(rock music)
- Riviera Wildcat GNX.
Buicks used to be sick.
So when I heard that the current Buick Regal
was being discontinued,
I was shocked, astounded, and dumbstruck
that Buick was still around?
- I don't see a Buick.
- How are these beige mobiles that are known
for not being known, making enough money to stay afloat?
Is Buick secretly good?
Well, kinda, let me explain.
(upbeat music)
What do you think of when you imagine modern day Buicks?
That's the question I'm sure their head of marketing
optimistically asked the North American Focus Group
only to be met with blank stares.
(insect chirping)
Even though Buick is the oldest brand
in the General Motors family,
the brand has been keeping it pretty low key
for the last 20 years.
They made some great stuff in the past,
mostly during the muscle car era,
then rides like the Roadmaster
and the Corvette killing GNX, but outside of those two,
Buick has been pretty stale for as long as I can remember.
In the GM family,
Buick can be thought of as the middle child,
GM's Chevy for economy and performance cars,
GMC for its more utilitarian offerings,
and Cadillac for the luxury models.
So what's left for Buick?
Not a whole lot.
Buick currently sells three models in North America,
the Enclave, the Encore, and the Envision.
Oh, sorry, wait, that one's the Encore.
That one's the Envision.
The point is a Buick doesn't really have
a brand identity right now, and without that,
it's hard to have any brand loyalty.
No one knows what a Buick is
and even Buick will admit that.
Buick has run ads where the people and the commercials
don't know what a Buick looks like.
- Look like the Garcias got a new car.
- [Man] What did they get?
- I don't know.
- (laughs) What the hell?
Buick sales on their home turf
has pretty much been in decline since the early 2000s
and recognizable names like the Riviera, Roadmaster,
Grand National, and more have been long since discontinued.
Nevertheless, when the 2008 market crash came around,
GM had to cut loose other brands
like Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer,
but Buick was considered worth keeping, why?
Well, China's why.
(traditional Chinese music)
Unlike the North American market,
Buick is a hot brand in China.
GM regularly sells around one million Buicks
a year over there.
The image of Buick is very different
from the drab and bland picture we get over here.
Buicks are not only the stylist choice
for businessmen and women,
but it's also a brand that pulls in younger buyers as well.
The average Buick buyer in China is under 35,
while the average buyer over here is 59 as of 2015.
So why is Buick doing so much better in China
than it is here?
Well, if we look back at the history of China,
Buick has been in the public eye for a while.
The Chinese revolution of 1911
that overthrew the Qin Dynasty
and, basically, started modern China,
was led by Sun Yat Sen,
a patriot, party leader, and Buick owner.
The image of Buick became associated with political power
and the betterment of a nation
and while China is a very patriotic nation,
it does sound like a bit of a stretch to pin the success
of Buick on its century-old political ties.
I mean, that'd be like us saying a car would sell better
if it was called a Washington or the Hamilton
or a Lincoln or wait, that sounds familiar.
Regardless of what history tells us
of China and Buick's relationship,
the more tangible story starts much later.
In 1990, GM partnered
with the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation
to make vehicles that were exclusive to the Chinese market.
At the time, no other American manufacturer
had any kind of deal like this
and GM began to tap into a market
that Ford and Dodge could not.
By 1997, SAIC and GM had started an entity
with a 50% investment from each partner
and by 1999, they began selling models
exclusive to the Chinese market.
This is what they started with, the Buick GL8.
This luxury minivan was built in Shanghai
and designed specifically for the Chinese market.
It had seating for eight adults,
mounted screens, leather seats.
This thing is, basically, a limo.
In fact, that was the idea.
In China, the minivan is the preferred way
of moving groups of adults around
as opposed to the perceived opulence of a limo
in early 2000s America and, honestly,
this sounds way more practical than a stretched Hummer,
so I'm on the board.
Buick became GM's home field advantage
in a huge economic market that other US brands
were struggling to tap into.
It wasn't until 2012, that Ford struck a similar deal
with another Chinese company, Chang'an.
I'm sorry, I totally butchered that.
But by then, GM already had the high ground.
By 2003, China became GM's second largest market
with a lot of credit going to Buick
and the growth didn't stop.
Today, Buick sells around 1 million cars a year in China.
That's five times what they managed to sell here in the US
and while the US market currently has three models,
China has 16, (pops)
sedans like the Weilang Pro, IDEO,
EVs that get sold with Call of Duty style branding,
and even an EV concept, that I can safely say,
is the coolest looking modern Buick I've ever seen.
Even the GLA minivan has been upgraded
with a beautiful interior and seats that look
like you could only get them
with a first-class British Airways ticket.
While all of this may not appeal to the gear head
or even the North American and European markets as a whole,
it's clear that Buick is very different
in the Chinese market.
And whatever they're doing seems to be working.
But I've got a question.
