Don’t Look Now, but Buick Might Finally Be Having a Moment
Buick is one of the oldest and most well-known American automakers, and the brand with the iconic logo has been making cars for over 100 years now. That being said, as with any other automaker that’s lasted that long, Buick has had its ups and downs, and for the last several years, it’s been on the downswing in terms of the American car market. However, Buick is also making an effort to rebrand itself so that it can be relevant in the American market, which may have just worked.
Buick has been trying to rebrand itself in recent years
As a company, Buick has always sat in a relatively strange situation. The company is owned by General Motors, and like many auto giants, GM has a variety of models that sit in different segments. GM’s mass-market brands, such as Chevrolet, were designed with the average consumer in mind. Cadillac, meanwhile, was GM’s top-tier luxury offering.
Buick is a luxury automaker just like Cadillac, but its cars are supposed to slot between Cadillac and GM’s mass-market brands in terms of quality and pricing. Car shoppers often bought a Cadillac or went for the mass-market options. That’s helped drive Buick’s sales down, but the company has recently moved to rebrand for the future.
Just like with other companies, Buick is transitioning toward EVs. The company’s current plan is to become an EV-only automaker by 2030. On top of that, the company recently changed its logo. Its old logo had three shields inside a circle. The new logo keeps those three shields, but there’s no circle, and the shields are lined up next to each other evenly.
The Buick brand’s efforts may have paid off
GM Authority recently published the latest sales data available, and whatever Buick’s been doing, it seems to be working. As a company, GM’s sales grew by 18% in the first quarter of 2023. In raw numbers, the auto giant sold over 600,000 units in those first three months of the year. Chevy represented most of those sales, but Buick also pulled its weight.
In fact, of the four brands operating under GM’s umbrella, Buick’s sales grew the most, and it was by a big margin. Its sales increased by 99.2% compared to 2022. Cadillac was in second place, but it only grew by 28.7%. On top of that, despite the company’s struggles in the last decade or so, Buick ended up selling more units than Cadillac did.
Buick has four models in its lineup right now, and they combined to sell over 38,000 units in the first quarter of the year. Cadillac has seven models in its lineup, but they only combined for 36,000 units sold. Furthermore, every single one of Buick’s models saw a year-over-year increase in sales. Cadillac was close, but the Escalade saw a decrease in sales compared to last year.
These are the most popular Buick models right now
Overall, almost every single Buick model saw a bigger growth in sales than other GM brands did on average. The lone exception was the Buick Encore, which only saw a 13.7% growth in sales. In raw numbers, the Encore sold less than 3,000 units in the first quarter. This shouldn’t be a surprise since GM killed off the Encore recently due to its poor sales, meaning most of its sales are from leftover models.
The Encore was replaced by the Encore GX, which is doing very well so far. Buick has already sold over 12,000 units of the subcompact SUV. That represents a massive 128% increase from last year. However, the Envision compact SUV is doing even better. The automaker has sold over 14,000 Envision units already, making it Buick’s most popular model. That sales number also represents a 242% increase from last year.
The Buick brand may still have some work to do to revitalize itself, but it’s definitely on the right track.
