GM unveils new Buick sedan

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Dealers will start selling the new Buick Regal in the second quarter next year, GM announced Thursday.

TORONTO -- General Motors Co. has unveiled a new Buick sedan with a familiar name in a bid to win over younger buyers who have shied away from the automaker's premium brand.

Dealers will start selling the new Buick Regal in the second quarter next year, GM said Thursday in a statement posted on its website. The car initially will be built in Russelsheim, Germany and imported. GM is expected to transfer output to its assembly factory in Oshawa, Ont., starting in August 2011.

GM discontinued the Regal in 2004 as it phased in the Buick LaCrosse. It revived the model in December in China, where Buick is GM's best-selling marque.

The Regal is a mid-sized family car essentially identical to GM's Insignia model sold in Europe. A jury of 59 senior automotive journalists named the Insignia 2009 car of the year in Europe, marking the first time in 22 years that a GM model was awarded the prize.

The Regal, a redesigned Chevrolet Impala, the current Chevrolet Camaro and a new luxury stretch sedan called the Cadillac XTS, will form the backbone of GM's manufacturing footprint in Canada well into the next decade, industry sources indicated. GM also will build a hybrid version of one of those four models at the Oshawa site, its main Canadian assembly facility.

Buick is one of four brands GM is keeping as it labours to win back profitability. But it suffers from a perception as an old person's car.

U.S. sales for the marque dropped 26 per cent last year as the automaker terminated its endorsement deal with superstar golfer Tiger Woods. They have fallen 33 per cent this year through October.

The average age of a Buick buyer in Canada is 62, according to data from J.D. Power & Associates' Power Information Network.

GM executives say Buick wants to attract younger buyers who don't think about the brand. Competing vehicles to the Regal include Honda Motor Co.'s Acura TSX and Ford Motor Co.'s Volvo S60.

While the success or failure of any vehicle built in Canada is typically tracked closely because of the jobs involved, the new GM cars have added significance because Canadians are owners in the company.

The federal and Ontario governments pledged $9.5 billion US to help the bankrupt carmaker reinvent itself and protect thousands of jobs.

-- Canwest News Service

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 13, 2009 B5