Buick Avenir Concept

Buick Avenir Concept

Buick’s Avenir concept was a unanimous hit at its debut at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show but that doesn’t mean we’re going to see a production version. The simple reason is that the large sedan segment is on the decline and Buick already has the LaCrosse to satisfy what demand remains. And it’s obvious that an even more upmarket sedan like the Avenir would end up cannibalizing some of Cadillac’s sales, a brand General Motors Company [NYSE:GM] is nurturing.

“We’re not going to build Avenir,” Buick chief Duncan Aldred told Automobile in a recent interview. “We never went into the show with the plan to build it.”

When pressed on production plans for the Avista concept, which proved popular at the recent 2016 Detroit Auto Show, Aldred was a little less decisive.

“The capabilities are there to build it; it was brought into [the Detroit Auto Show] as a pure concept," Aldred explained. “We wanted to show off Buick design, we wanted to showcase a few of the things that you will see in Buicks over the next one, two, three years, whether it’s the lighting technology, interior design, grille treatment, etcetera—and from there, we wait and see what happens.”

Buick Avista Concept

Buick Avista Concept

In his interview, Aldred went on to talk about halo products. He said Buick’s current halo was the 2016 Cascada convertible, and that he’d like to see Buick receive another halo.

With GM not offering its Chevrolet Camaro around the world, the Avista, which shares its Alpha underpinnings with the Camaro, could fill that gap. It would certainly make a lot of sense, especially if the car was twinned by a model that could be sold as an Opel in Europe, a Vuaxhall in the United Kingdom and a Holden in the Australian and New Zealand markets. Perhaps that’s what we’ll see in the form of the new Opel GT concept debuting at March’s 2016 Geneva Motor Show.

Stay tuned for an update.

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