Buick Moves Up Market By Launching Avenir Luxury Sub Brand

General Motors Buick brand is introducing a luxury sub-brand called Avenir, the automaker announces today.

Avenir is French for “future,” and is taken from the much-lauded concept car Buick showed off in 2015. That concept and this year’s Avista coupe concept are guideposts for designers sketching and modeling Buick’s future, officials say.

The Avenir strategy is likely to mirror the highly successful Denali nameplate of the automaker’s GMC truck brand which has enabled its pickups and SUVs to expand deep into the luxury market.

TheSteve - 9/30/2016 12:48:50 PM

+1 Boost

If Buick wants to go upscale, it must stop being the Buick we've known for the past few decades. Merely marketing the same old Buick under a different name won't cut it. Neither will deploying another brand under the same old GM. Such massive change is an exceptionally tall order GM.

cidflekken - 9/30/2016 12:56:11 PM

+5 Boost

So, in other words, they're adding a higher trim level, and not necessarily a sub-brand. "Denali" is still the "GMC Denali".

MDarringer - 9/30/2016 8:25:30 PM

+2 Boost

Agreed. This is silly.

carloslassiter - 9/30/2016 5:49:29 PM

+3 Boost

Cool! Let's hope this works just as well as that Oldsmobile Aurora thing.

MDarringer - 10/1/2016 10:36:05 AM

+2 Boost

Producing the Avenir and the Avista would have elevated Buick, but tacking "Avenir" onto a version of the LaCrap or Redull will not do well.

TomM - 10/1/2016 5:32:27 PM

+2 Boost

Based on which Brand this is - I will say that this is primarily pointed at the Chinese Market - where the Buick Brand is the Luxury car leader. Adding another - higher level trim - would be a way to attack the many new Luxury cars that are coming into that market. And in China - I will also expect that the move will do VERY well indeed. Buick - which was the car brand chairman Mao preferred - is into old fashioned Luxury -which is what that market prefers.

MDarringer - 10/1/2016 6:16:05 PM

0 Boost

@TomM if "old fashioned luxury" is what the Chinese market prefers then explain why you think a name that loosely translates to "the future" is the brilliant idea you say it it.

Truthy - 10/3/2016 8:48:45 AM

+2 Boost

MDarringer, what is wrong with the name?!? From a marketing standpoint, "The Future" is great. It does not exclude soft and quiet luxury or what TomM refers to as "old fashioned" luxury. You are too quick to jump on comments.