Anyone who knows the brand Buick knows that it has historically been an old-mans car. Aside from a few performance variants over the years, the Buick has always been aimed at the mature driver looking for a comfortable, posed, reliable ride, but not necessarily something exciting to drive or look at. In its early days Buick was actually known as 'the doctor's car', which says a lot as to what it traditionally represented.
Anyone who knows the brand Buick knows that it has historically been an old-mans car. Aside from a few performance variants over the years, the Buick has always been aimed at the mature driver looking for a comfortable, posed, reliable ride, but not necessarily something exciting to drive or look at. In its early days Buick was actually known as 'the doctor's car', which says a lot as to what it traditionally represented. Not this Buick! From a distance this red rocket caught my attention, but it was only as I got close that I realised that it was a Buick. The long-running US mid-luxury brand has been having great success in China over the past few years, and I am seeing their various models everywhere. This hot red Excelle HRV 5-door really stands out though, partly because of the colour but also because of the spoilers and ground effects. To borrow a line from Oldsmobile (another rather sedate brand that used to exist as a cousin to Buick), this isn't your father's Buick! Under inspection it became obvious that this car is actually a rebadged Daewoo, sold as Lacetti in Europe and under the Chevrolet Optra5 name in North America between 2004 and 2008. I actually owned one of these before leaving Canada in 2006, a white 2004 Optra5 hatchback. It was a fairly bland but competent vehicle, but I now realise that the more attractive Excelle HRV would have been a more interesting vehicle to own! I will have to keep my eyes peeled to see if there are any more fancy Buicks like this in China!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWelcome! My name is Paul, and I am an old-fashioned, low-pressure, low-buck car fan with lots of automotive stories to tell! Archives
February 2020
|