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GM recalling 8.4M cars, 8.2M related to ignition problems

General Motors today announced a truly massive recall covering some 8.4 million vehicles in North America. Most significantly, 8.2 million examples of the affected vehicles are being called back due to "unintended ignition key rotation," though GM spokesperson Alan Adler tells Autoblog that this issue is not like the infamous Chevy Cobalt ignition switch fiasco.
For the sake of perspective, translated to US population, this total recall figure would equal a car for each resident of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, the District of Columbia, Vermont and Wyoming. Combined. Here's how it all breaks down:
7,610,862 vehicles in North America being recalled for unintended ignition key rotation. 6,805,679 are in the United States.

2016 Buick Envision might be your first Chinese-built crossover

At the Detroit Auto Show, the new Envision crossover flips the traditional Buick paridigm on its head. We've been hearing for years about strong sales of the Buick brand in China, but now we'll see if North America is ready for a Chinese-built (but, as GM is very quick to point out, American-engineered) CUV. The Envision rides on the latest version of the Delta 2 platform that underpins many GM vehicles. It'll slot between the tiny Encore and the cavernous Enclave, which is a nice sweet spot for volume sales in the hot crossover market. Gas is cheap, and Americans are eating these vehicles up – in a market like this, does it really matter where the Envision was actually screwed together? The powertrain package is surprisingly compelling – perhaps there will be some life to the driving experience. Motivation is provided by a 252-horsepower turbo inline-four and a six-speed auto, and in a first for a Buick crossover, it'll feature the torque-steer fighting HiPer suspension, which splits up steering and suspension duties in a way that'll tidy up the front axle's manners under power. A few other neat tricks make it into the Envision, like active grille shutters to squeeze some extra efficiency out of the CUV, and available park assist. The 2016 Buick Envision goes on sale later this year. Buick Introduces Envision Luxury Crossover DETROIT – The 2016 Envision is an all-new luxury compact crossover with segment-challenging driving dynamics, advanced technology, connectivity and Buick's trademark interior acoustics. It is a global vehicle, designed from the ground up as a Buick luxury compact crossover. It goes on sale in the U.S. in the second quarter of 2016. "The all-new Buick Envision is a modern, confident and responsive luxury compact crossover that combines the brand's core characteristics with great performance features like our HiPer strut suspension," said Duncan Aldred, vice president of Buick.

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