Wagon sales have been on an enormous decline in the US. American consumers don't have fond memories of road trips in their parent's wood-paneled station wagons as children. While these types of wagons have now become ironically cool, they were about as cool as minivans are today. There are still some amazing wagon models that are available in the US because companies like Volvo are keeping the wagon alive. Buick is also placing its bets on wagons. Automotive News reports that the company has increased its forecast for wagon sales.
Buick has completely redesigned the Regal for the 2018 model year. The sedan body style is gone, and in its place are the Sportback and TourX models. The Sportback looks like a traditional sedan on the surface, but it has a liftback hatch design like the Audi A5 Sportback, BMW 4 Series Gran Coupe and Kia Stinger. The more interesting option is the TourX, which is a traditional station wagon. Buick is ready to put its faith in the TourX and expects that the wagon will account for 50% of Regal sales. This is up from Buick's initial projections of 30%. We hope that Buick is right, because we'd like to see more wagons in the US.
We're pretty realistic about where the car market's at, but we're getting some pretty good feedback on it," Phil Brook, U.S. vice president of marketing for Buick and GMC said during a media drive event. Buick hopes that the TourX will help distinguish the Regal in a crowded midsize segment. The Regal wagon could help draw buyers away from Subaru, Audi and Volvo. "It really is a head-turner" Brook said. "We're not an old-man sedan brand anymore. We're very much a cutting-edge SUV brand with some really good sedans to back that up." The Regal TourX starts at $29,995, which is around $4,000 more than the Sportback.
The TourX is available with a 2.0-liter four-cylinder turbo generating 250 hp and 295 lb-ft of torque. Unfortunately, Buick has no plans to sell the TourX with the more powerful V6 engine from the Regal GS. Even though wagons were once known as the boring family runabout, that boring role has been taken over by SUVs and minivans. This frees the wagon up to be something more unique, and in our opinion, cool.
