1986 Buick Regal Grand National Coupe 2-door 3.8l on 2040-cars

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2013 Buick Encore nets strong IIHS, NHTSA safety scores

After being crushed from every which way and rolled over like a labrador, the 2013 Buick Encore has been named a Top Safety Pick by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. To earn the accolade, a vehicle must achieve the highest rating of "Good" in each of the institute's four main crash tests: Front Moderate Overlap, Side, Rollover and Rear. The Encore aced those four tests with "Good" ratings, but missed out on the coveted Top Safety Pick+ designation by receiving a Poor rating in the institute's new Front Small Overlap test. To be named a Top Safety Pick+, the Encore would need to score at least an "Acceptable" rating in the new test, as well as "Good" in all four original crash tests.
Despite the miss, the Encore joins the Enclave, LaCrosse, Verano and Regal as Top Safety Picks all. If you count only the Encore with all-wheel drive, then all five Buicks have also earned five-star overall ratings from the National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration, making Buick one of the few manufacturers to offer a full lineup with high scores from both safety rating organizations.
The front-wheel-drive Encore, despite performing equally as well as the all-wheel-drive version in NHTSA's crash tests, only earned four stars overall. As far as we can tell, the discrepancy between the two is because some safety equipment, like Forward Collision Warning and Lane Departure Assist, are optional features on the FWD Encore and standard on the AWD model.

General Motors shaking up its marketing... again

One of the things that dogs the full comeback of General Motors is the instability of its marketing. That part of the automaker got yet another big shakeup today when GM confirmed what I have been tweeting for a few days - strong rumors that the Chevrolet and Cadillac ad accounts are walking to new ad agencies.
Cadillac, GM's luxury brand, is going into review from Fallon Worldwide, Minneapolis and the indications are that Campbell-Ewald, Chevy's old ad shop, will end up with most or all of it. C-E just announced that it was moving from its long-time home in Warren, MI to a new downtown Detroit office next to Ford Field, just blocks from GM.
The other shoe to drop shortly will be the shift of GM's most important brand, Chevy, from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners of San Francisco to McCann-Erickson of Troy, MI. McCann used to be the agency for Buick and GMC, as well as GM's corporate advertising, and has retained some pieces of business over the last few years. Sources have even told us that it was McCann that did a lot of the creative work on Chevy's new ad platform, Find New Roads. (Not to be confused with a former McCann tagline for Saab, "Find Your Own Road.")

Bob Seger's Detroit Made music video is an homage to the Motor City

At this point, Bob Seger feels like the living embodiment of old-school rock 'n' roll. The Michigan native has been strumming out classic records like Night Moves for decades, and he just released a new single called Detroit Made. It sounds like a future staple of just about every classic car show within the next few years, and the video is dedicated to the Motor City, past and future.
Detroit Made is all about cruising in the city in a classic Buick Electra 225, perhaps better known as a "deuce and a quarter." It's straight-down-the-middle rock and could just as easily be from a decades-old Seger album as something new.
The video for the new single mixes shots of American classics cruising along Woodward Avenue with a contemporary look at the city. Sure, there are the well-known dilapidated buildings falling into rubble, but the people there aren't just letting the city die. Other parts show the attempts to clean things up and rebuild. Check out the video if you need a few minutes of old school rockin' in your life.