LexFather

http://germancarscene.com/2009/11/25...d-size-saloon/



In the past 12 months, the Insignia won a total of 32 prizes in 15 European countries, including Car of the Year in 2009. The sedan is Europe’s top-seller. All around, it is number one in its class in five countries and number two throughout the continent. This translates to 16.22 percent market share in its high-volume class year-to-date, compared with 8.19 percent during the same period last year.

mmarshall

So Opel and Buick are back to a partnership again? Shades of 40 years ago....although, back then, Buick just sold Opel imports without actually putting Buick names on them. Now, the two appear to be actually sharing a platform.

Opel, BTW, though not one of the more reliable auto brands on the market, is quite well-respected in Europe. Their newer designs have won a number of awards....and the Insignia just seems to add to that.

This car, BTW, appears to be good competition for Ford's superb Euro-market Mondeo.

Och

iTrader: (3)

So much for the "Sophisticated Europeans" only liking "Euro-sporty" cars and hating "soft American" cars.

mmarshall

No, it's still valid.

Euro-spec models often have firmer tuning/underpinnings than American-spec for three reasons. First, Europeans traditionally have emphasized handling over ride (though BMW, in particular, does a superb job of balancing both). Second, the often-higher speed limits (or no speed limits) necessitate a chassis platform that is stable at high speeds and shows no softness or float. Third, European roads, for a variety of reasons (especially in Germany) are much smoother, on average, than North American roads.....that, of course, allows firmer underpinnings without excessive harshness. There are some places in the U.S. (Great Lakes Snow Belt and the major cities of the Northeast in particular), where the road surfaces look and feel more like the cratered surface of the moon than of pavement fit for driving on. That's something to be taken into consideration when buying a rock-hard-sprung vehicle like the Mitsubishi Evo or Lexus IS-F.

So, in a nutshell, though I couldn't verify it without a review, the Euro-spec Opel version is likely to have more aggressive suspension/tires than its Buick Regal cousin.

spwolf

Insignia is very nice car, nicely styled with very nice interior... which is important. It is also priced really well, which all of it together is the reason it sells well.

Drawbacks is that it is heavy so it is slower and spends more fuel than competition, as well as the style means it has a bit less room than competition.

Overall, it is best car by Opel for a long time, when it comes to style and sense of luxury, and thats why it sells so well.

SLegacy99

So GM should just drop Buick and sell Opels here. Save themselves the trouble of badge engineering.

Lil4X

I was the proud owner of a 1972 Opel Rallye for over ten years. It was my "fun" car, the stablemate of my '67 Mustang, and later a series of company cars and a couple of SUV's. With ten years and over 80K on the clock, when it began to go wrong thanks to some truly miserable GM factory support, it very nearly imploded, but prior to that time it was totally reliable and a joy to drive.

It was surprisingly roomy for two, with the back seats being relatively small. I took it on a long day trip once with my uncle and dad and heard no complaints from the back seat, the old fellows loving every minute of the experience. Both were owners of large GM cars, Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs, and were impressed with what the Opel could do with just a shade over a hundred horsepower and a shade over a ton of steel. As all of us were well over 6' and 200 lbs, I consider that level of comfort and performance remarkable.

For a time I drove the car regularly to my company's HQ in Lake Charles, about a three hour trip on the Interstate, in lieu of my company Pinto. It was both that good, and the P1nt0, that bad. The large trunk swallowed two large 75 lb camera rigs in their cases, and with an overnight bag on the back seat, we met many dawns boring a hole in the fog toward the sunrise.

My only mod was a set of Sears (at the time, Michelin) radials, the 850 lb load rating of the OEM French Goodyears being unable to support both me and my load. Otherwise, the "German" car was a regular EU of parts, the tires, spark plugs, and a few other small fittings being French, the engine, electrics, and tranny, German, most of the rest of the car arising from a collection of BeNeLux shops, and the whole thing assembled in Belgium. The only sop to GM was the Harrison A/C (an under-dash unit) and the Delco radio.

The little 1.9L four, was a common European powerplant found in a series of cars across the pond in a number of configurations in "German" Fords. It even reached these shores as the "big" engine option in the earliest Pintos, as Ford had yet to build a proper 4-cyl. The Bosch electrical system from the alternator to the entire ignition system was shared by Volvo, and several other European marques.

