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Buick begins offering 24-hour test drives

Even as the year's sales charts show a decline, Buick says its brand image is improving. To bolster that soft metric while it works on overhauling its lineup - consumers are clamoring for more crossovers - the brand will begin offering overnight test drives as of July 23. Buick trialled the program in Phoenix and got a good response, so it rolls out as an ad-supported nationwide campaign called "24 Hours of Happiness" as of July 22. The push is on probation for three months while Buick evaluates it, but they expect it to continue beyond 90 days. Cars will be sourced from the loaner fleets that dealers offer customers whose cars are in for service, so only dealers with such fleets will be able to participate. General Motors did the same thing in 2003 and 2004, at the time saying it led to more than 500,000 "extended" test drives and close to 190,000 sales. That program had a cash component, in that buyers were offered $250 if they chose a non-GM vehicle after their test drive. 24 Hours of Happiness won't come with any inducements; Buick is taking the long view, positioning this as support for the brand instead of as bait for immediate returns. The Phoenix dealer who ran the program first said that it got fewer bites than he expected, but that customers who took a car home "were far more likely to buy the vehicle." Cue the Regal GS hooning in three, two... Related Video:

Question of the Day: Best recipient for supercharged GM V6?

The good old Buick V6 engine was built from 1961 through 2008 (including a decade of production by Kaiser-Jeep) and went into way too many General Motors vehicles to list here. In 1991, the supercharged version of the 3800 was introduced, with a Roots-style Eaton blower on top, and now you can find these engines in just about every junkyard in North America. The 3800 shares a bellhousing pattern with the also-made-by-the-zillions GM 60° V6 engine, which means that it will install (with varying levels of sledgehammer clearancing and/or axle mix-and-matching) into plenty of GM vehicles that never received the 3800 from the factory. That means one thing: engine swaps! An excellent example of this is the 1992 Chevrolet Lumina APV "Dustbuster" minivan, which is a fully caged high-performance road-racing machine that features a supercharged 3800 and 5-speed manual transmission under its long, vacuum-cleaner-snout-like hood. The RaceVan, in Springfield Monorail livery, will compete this weekend at the Michigan 24 Hours of LeMons race with Autobloggers Mike Austin, David Gluckman, and Alex Kierstein at the wheel. My personal choice for supercharged 3800 power, though, has to be the Cadillac Cimarron, preferably the not-so-sought-after Cimarron d'Oro Edition. Some bashing and welding and cutting and pasting and this lightweight Cavalier sibling could have well over double its original horsepower. So, what's your blown 3800 engine-swap choice? Related Video: Auto News Buick GM v6 question of the day questions engine swap

Buick to kill Verano as early as 2017

The Buick Verano's days are allegedly numbered. Citing unnamed sources, Automotive News is reporting that Buick will kill its Delta-platform-based sedan. The company offered the typical "no comment." According to AN, Buick is expecting 70 percent of its sales to come from the Encore, Envision, and Enclave once the Envision goes on sale. And it doesn't take a professor of economics to recognize that when half the vehicles you build account for just 30 percent of the sales, it's time to trim. But the case for killing the Verano is a weird one, because the problem isn't a lack of demand. Struggling sales might be the reason to kill a car, but the Verano is – and has consistently been – Buick's second best-selling sedan. It's beaten the slightly larger, more expensive Regal by at least 12,000 units in each of the last four years. Hell, in 2013, Buick sold 45,000 Veranos to fewer than 19,000 Regals. So why not kill the Regal? Well, the Verano's raison d'etre is irrelevant today. Buick launched its smallest sedan at a time when premium compact four-doors weren't a thing and gas prices were high enough that consumers were still hesitant to tie themselves to a CUV's fuel bill. And while it was roughly the same size as the Chevrolet Cruze that it shared GM's Delta platform with, it had enough unique equipment to stand apart and warrant its price premium. Today, fuel prices are cheap and consumers are flocking to crossovers while Buick is stuck sharing the premium compact pie with much more prestigious names ( Mercedes-Benz and Audi). And because it's sharing showroom space with the super-popular Encore, even the Verano's affordable pricing has become a liability. Today, a lightly equipped Verano is the same price as a base Encore, and they offer broadly similar features (rear-view cameras, a seven-inch touchscreen with Intellilink, Bluetooth, etc.). And if the Encore is too small, there's probably a GMC Terrain sitting in the same showroom, offering more utility and equal equipment to the Verano for a similar price. As one dealer told AN, "For not much more money, customers can get an SUV." Killing the Verano might risk 30,000 to 40,000 sales, but it's a move that proves Buick has tremendous confidence in its CUV lineup – clearly the company thinks the Encore can do the job of luring customers into showrooms. AN's sources claim the Verano will survive through 2017, so we'll be waiting a few years to find out if that faith is misplaced. Related Video: