G14 AUTOMOTIVE
OPQRS
THE CAR PAGES | AUTO CLASSIFIED STARTS ON G8
This car says our investment in GM is safe
you know it’s been traveling a rough road. That’s what GeneralMotors did
W
last week amid the usual derisive laughter, jokes and taxpayer moaning about how “we’ll never get our money back” from the $50 billion federal bailout of GM. But I’ma taxpayer who has
been looking atGMdifferently. To wit: What is the company do- ing in the essential business of its business, the business of design- ing, developing, manufacturing and selling cars and trucks? GM, after all, is an automotive company, something it forgot for too long, from the 1970s through the 1990s. And by forgetting, it squandered a legacy built car af- ter beautiful car, with innovation to boot, during its pre- and post- WorldWar II heydays. For the past three years, through the brutal pummeling of GMexecutives on CapitolHill as they sought government hand- outs, and through GM’s blitzkrieg bankruptcy, I’ve been paying close attention to what the com- pany and its people have been do- ing in the business of their busi- ness. In that, I found reason for belief in a GMthat will be a prof- itable, attractive, innovative force in the global automobile indus- try.
Consider, for example, this
week’s subject car, the 2010 Buick LaCrosse CXS withHiPer Strut suspension. When the LaCrosse car line
was introduced in 2005, it was a welcome improvement over what GMhad been doing with its North American Buick brand, a repository of automotive medioc- rity. The 2005 Buick LaCrosse was exceptionally well made and outfitted with a pretty interior. But there was something about its ovoid exterior styling, worka- day 3-liter and 3.8-liter V-6 en- gines, and less-than-impressive handling that were decidedly MichiganMainstream. The old GM, embracing the no-
WARREN BROWN
On Wheels
tion that some progress is better than none, would have been satis- fied with that. The newGMisn’t. Within the space of four years,
GMhas completely upgraded the Buick LaCrosse, as evidenced by the astounding beauty and road performance of the CXS with HiPer Strut suspension, a full-size luxury family sedan that goes on sale inMay. In short, starting at $33,015, it
beats any comparably priced car fromBMW, Lexus or Infiniti in terms of overall value, quality, comfort, safety and performance.
hen a company drops nearly $4 billion and sees that loss as a sign of a brighter future,
BD
SUNDAY, APRIL 11, 2010
Buick LaCrosse CXS HiPer Strut
NUTS&BOLTS
Bottom line: GM may not yet be profitable. It hasn’t been since 2007. But if it keeps doing what it’s doing, rolling out cars such as the 2010 Buick LaCrosse CXS with HiPer Strut, up and down its various car lines, it’ll be profitable sooner than not. More than that, it will have regained what it foolishly threw away, a solid reputation for product quality and innovation.
Ride, acceleration and handling: Excellent ride and acceleration.
Handling is best in class. See for yourself. Drive it.
Head-turning quotient: It easily beats anything from Lexus inside and out. Let’s put them side by side on some mild, azure day and compare. Again, see for yourself.
Body style/layout: The 2010 Buick LaCrosse CXS with HiPer Strut is a full-size, front-engine luxury family sedan offered with front- wheel drive. It sits at the top of a five-member LaCrosse line, including the CXL, which is offered with all-wheel drive.
Engine/transmission: The 2010 LaCrosse CXS comes with a 3.6-liter, double-overhead-cam, 24-valve engine that develops 280 horsepower at 6,300 revolutions per minute and 259 foot-pounds of torque at 4,800 rpm. It is linked to an electronically controlled six-speed transmission that can be shifted automatically or manually.
Capacities: Seats for five. Maximum cargo capacity is 13 cubic feet. Fuel capacity is 18.4 gallons of recommended regular unleaded.
Please don’t argue with me on this point until you’ve driven all of the cited brands side by side. Then let’s talk. What especially pleases me
about the new GMis its increas- ing attention to detail, as evi- denced by the suspension innova- tion on the new CXS. The value ofHiPer Strut (High
Performance Strut), a front-sus- pension component, is best de- scribed by what it prevents the driver from feeling. That sudden, jerky twisting of the steering wheel as the car traverses bumps and potholes is gone, or nearly gone, depending on the severity of the road’s imperfection. You often hear the term
“torque steer” in discussions of the front-end behavior of front- wheel-drive cars upon accelera- tion. It refers to the often direc- tionally aberrant behavior of front wheels that are being asked to do two things at once under
the stress of acceleration: steer and drive. The LaCrosse CXS’s HiPer Strut technology greatly re- duces torque steer. In the end, what we have is a
car that drives so well, you want to keep on driving it, as I did, al- most jeopardizing several Buick executives’ timely departure from Northern Virginia. If you drive it once, you’ll want to buy it. And that is the point, isn’t it? This one is going to sell and sell well. From what I’ve seen of the new
GMbehind the scenes,GMis go- ing to repeat that performance with a raft of other cars—the Chevrolet Cruze, Buick Regal and Cadillac CTS-V, among others. They are sellers. It is how we as U.S. taxpayers will get our money back from GM.We’ve already placed the bet. I firmly believe we can count on a return.
brownw@washpost.com
Brown is a special correspondent.
Mileage: My distance behind the wheel was a robust 50 miles, just enough to get me excited, not enough to give me a real-world mileage reading. The government puts it at 17 miles per gallon city, 26 mpg highway, 21 mpg combined.
Safety: Standard equipment includes four-wheel disc brakes (ventilated front, solid rear), emergency braking assistance, electronic stability and traction control, side and head air bags.
Pricing: The 2010 Buick LaCrosse CXS HiPer Strut driven for this column was a pre-retail prototype. It is estimated that it will start an estimated $3,000 above previous Buick LaCrosse CXS cars, putting its starting price at an estimated $36,000. The car goes on sale next month.
on washingtonpost.com
Chat with Warren Brown
11 a.m. Fridays at washingtonpost.com/discussions. Also, listen to On Wheels with Warren Brown from noon to 1 p.m. Sundays on WMET World Radio (1160 AM) or
www.wmet1160.com.
3Next week: The 2010 Audi TT coupe. 6washingtonpost.com/cars Search a database of past reviews, plus the latest auto news.
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