What's Buick to do?

[Nailhead425]

If GM really wants to keep Buick, and let's face it, they have to want to keep the brand before they will attempt to save it, they need to split up the overlaping vehicles.
Oldsmobile used to sell Cutlass Supremes like crazy when they were rear-drive, but
once the front-drive only managers changed the make up of the divisions, suddenly
and Olds is a Buick is a Chevy mentality took over. So, here are my suggestions,
for whatever its worth:

Cadillac: Radical, edgy styling with strong performance and luxury emphasis.
The world standard of luxury.

Buick: Conservative styling, powerful performance second to Pontiac and some high-end Chevrolets and Cadillacs, a Personal Luxury car that offers mid-sized and larger vehicles with luxury appointments within a sedate, non-obtrusive sedan for those who would rather NOT be noticed.

Pontiac: The Performance brand. Personal Performance cars with an emphasis on edgy styling, performance and enthusiast driving. Look for manual transmissions, high horsepower, handling, aggressive looks.

Chevrolet: The Value brand. The largest seller. From the cheapest Aveo to
the ultra-performance Vette. Chevrolet is the catch all brand.

The LeSabre/LaCrosse/Lucerene are more of the same. There needs to be a concept
of personal luxury car across the board. There needs to be a mid, large, and full sized car that follows a simple, conservative plan with plenty of torque and smooth transmissions. Buicks need to be world-class, just like Cadillacs. Front-wheel drive
platforms do not belong on large luxury vehicles. Europe and Japan have strongly supported rear-drive luxury models. This hurts Buick sales. Rolling out a new model that uses the same chassis as before, does not bring customers into Buick showrooms. What will bring them in, is a gimmick. Like it or not, DCX is selling lots of vehicles because of the Hemi campaign. Cadillac is saturating the market with
ads and the -V cars are huge in racing. Buick needs to have vehilcles that can spank a Lexus IS300 or Infinity G series. Not just a little quicker, or handle a little better, spank them. Much better. But they need to do it without the radical high-technology that many people do not want and are not interested in paying for. This almost makes the Cadillac hi-rpm multi cam and V-spec engines not Buick material, which they shouldn't be. Buick needs hi torque engines. Engines like the 4.2L I-6, 3800 supercharged, and stroked versions of 4.8 and 5.3L V-8s. About 5.0 and 5.5L respectively and should be Buick spec only. The requirement of different rods and pistons would hurt the assembly process efficiency, but with the majority of the remaining parts being common, the exclusivity would further help seperate Buick from the rest. Think Northstar, but without the exotic flair. Give them a name, Wildcat, or whatever, and use this.
"Buick's exclusive Wildcat engines have more power and torque than the competition, which means smooth, reliable performance."
Emphasize smooth power, performance, luxury, but without the premium price. Cars should be conservative, solid, well built vehicles with many of the same luxury and quality standards of Cadillac, but without the edgy, radical styling, and luxury price. Buicks should be the conservative Cadillac. The car that has all or nearly all the performance of a Pontiac, with all or nearly all the luxury of a Cadillac, but with a more conservative appearance. Priced between the two. A business person's luxury car. Like mid-priced BMW, Lexus, Infinity, and Mercedes models.
Think GMC verses Chevrolet trucks.

Even though Buicks have excellent quality and longevity ratings, the bland rebaged Chevy styling is hurting Buick. Platform sharing is great for keeping costs down, but as market shares continue to decline for GM, maybe it is time to return to the old concept of seperate divisions aimed at the different types of auto consumers.