@john-quilter I have heard the same thing about Buick sales in China. Back in 2005 I had a ride in a Buick in China. It was a small 4 seat SUV style car not sold in the US. I have also heard without China, Buick would not be profitable.
In my 1/43 scale collection, I have more Buicks than any other make. Strangely, my father and I never owned a Buick.
@moe-parr This is well known and documented, GM is under control of SAIC from China and Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac are crap cheap cars. They are manufactured over there and shipped here for those who still want to buy them.
The dealerships are unhappy but have no say in what Barra and the executives did in selling GM control to a Chinese company. The only US automotive company is now Ford and of course Tesla.
Aside from that they both have 4 wheels, these 2 cars don't look alike to me at all.
I am not picking on your wifes Buick Barry, but come on man 🤣 the compact SUV's all look the same today.... I would have thought that Buick would have separated themselves from looking like the rest of them.
Here is a Honda CRV, a Toyota Rav 4, the Buick, a Nissan Murano, a Hyundai Santa Fe.
If somebody put these pics up and asked me which one the Buick was, I couldn't say...in fact, I could not name one of them.
When I am out driving around, I have to get close enough to them to see the name plate on the vehicle to know the make, but I can tell a Dodge Durango and a Chevy Tahoe from a mile away.
I dont see things quite the same way as @nickies. SAIC owns 50.1% of GM. Some Buicks and other GM cars are manufactured in China but certainly not all of them. GM still has numerous plants here as do all the other auto makers. For several years now, China has had the largest automobile/truck market in the world. It only makes sense that the major makers would build plants over there. For some models, it makes sense to build them over there and ship them here. Some Buicks and other GM brands are made here and shipped over there. Ford does the same thing. The Chinese government requires all auto manufacturers to have a Chinese partner. Like it or not, those are the facts.
If it wasn't for Buick's popularity in China, we wouldn't have any Buicks over here at all. When the government bailed out GM, a downsizing was mandated. We lost Pontiac instead of Buick because Buicks are popular in China. I've been car shopping recently and looked very closely at Buicks. They are many things but they are not crap. Neither are the new Cadillacs.
The new global economy has altered many things. One of the biggest changes has been where cars are manufactured. At the moment, Nissan, Toyota, Honda, VW, BMW, Mercedes, Stelantis and several more fomerly foreign manufacturers build cars in the USA putting tens of thousands to work and sustaining a gigantic support network. One of the great ironies of the current domestic market is that the car with the highest American made content is the Toyota Camry.
So, if we were to put actual numbers to what's happening, we would find that the globilization of the automobile industry sustains a significant portion of the American economy. I see that as a good thing. Are some of the imported cars cheap? Of course. There's always been a demand for entry level cars and trucks. We all know that the less expensive vehicles never hold up quite as well as the more expensive ones. In the past, the only way to produce an American made entry level car was to decontent it and use cheaper materials. Now, most of the lower priced cars come from outside our market and have nicer features due to lower labor rates overseas. If it were not so, there are a lot of people who would be unable to purchase a new car or might have to live with wind up windows and no a/c!
@john-quilter John, I just recently picked up this model. For an inexpensive model it is actually quite nice. My 1/1 was metallic green with a black vinyl top and interior.
I once heard that Buick took off in China because of the name - in Chinese it has a good meaning, maybe prosperous or something similar.
The only SAIC I know is Science Applications International Corp. Big office here in town. But I see the other is on Wikipedia and has a sizable market share worldwide. They also own the MG brand.
Aside from that they both have 4 wheels, these 2 cars don't look alike to me at all.
I am not picking on your wifes Buick Barry, but come on man 🤣 the compact SUV's all look the same today.... I would have thought that Buick would have separated themselves from looking like the rest of them.
Here is a Honda CRV, a Toyota Rav 4, the Buick, a Nissan Murano, a Hyundai Santa Fe.
If somebody put these pics up and asked me which one the Buick was, I couldn't say...in fact, I could not name one of them.
I don't disagree that many compact SUVs look similar, nor do I disagree that there's nothing distinct about my wife's Encore GX that identifies it as a Buick...but the Toyota you originally chose to compare is by far the least similar looking to it, that was the basis of my reply.
I once heard that Buick took off in China because of the name - in Chinese it has a good meaning, maybe prosperous or something similar.
I believe it was because Chinese Government officials like Sun Yat Sen, Chou En Lai and the last Emperor of China, all had Buicks way back even before the 30s and 40s.
I wouldn't mind if the auto manufacturers started making all their cars look like my Trans Am and made them with the power to back up their good looks 😋
Turn up the volume for this video
And not as exciting, but cool nonetheless, here is my C5 getting it's dyno tune after the supercharger install.
