buick with zero design capabilities. The direction of Buick, consisting entirely of crossovers, unremarkable ones at that, and then defacing them with horrendous restyling, seems to be directly and intentionally toward a cliff.
I say this not merely as an internet curmudgeon but as a customer who actually purchased a new Buick within the last year. I would likely have purchased 2 more this year (encore gX and Enclave) but the styling is so criminally awful I am now shopping several non-gm brands. So far only the commie Chinese Envasion has been spared the disfigurement but I have no doubt that’s coming too.
Wildcat was a typically attractive show car but they are delusional thinking that anyone believes these crossovers are at all similar to the wildcat, or that they are attractive in any way.