If Buick is now focusing
on making cars for the Chinese market,
what does that mean for Buick here?
(upbeat playful music)
In 2016, the round trip of Buick was complete
as the Buick Envision became GM's first car
to be sold in the US, but made in China.
The company that wants build to their automobiles
right in the Hartland of Michigan
is now importing their cars from overseas.
Now, the US is no stranger to cars being built cheap
in other countries and then being transported here for sale,
but importing all the way from China is a big stretch.
But Buick is already building the car in China
and to build another factory in the Americas
just to make the same car,
would cost too much to make sense.
So shipping the Envision from China
was the only way to get the car in North America
and Buick would just barely make a profit
as long as no one imposed any tariffs on auto makers.
Wonder where this is going?
In the summer of 2018, the US government was embroiled
in a trade war with more countries than I can count,
but China was one of them.
Now, I'm no econominist, but the basic gist of it was,
"Oh, you're gonna tax me?
Okay, well, I'm gonna tax you,"
and back and forth like that and for a while.
The result was that imports from China
would be taxed as much as 25% more.
Buick, who would have had to pay those extra taxes
to import their Envision, submitted for an exemption
in the hopes that being an American company
would help them skirt this international issue.
It's kinda like when you go over to your friend's house
to watch the game and they start fighting
with their partner right next to you.
Asking out loud not to be involved
is just gonna get you involved.
Take it from me.
The Trump administration denied GM's request
for the exemption then proposed a new tax.
In 2019, the Trump administration then announced a plan
for an added import tax for automakers
on cars that were not built in the US.
This 25% tariff was intended to motivate automakers
to build factories here in the US
creating jobs and contributing to the national GDP,
but in the short term, it meant that anyone
buying their cars in Mexico, Puerto Rico, or China
would have to charge the American buyer
an average of $4,500 more for the same product.
Now, GM would have to pay the 25% tariff on Chinese goods
as well as the 25% tax on imported automobiles
if both these measures passed.
Luckily for GM, these tariffs either never went
into full effect or were reversed
by the Biden administration.
So if you're looking forward to new Buick Envision,
now you only have to worry about the chip shortage.
♪ Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bam ba-bam bam ♪
♪ Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bam ♪
- Okay, I think that if Buick wants to do well
in the North American market,
they should learn from what they did in China.
They built and designed cars
catered specifically to that market.
The GL8 is a staple of Buick in China,
but it wouldn't sell nearly as well here
and the car that they did import, Envision,
that's just another crossover SUV,
a sea of crossover SUV's.
(transition whirring) (bell dings)
To do well in the North American market,
you've got to build a North American car
and I think, I know just the way to do it.
We got to bring back the Grand National.
(dramatic music)
The Buick Grand National was a boxy,
bad-ass staple of the '80s,
which may very well be the last cool Buick.
It was a turbo V6-powered, blacked out, two-door
that shared a platform with the Chevy Monte Carlo
and, at one time, was the fastest car GM made,
faster than the Corvette by a lot.
GM already has a 360 horsepower twin-turbo V6
in the Cadillac CT5-V.
So let's put that engine
in the 300 pound, lighter, Camaro chassis, bam,
you got a cool Buick for the first time in over 30 years.
(rock music) (wheels squeak)
And this car doesn't even need to be a GM parts bin car.
Buick has done cool stuff in the past on their own.
In 1970, the Buick GSX from the last muscle cars
before the oil crisis and it made 510 foot pounds of torque.
That was the highest torque output for an American car
and the GSX held that record for over 30 years.
Buick were the first to have an automatic transmission.
They were the first have trash control
and they put CRT screens in the car
way before West Coast Customs.
Buick even invented the concept
of the concept car in 1938.
- [Narrator] A dozen years of automotive progress
telescoped into one effort.
- So while Buick might not have the attention
of the American people right now,
they have a history of innovating, adapting,
and making something super cool when you least expect it,
like a big yellow car named after a bird.
- I'm just working on my old hog here
and you know what I realized?
We just hit six million subscribers dudes.
One, two, three, four, five, six, six.
And just like with every major milestone
that we have here at Donut,
we're gonna release a limited edition
6 Million Sub Sticker so that you can show everybody
that you were part of the crew when we hit this number.
This is like one of my favorite designs
that we've done so far.
I think it's super sick.
It's only available for a very limited time.
Go get yours today donutmedia.com
and, again, thank you guys so much.
This is way bigger than we ever thought it could be.
We love you all.
I love.
- So what do you think?
Do you want to see Buick make cool cars for the US
or should they focus on the Chinese market?
I know the market's changing,
so maybe Buick is a way for GM to introduce
sporty EVs or something.
Let me know in the comments what you think of Buick
and if you have a cool Buick story to tell us, let me know.
Follow Donut on all social media, @donutmedia.
Follow me, @nolanjsykes.
Be kind, see you next time.