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Avista concept shows Buick's performance potential [w/video]

With names like Wildcat and Riviera in its past, Buick knows how to make a good-looking performance machine. It's just been awhile. But the Avista concept revealed Sunday night ahead of the Detroit Auto Show suggests Buick's sporting heritage might be more than relegated to grainy photos. The Avista is a 2+2 sports coupe running a twin-turbocharged V6 cranking out 400 horsepower through the rear wheels. Look familiar? It should, as it reprises many of the design cues from Buick's last show-stealer, the Avenir, which debuted a year ago in Detroit. "The Avista embodies the dynamic soul of Buick," said Duncan Aldred, vice president of global Buick sales, service, and marketing. "It is a modern expression of the brand's heritage of sophisticated performance, communicated with beautiful elegance." The front end features a prominent grille with Buick's newly colored tr-shield as the centerpiece. It's flanked by wings that stretch out horizontally and edgy headlights that portend the appearance of future Buicks. There's an aggressive fascia, chrome-trimmed vents, and it all rolls on 20-inch wheels. The Avista has a 110.7-inch wheelbase (which is the same as the Chevy Camaro), and the tracks measure 63 inches in front and 62.9 inches in back, which Buick says makes for a sporty stance. The B-pillarless cabin conjures the open layout of great boulevard cruisers of days gone by. It's done up in gray leather punctuated with carbon-fiber and aluminum accents. Yep, Buick does know how to do performance. In case you forgot, the Avista is a strong reminder of the past, and it offers hope for the brand's future. Watch the live unveiling in the video below. Buick Introduces Avista Concept Design elegance, performance heritage conveyed in turbocharged 2+2 coupe DETROIT – Ahead of its public debut at the North American International Auto Show, Buick today revealed the Avista concept – a 2+2 coupe that pushes the brand's contemporary design ethos and rekindles its historic performance roots. A sleek, sweeping proportion is the foundation for this vision of a contemporary grand tourer, with a 400-horsepower twin-turbocharged V-6 driving the rear wheels and a driver-focused cockpit offering a comfortable, connected center of control. "The Avista embodies the dynamic soul of Buick," said Duncan Aldred, vice president of Global Buick Sales, Service and Marketing.

2017 Buick LaCrosse an evolution of sharp Avenir concept

After years as a bloated, uninspiring, but comfortable near-premium sedan, Buick has taken the wraps off a leaner, lither, far more stylish LaCrosse. The third-generation model has just made its debut at the 2015 Los Angeles Motor Show. While there's a lot to talk about, let's first address the new, Avenir-inspired sheetmetal. The fascia is basically the concept car smoothed over into production form, featuring the same winged trishield. In place of the chrome-trimmed waterfall, the LaCrosse gets a blacked-out, recessed grille with a chrome surround. It looks good in photos but it's better in person, adding a real sense of complexity and depth to the front end. The headlights and lower fascia, meanwhile, adhere closely to the concept. The same cannot be said of the LaCrosse's tail. While the taillight lighting pattern is similar, the overall shape of the lighting element is radically different, refining the design featured on the back of the Regal. Also gone, sadly, is the Avenir's boattail rear deck. Instead, the LaCrosse gets a small rear deck that curves up into a pleasant duckbill spoiler. The rest of the tail is pleasantly restrained. Perhaps the weakest point is the profile, where Buick has instituted a "split-spear" design, featuring a strong shoulder line above the rear wheel well, which sits below an even stronger character line that curves down and towards the front of the car. It strikes us as just a little too much, like the Impala. Underneath that sheetmetal, Buick has managed to trim nearly 300 pounds of body fat, nearly half of which came from the vehicle's actual structure. That 300 lbs, according to Buick's engineers, is equivalent to a Kenmore side-by-side refrigerator, in case you needed a helpful comparison. Despite the weight savings, Buick has upped the torsional rigidity for this new model by 15 percent. The LaCrosse's cabin features a strong, cockpit-like design, with a high, floating-bridge center console. This is possible due to Buick's adaption of the Electronic Precision Shift system, introduced earlier this month on the new Cadillac XT5. Despite the new-fangled console design, Buick's retained the wraparound cabin style introduced on the second-gen model. Based on a quick crawl around the interior, space is great in front, although ingress in back is somewhat difficult due to the roofline. You're probably wondering why we haven't said anything about the mechanicals just yet.

Buick's Velite 5 is a rebadged Chevy Volt for China

There's nary a mention of the famous Chevy Bowtie badge in Buick's press release for its new Velite 5. No shoutouts to the extended-range Volt, with which the Chinese-market Velite clearly borrows its hybrid gasoline/electric technology. But that's okay; to borrow an adage, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. And, as you can see from the image above, the Buick Velite 5 is a duck Volt with a Tri-Shield badge. The Velite 5's 1.5-liter engine and lithium ion battery pack provide up to 466 miles of range, with the first 62 miles or so coming on battery power alone. That's more range than Chevy quotes for the Volt, so we're not sure what methodology Buick is using to calculate mileage. Still, even if it's more like the Volt's estimated range of 53 real-world miles, it would be enough for many Chinese drivers to avoid the gas station altogether. Buick showed off a Velite Concept late last year that doesn't appear to share much at all with this new Volt-based production model. But since the brand is promising more plug-ins and EVs in the coming years, we wouldn't be surprised to see further models carrying the Velite moniker, perhaps one based on the all-electric Chevy Bolt EV. Related Video: