Quote:
Originally Posted by vcs2600
Problem is not that long ago Buick was selling $18K Centuries. If they jack the LaCrosse up into the $32-35K price range, *bam* the traditional buyer group is going to walk down to Ford/Chrysler/Toyota. GM has nothing else to offer these people.
Furthermore, and I can't emphasis this enough, Buick has absolutely no luxury cred outside of GM homeboys. (These posts mentioning Buick in the same breath as Acura or Volvo are seriously lol-worthy.) I even would say barely have any "premium car" cred, they're sales have been steeply declining for years, and they're largely perceived as just another GM division (for good reason).
As has been proven time and again, GM can't just arbitrarily move brands around like pieces on a chessboard. It takes decades of well-executed models and brand management to move a brand up in stature. (Which is something GM has not been able to do successfully.) Anyway, I think the "mid-level brand" strategy GM is executing is a realistic tact. A generation of well-executed, successful cars might get them there eventually, but not now.
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Of course they can't do it overnight... but if they had been moving/continued to move Cadillac and Buick up it would not be a sudden overnight thing. The CTS should have been marching upward in price over time, along with the Lacrosse, so that they could be properly priced in the near future if not already. But now Cadillac is actively moving down-market instead of up-market with the SRX, and likely the XTS,... completely reversing what little good moves they had done over the last model cycle.
And GM's current Buick strategy is not "mid-level" based on the Lacrosse pricing... it's the same as the Toyota Avalon and not even 10% more than the outdated and bargain basement Kia Amanti (and less than the far smaller Passat/Maxima or the similar sized Genesis)... or in other words exactly where Chevy ought to be. And if Buick is going to be the same cost as Chevy in the US, just kill it in the US to save on marketing and make the Lacrosse an Impala.
Also, I'm anything but a GM homeboy... I just think that what little good brand image Buick does have left should not be wasted selling cars that are on the same level as Kia, and Cadillac can do better than Acura as a primary rival.