HUD, all-L.E.D taillights, flip-up rear seat DVD, AWD?!
2010 Buick LaCrosse: Blue Hair No More!
http://jalopnik.com/5125035/2010-bui...yline=true&s=i
Buick press release:
The 2010 Buick LaCrosse isn't your Grandfather's Buick. Defying conventional wisdom, this Buick sedan sports slick styling, a classy interior and hardware that'll make even the most jaded buyer take a look.
This 2010 Buick LaCrosse thumbs its nose at Buick stereotypes with handsome styling and an options list a mile long. Over the last several decades, the idea of a Buick with flip-up DVD players in the rear passenger compartment would have elicited a question on whether a DVD box set of Matlock was included in the purchase price. As the second car in the Buick revolution, and the first Buick Sedan with all-wheel-drive, it has a lot to prove.
The LaCrosse embraces technology in ways its predecessor doesn't. The car wears every tech buzzword; Bluetooth, GPS, ambient lighting, an eight inch touch screen, heads up displays borrowed from the Corvette, timeshift radio, road-following headlights, pop-up DVD players, power rear sunshade, USB inputs, blind spot warning sensors, and a back up camera. Something of a quantum leap from the LaCrosse's current incarnation as a staid fogey-mobile.
That kind of tech is available on practically everything these days, so what sets the LaCrosse apart? Well, it's the way the systems are packaged into a platform that wears it like a comfortable coat that defines the LaCrosse. When we took our first look at the car in GM's design dome at the Warren Technical Center, the fully-loaded interior managed to feel light and airy, largely due to the sweeping curved surfaces and a huge two-piece moonroof overhead.
Airy it may be, but it targets class leading levels of fit and finish as well as noise isolation as some of its most important benchmarks. The Buick team calls it "library quiet" but we'll have to judge that for ourselves when we get a road test. We can say the materials, surface finishes, knobs and buttons are first rate, while gaps, squeaks and rattles are nowhere to be found on the hand-built version of the car we saw. It also carries over what will be Buick design elements going forward; French stitched seams, smoked chrome trim, and contrasting wood trim. Actually, we should say simulated wood trim, though it's the best fake wood trim we've ever seen, it fooled us.
The exterior of the LaCrosse strikes an unfamiliar pose for Buick; solid, crafted, actually stylish. Shockingly so. The shape reminds us of the first generation Giugiaro-penned Lexus GS300, and that's a compliment. It also retains the signature Buick waterfall grille, but the fender portholes become hood portholes, which, actually works pretty well. The side showcases what Buick is terming the "sweep spear body side," which in non-designer terms means the body line that runs from the headlights to the tail, with the kick-up in front of the rear wheels. The tail end gets all-LED lights and a trunk mounted on a yoke hinge that makes the space more useful.
On the hardware front it delivers as well. Motivation comes from one of two direct injection V6 engines. The base level is a 3.0-liter mill that makes 255 HP and 211 lb-ft torque, the optional engine is a 3.6-liter DI V6 with 280 HP and 261 lb-ft of torque. Both get hooked to a six-speed auto transmission (paddle shift option on the 3.6) but you get to choose front or all-wheel-drive. Now, as far as that all wheel drive system goes, it's something that'll make your standard Buick driver's toupee spin. It comes with an electronic limited slip differential, and a distribution system able to transfer up to 85% power to the rear wheels. That's not the only trick up the LaCrosse's sleeve. The dampers are a new system for GM, think of them as the light version of GM's magnetorheological dampers. They utilize a standard damping fluid but vary the diameter of the damping orifice in the shock, that means without using highly complex controls and extremely expensive fluids, the LaCrosse can vary the spring and damping rate at each wheel independently. If you can manage to have all four wheels on a different road surface, the LaCrosse will adjust all of them to maximize ride or comfort, depending on driving mode. Yeah. Whoa.
For the first time in a long time, we're actually interested in seeing what a Buick will do on the track. There's something wrong here, someone take our collective temperatures.
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Originally Posted by Trv06kviper
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..soon to come tinted tails, maybe tinted headlights..Oh SO FRRESHHH
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