It had a few features I still miss:

• A vacuum cut-off on the AC compressor that released the magnetic clutch under WOT. It seems that 100 hp will only go so far, and when passing on a 2-lane road, it's a good idea to forgo the AC for a few seconds in the interest of avoiding a head-on.
  
  
• A pedal operated windshield washer - the no-fuss solution under your left foot just an inch or two from the outstanding dead pedal. A tap on the pedal squeezed a rubber bulb to give you a healthy squirt of fluid and a couple of swipes of the wiper without taking your hands from the wheel. It was also useful as an early solution to clearing the windscreen in a light mist - a touch being all that was necessary to operate the wipers without squeezing fluid through the washers.
  
  
• A transmission that was butter-smooth, combined with an extremely positive, yet light hydraulic clutch that let you perform like Baryshnikov on the pedals when attacking a winding country lane. You never wanted for power, as the four-speed short-throw selector was at your fingertips, and the little 1.8L sewing machine of an engine a willing co-conspirator in a sunset back-road romp.
  
  
• Finally, the engine note. The OEM resonator in the early models included two lovely chromed exhaust tips, and it rendered the exhaust almost completely silent. When it rusted out fairly early in its career, thanks to a lot of short trips, the Buick dealers only offered a replacement that looked like I'd welded it up as a junior high shop class project. It was truly ugly.
  
  I opted for a straight 2" pipe to carry the combustion products to the fantail and it was perhaps the best mod decision I ever made. Through it, that little cam-in-head engine produced a slightly throaty buzz at speed, but a credible rasp on heavy applications of throttle, but the best was to be heard on the overrun. Arcing into a turn, lifting your right foot produced a crackling snarl that would have done an E-Modified proud. It was a concerto that had to be written somewhere else in Europe, probably Italy. An Alfa never sounded better.

If the current issues of Opel could duplicate my experience with the little Rallye, including the simplicity, quality, reliability, and performance for the price, I'd own one in a heartbeat. My only question would be Buick's commitment to the marque. If it is sold as a Regal with FULL GM support, OK, but if it is relegated to step-child status by the dealer network as was mine, I'd have to reconsider.

spwolf

well astra sold like crap, and it is most popular Opel.... It is not that simple.

ecr527

GM can't drop the Buick nameplate because it is a cash cow brand for them in China, which IMO is the only reason the brand survived the bankruptcy and didn't go the way of Saturn, etc.

mmarshall

A lot of so-called car "enthusiasts" don't want to admit it, because of Buick's geezer image in the U.S., but the brand is far more popular here in America than a lot of people think (yes, even with non-geezers). That is why GM chose to keep it, not just because of the China market.

If anything, Mercury is probably going to go before Buick does.

pvmike1

I don't know about that Mike. I don't know anyone, of any age, that has purchased a Buick in the last decade. Perhaps your experience is different, but if you ask the average car buyer in CA, their response will likely be, "Buick still makes cars?"

That's a shame, because the new Regal seems like a great car. Buicks are huge in China, and Buick co-produces vehicles for the Chinese market. Some of the Buicks I rode in out there seemed like pretty decent vehicles.

(Cj)

Buick still sells a decent amount of cars in the Northeast. Cali is really just a different market. Most people there would just buy a Mercedes or Lexus instead.

LexBob2

Buick's car sales are pretty good and stable. There's no question that they have one of the highest average age of buyers, and no doubt want to change that with the new LaCrosse.

Early sales of the new LaCrosse are good, but it's too early to tell who is buying them.

IS-SV

LaCrosse was getting a decent level of interest at car show in SF, the rest of the Buicks were largely ignored.

mmarshall

True to some extent. In CA, there are an enormous number of younger buyers....those who, in general, are not attracted to Buicks. But, in other parts of the country, that is not necessarily the case.


The auto-writer for our local Washington Post newspaper (I casually know him, but not in a close-friend relationship), was recently in China reviewing the Asian-market Buicks, and he seeems to agree with you......he likes them much better than the American-spec ones.