Autoblog

Judging by the positive reception the Chinese-marketed Buicks have been receiving here in the States, GM would be ill-advised to continue offering the same warmed-over products that it's been selling over the past decade. According to Automotive News, the General sees the writing on the wall and intends to go global with the new look of Buick, originally shown at the Shanghai Motor Show in the shape of the Riviera concept.

The idea is to make Buick an affordable luxury brand here in the States, and it has plans on offering a number of new vehicles to the U.S. market that will take on the high-end competitors from Japan.

To begin with, the Excelle, a small sedan, is set to be released sometime in 2008, based off the Alpha platform currently under development in Germany, while the next iteration of the LaCrosse will come in 2009 and will be based off of GM's Epsilon 2 underpinnings. The Lucerne will get a full makeover in 2011 and will be built around the RWD Zeta platform, and the Rainier, Rendezvous and Terraza will die off after the current production run, and replaced with the new Enclave.

Buick's move to become more things to more people is the only way the marque will survive, and judging by what's in the pipeline, the automaker actually has a chance at success.

[Source: Automotive News – Sub. Req.]

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is in the process of investigating close to 280k 2001 to 2004 Pontiac Aztec and Buick Rendezvous SUVs after consumers filed 213 complaints with the organization.

Apparently, a faulty weld on the fuel tanks' filler pipe is causing a leak, allowing either gasoline fumes or fuel itself to escape from the pipe.

The announcement by NHTSA is part of the second stage of the investigation, however, no recall has been issued thus far.

[Source: Detroit News]

The votes are in, the judges have, uh, judged and it's official: Democrats control the House.

No, wait. Wrong election. The Truth About Cars readers and staff have chosen the 2006 winners (losers?) of The Worst Automobile Today award.

For those with stomachs too queasy or hearts too weak to read criticism of the domestic auto industry, we recommend you find something else to read. Those TTAC folks get kinda brutal.

Just to keep you in suspense, the list of TWAT winners, with excerpts of TTAC's witty criticism, is after the jump.

GM's Chairman/CEO Rick Wagoner will join PGA superstar Tiger Woods to unveil the new-for-'08 Buick Enclave at this year's second L.A. Auto Show. Apparently moving the show to a new time slot in December to avoid the January competition with Detroit is already paying off for the L.A. organizers. Bringing Tiger out for this event shows how eager Buick is to get maximum exposure for this all-important new model. We're sure Tiger's going to be happy they didn't wait for the North American International Auto Show to debut it. L.A. in December or Detroit in January? Tough choice.

The Enclave should look a lot like the concept shown in Detroit last January, but will mark the debut of GM's new Lambda platform. The Lambdas will eventually replace the U-Body minivans with their front- or all-wheel-drive platform and 2+2+2 seating. Initially a 270-hp V-6 mated to a 6-speed automatic will be offered, but a V-8 should arrive somewhere down the road as well. That V-8 will undoubtedly be identified by the four (or is that fore?) ventiport styling touch Buick is becoming known for.

The Enclave should also feature a more upscale interior befitting Buick's position in the GM lineup. The first Lambda full-size CUV to be unveiled was the Saturn Outlook at the 2006 New York Auto Show, and it will beat the Enclave into showrooms when it goes on sale next Spring, followed by the Enclave and GMC's Acadia. The Enclave will replace the awkward looking and slow-moving Rendezvous.

[Source: GM]

French filmmaker Claude Lelouch's (in)famous 9-minute short, "C'etait un Rendez-Vous," consisting entirely of bumper-mounted camera footage of a high speed dawn run through the streets of Paris in 1976, languished in obscurity for years until liberated on the internet and DVD. (See our previous post here.) Now, thanks to the coding efforts of blogger Brian Hendrix, those of us unfamiliar with the streets of Paris (OK, I recognized the Arc de Triomphe, but that's about it) can follow Lelouche's drive in an animated Google Earth map, synchronized with the video!

The animation is here. Syncing the video to the map animation may take a bit of fiddling - I found the video got ahead of the map a couple of times - but pausing the video for a moment fixed it.

With Hendrix' brilliant mashup making the rounds of automotive blogs at the moment (Thanks for the tip, Alberto!), a post on Le Blog Auto took us to another post that dispels the myths around the making of the film. (Did Lelouch drive, or did he enlist a Grand Prix driver? Was it a Ferrari? A Mercedes? Was it staged?) Well, it turns out it was Lelouche himself, driving his Mercedes 300 (with two passengers!), on the open streets of Paris. The film was made in one take (that's all the film they had). Oh, and the Ferrari rumor? The soundtrack is pure Ferrari, dubbed in after filming.

But wait, there's more! Here's a video made earlier this year, on the 30th anniversary of the original drive, in which Claude Lelouche returns to the scene and describes how the film was made (in French).

[Sources: bhendrix.com, leblogauto, memoiresdestands]

General Motors seems to be following through with its pledge to slim down and refocus the model lineup at some of its less successful brands, with Friday's spotlight on Buick. Automotive News quotes Buick's marketing director as saying the new Enclave crossover, which debuted at this year's Detroit Auto Show, will replace two existing Buick models, the Rendezvous and the Rainier.

The Enclave will debut next spring as a 2008 model, as the last Rainier and Rendezvous 2007 models are being sold. The Rendezvous will disappear, while the Rainier will carry on in its guise as the GMC Envoy.

[Source: Automotive News]

Earlier this month, Autoblog informed you about General Motors electing to handle a widespread intake manifold gasket defect on a vehicle-by-vehicle basis. But if Toronto-based law firm Stevensons LLP has any say in the matter, the automaker won't have the option to be choosy with some 400,000 Canadian vehicles.

The firm announced Tuesday that it is filing a class-action lawsuit against General Motors of Canada Ltd., as well as parent company General Motors Corp. The suit is predicated on the premature failure of intake manifold gaskets used in a wide range of the company's vehicles from 1995-2003. Given the 400,000 vehicle estimate by Stevensons and an average claim of $3,000 per vehicle, the class-action tab could balloon to $1.2 billion dollars.

A similar lawsuit in the U.S. was granted class-action status in January.

Click on the link to see further details, including a list of affected vehicles.

[Sources: The Canadian Press via Canada.com; Canadianally.com]