This is the new Buick Regal GS, a hot Mid-sized US saloon. It's not unusual for car manufacturers to package cars differently to suit different markets, but the Buick Regal GS, revealed at the Detroit Auto Show, stands out as a rather odd example.
Based on the Vauxhall/Opel Insignia VXR, the Regal GS (a revival of two old names from GM history) gets most of the VXR's performance parts, and even many of its styling cues. Unusually for an American car, it even retains its European sire's six-speed manual gearbox (or 'stickshift' in Americaland).
Curiously, Buick's version of the Insignia VXR loses the 2.8-litre V6 and many of its 325 horses. Instead it gets a 2.0-litre four-cylinder lump from GM's 'EcoTec' range, putting out just 255hp.
Just to make things a tad more confusing, the example of the Regal GS that's been photographed in the past week (and presumably the same car that is on the Detroit show stand as we write) appears to have kept its V6 heart.
Presuming this is a mere blunder and the production car will have the promised four-pot, this would go completely against the established rules for the American market, where we normally expect to see big, lazy engines instead of the smaller, leaner power plants we get in Europe. It forms part of the shifting picture of the American market, where the taste for big, thirsty engines is slowly ebbing away in favour of more efficient solutions.
Indeed, Buick is sticking to a policy of four-cylinder engines only for the whole of the Regal saloon car range, fitting into the wider picture at GM with the use of EcoTec ranges across brands, and mirroring the picture at Ford with its 'EcoBoost' engine range.
As another revolutionary small American said, 'the times, they are a-changing'.
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