In my book, the Buick minivan actually looks better than the Lexus.

 

The interior design is really nice. The exterior, not is kinda bland . China built

 

Yes, I partially agree on the China-built part. That's one reason why I chose the Korean-built Encore GX.....along with a lower price and a conventional fore-aft shifter. But, to be fair, a lot more Buicks are sold in China, where the nameplate is a national icon, than here in the U.S....so the China factory may be justified. But the Korean plant at least has a union for the employees.....in the Chinese plant, one is (probably) at the mercy of the company every day from check-in to check-out.

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The interior design is really nice

Yep.....IMHO, Buick actually out-Cadillacs a number of Cadillac interiors, although I'll admit it is difficult to improve on the interior of the latest Escalade.

 

Back to the GL8, IMO, Buick should consider bringing it here to the U.S. Currently GM does not have ANY minivan to compete in the American market......neither does Ford or Lincoln.

 

They're not going to bring it here because nobody is going to pay $80K+ for a van. And that's considered cheap for its segment. Ultra-luxury MPV's are a segment that exists only in Asia, primarily China.

 

They could (?) do a less-ornate version of it here.....maybe even market it as a Chevy.

There's still a market for minivans in the U.S..........Steve and his family, for one, are evidence of that. The Chrysler Pacifica is the only American-badged minivan still left to compete with the Kia Carnival, Toyota Sienna, and Honda Odyssey.

 

This Cadillac interior is great

 

That makes about as much sense as stripping down the LS500 into a Toyota Camry. It's just not going to happen.

 

First, there's no way you could strip a RWD LS500 platform down to a FWD Camry....totally different platform. The Lexus equivalent of a Camry is the ES. Second, upmarket/downmarket rebadging of common-platform vehicles is very common in the auto industry, going back as far as the 1950s. GM itself is one of the largest companies that practiced it.

 

That's my point. This isn't any vehicle, this is an $80K+ ultra-luxury van, designed to compete in a market of $100K+ vans. It's already been "stripped down" compared to the competition. You literally cannot make it any cheaper without fundamentally changing the nature of the vehicle. That's why the market for these types of vehicles does not exist in the U.S.

 

You didn't quite grasp what I was saying. An LS cannot be stripped to a Camry, not because of price reason like you advocate, but simply because a RWD vehicle cannot be stripped to a FWD. But a expensive minivan CAN be stripped down to something less-ornate on the same platform. A perfect example was the old Chrysler Town & Country vs. the Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager before they were discontinued,

Now do you see what I meant?

 

You're not seeing what I mean. "Stripping down a vehicle to its platform" means it's no longer the same vehicle, and GM could modify any of its existing cheap crossovers to turn into a minivan if they wanted to make one- they don't have to use this vehicle as the basis for it. They won't because there's zero demand for it, but that's beside the point.

I posted the Lexus LM earlier, there exists a cheaper Toyota version called the Alphard. It costs up to $141K. This class of vehicle is not meant to be cheap vehicles regardless of the badge, and GM making a Chevy version of this vehicle doesn't mean it'll be a cheap vehicle.

 

The minivan market is shrinking, doesn’t make sense for any carmaker to enter it in the US, IMO.

 

some else said it too; looks like the current gen sienna.