2004 Buick Lesabre Custom Sedan 4-door 3.8l on 2040-cars

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KBB 2013 Brand Image Awards has some obvious and oddball winners

The sixth edition of the Kelley Blue Book Brand Image Awards have crowned a wide range of winners - in a couple of cases the recipient of the laurels might say more about KBB users than they do about the actual winner. Compiled from the responses of more than 12,000 shoppers on KBB.com over the past year, there are 13 categories broken into non-luxury, luxury and truck segments "representing the combined wisdom of the American car-buying public."
The award categories have been revamped this year, with some dropping off, some new ones appearing and at least one other given a new term. What isn't surprising is that Honda won Most Trusted Brand for the second year running, Best Value Brand for the third year in a row and took Best Overall Brand, which wasn't on last year's list of awards.
On our own shores, in the non-luxury categories Chrysler got Most Refined Brand and Buick took Best Value Luxury Brand. Neither one of those marques won anything in last year's Brand Image Awards, while Cadillac, which won Best Interior Design Brand and Best Comfort Brand last year - those awards disappeared this year - went home without a single accolade.

Buick will go sedan-free by killing the Regal after 2020

Pour one out for the Buick Regal. Citing a growing lack of demand, the firm announced it will deep-six its last remaining sedan and its only station wagon after the 2020 model year. Buick spokesman Stuart Fowle told Motor Authority that buyers clearly prefer crossovers and SUVs; so far, nearly 90 percent of the company's 2019 sales have come from high-riding models. In other words, the company's decision to send the Regal to the pantheon of automotive history is business, not personal. "Buick continues to be ahead of the consumer shift towards SUVs," Fowle explained. Autoblog confirmed the decision applies to the sedan, which is available in a sporty GS configuration (pictured) that we praised as "the coolest car Buick has made in years," and the TourX wagon, which attracted Buick's wealthiest buyers and sold far better than the company expected. Its retirement underlines the colossal difficulty of selling a wagon that's not a Subaru Outback in America. View 46 Photos Buick didn't loudly announce its exit from the passenger car market, but it's beating Ford to the punch. The last Cascada rolled off the assembly line earlier in 2019, and the bigger Lacrosse is one of six cars whose retirement was announced by General Motors in 2018. Neither will be replaced, and the odds of seeing another Regal are extremely low. The company's message is clear: Buyers want crossovers and SUVs, so that's what they'll get. As a bonus, axing the Regal will finally allow Buick to end its reliance on former sister company Opel, which General Motors sold to Paris-based Peugeot in 2017. It developed the Regal, and manufactures it in a factory located next to Opel headquarters in Russelsheim, Germany. The Regal will live on elsewhere in the world. Buick will continue to sell it in the Chinese market because motorists there still buy sedans, and Opel/Vauxhall will keep offering its version of the car (called the Insignia) across Europe. The model recently received minor updates inside and out to remain fresh, but it competes in a segment that's free-falling and its days are likely numbered.

Buick Encore production increased to lift supply by 50%

Trying to zero in on the Buick Encore leads us to the conclusion that the only place it really fits is in buyers' driveways. Every member of its so-called competitive set – we've read everything from the Ford C-Max to the Nissan Juke to the Volkswagen Tiguan to the BMW X1 – is so different in small yet fundamental ways that the Encore neatly slinks between them all, and with 48,892 sales in 2014, it doesn't stop slinking until it reaches consumer garages. That success, and preparation for the aggrandizing of the compact CUV segment, is why General Motors is upping production for the US market by 50 percent. Analysts keep predicting there will be more shoppers for tiny crossovers, and that's why those that don't have them are getting them. Yet the Encore came out in 2013 before people realized the power of the segment, and it has substantially out-performed GM and observer expectations: analysts predicted 18,500 US sales in 2013 and 25,000 in 2015; in 2013 we wrote, "We admit it. We have no earthly idea how this whole thing is going to shake out." It shook out 31,046 sales in 2013, puffing that number up by more than 50 percent last year. GM thinks that this year it will it will go from Buick's third-best-selling vehicle to its best-selling vehicle. GM wants that to continue, what with the Honda HR-V, Jeep Renegade, and Mazda CX-3 on the way. Dealers say they'd sell more if they could get them, and the four-month lead time at the moment between a dealer ordering and taking delivery – about double the normal time – creates a handicap. Plants in Mexico, Korea, and Spain will hive off production to bolster US inventory to keep the "downsizing empty nesters" who love it, happy. Seeing as the coming competition is falls meaningfully outside the Buick's combination of traits, there's a chance its popular tale can continue.