Karakush

Buick Brand Day will be held on Children’s Day in 2022.

Just like when you are an adult and only have one candle on your birthday cake. You don’t need dozens of them to count your maturity. One is enough to mark today as the day to start over.

Those who can start over like a child at any time are the strong ones in life. Brands that can start over like a child at any time can live forever.

Just like Buick, this time “Do not follow the old tracks” and start over.

It was first introduced in China earlier than you might think.

In 1912, someone captured Buick in Shanghai, and the solemn hat man sitting in the second row to the right was Sun Yat-sen’s first-ever ride in a car. That was over a hundred years ago and it was the most fashionable commodity in the world. General Motors established an export company, and its first stop was China. By 1930, one in every six cars in Shanghai was a Buick, and most of the owners were big shots who would soon rewrite China’s fate.

The Buick we are familiar with as ordinary people began with Shanghai GM Buick in 1997. The past should not be forgotten, but all history needs to be rewritten. Because Buick is about to become one of the most important players in the Chinese market.

The first car was “New Century,” which was especially popular at the turn of the century when it was produced domestically.

The elderly call it “Big Buick” because it is wrapped in leather and has a solid wood structure, and is solemn and does not require any praise. You have probably never seen it. The first batch of New Century cars still had the gear shift on the steering column, the front seat had a large bench seat, and the vehicle registration indicated that it had six seats. It has a very original Uncle Sam taste. There are very few of them left, because Buick soon changed to a pattern that Chinese people preferred. The localization speed was so fast that it didn’t even make people nostalgic.

As the first domestically produced high-end car, the New Century had a starting price of 369,000 yuan. That year, a young man from an ordinary family in Shenzhen founded Tencent, and his startup capital was only 500,000 yuan. If you teamed up with a New Century, half of Tencent would be yours.

In that year, China was still a country of bicycles. Urban residents had 182 bicycles per 100 households, and only one car per 90 people, far below the world average of one car per eight people at the same time.It’s amazing that in these numbers, Buick sees the potential for development, the powerful Chinese leaders who drive development, and the demand that will create miracles. At the famous Fortune Forum in ’99, General Motors stated that China will become the world’s largest automotive market.

Not all enterprises dare to make predictions and quickly turn them into action programs before 2001. In the new century, Buick proposed to create contemporary cars with a contemporary spirit and launched its second business elite product, the Buick GL8, just one year later.

Business travel in 2000 was like Macau Edmond’s movie, with six or seven neatly dressed men stepping off a van, showing off their strength in the corporate world. Due to the lack of suitable models, road specifications are always forced to become very social.

The GL8, which pursues both image and space, was highly sought after by big-name companies and lucrative units. According to a 2004 report, its market share reached 90%, repurchase rate exceeded 50%, and even had loyal supporters who owned more than 100 units. Many people attribute the success of GL8 to “filling market gaps,” but only half of the story is told. You need to see and understand the needs of the times. This is a skill.

Every time Buick wants to do something big, these two cars are always mentioned. They are not Buick’s face today. The GL8 has gone through generations, but Buick regards them as totems representing its spirit, which is to look into the future and resonate with the present.

This contemporary feeling runs through every change and transformation that followed. From the brand’s comprehensive transformation in 2008 and the successive launch of a new generation of high-end benchmarking cars, Regal, to the hardcore mainstream intermediate car, Excelle, and the Envision that does everything 10% better. Buick laid out the standards and quality it understands in almost every popular segment of the rapidly expanding private car market. By introducing the high-end sub-brand Avenir in 2016, Buick raised the Premier’s taste to an aesthetic level.

Yesterday, Buick released a new brand logo, as well as two strategic new cars, the Buick GL8 Century and the General Motors Alterna electric vehicle platform pure electric concept car Electra-X.

This is another new beginning. You can see Buick’s new understanding and calibration of the present in the logo.The shield has always been the red, silver, and blue tricolor shield since 1959, arranged in a staircase-like manner to demonstrate a steadily climbing attitude. The new shield adopts the popular flat design of recent years, removing the overly delicate shield texture and replacing it with a simple white background, with only the originally chromed decorative strip displaying color, and flattening the position of the tricolor shield- the biggest change in over sixty years.

Without obstruction, equality and openness are created, giving rise to an open visual image. The world is flat; this is Buick’s judgment on technological changes and their hopes for themselves. Buick claims that this symbolizes the brand’s “rebirth in the era of intelligent electric vehicles,” by popularizing upgraded products to a wider range of mass consumer markets, leveling off everyone’s experience of intelligent electric travel. Just like what Buick has been committed to in the past twenty years.

With the design of the new logo, Buick has also updated its overall design philosophy, which is a set of PURE DESIGN design aesthetics centered on purity, unconventionality, refinement, and expressiveness, highlighting the emerging charm of General Motors’ intelligent technology empowerment. You can see this on the GL8 Century.

Buick has rebuilt the ceiling height of the MPV with technology. For example, the four-seat version will be equipped with a luxury smart curtain that can be raised and lowered, supporting multi-mode intelligent projection. The second-row business class seats also use vehicle-grade chips, with an armrest featuring an 8-inch intelligent control screen, achieving a more smooth and unobstructed integrated vehicle control.

From the promotional pictures, we can see that the interior visual texture has correspondingly become “lighter,” avoiding the trap of a big color TV and luxury decoration, using light-colored leather to highlight the freshness of technology. Meanwhile, through details such as stitching and lake blue color matching, the extravagance is modestly maintained. Regardless of other aspects, restrained taste is the key boundary that distinguishes the GL8 from ordinary high-end MPVs.

This GL8 Century is not only a breakthrough for Buick in the current layout of the GL8 family but also a reaffirmation that it is advancing with the strong players in the new era.

Intelligence and high-end are not just Buick’s understanding of luxury consumption but also the road that the brand will carry out at a large scale in the future.This is more evident in Electra-X. This pure electric SUV is not only Buick’s first concept vehicle developed on the Ultium electric vehicle platform, but also a preview of future Ultium production models. Buick will use Electra as the name of its Ultium electric vehicle family, marking the brand’s formal transition to electrification.

Buick plans to launch 12 models from 2022 to 2025, including 5 new generations of electric vehicles, covering mainstream markets such as MPVs, SUVs, and sedans. Two electric vehicles will be launched this year, so it’s time to hop on.

At the same time, Buick is not all in on electric vehicles, but is cautiously expanding its powertrain layout to form 5 power configurations, including pure electric, plug-in hybrid, full hybrid, mild hybrid, and intelligent internal combustion engine. This is in line with the latest market trends.

In terms of intelligence, all new vehicles will be equipped with Buick’s latest generation eConnect intelligent interconnection technology, featuring dual screens or EYEMAX integrated curved screens, and supporting multiple OTA upgrades per year.

Almost all new vehicles are equipped with the advanced Buick eCruise Pro intelligent driving assistance system, which includes functions such as LCC lane centering, TJA traffic jam assistance, and ILC lane change commands. Or the new generation Super Cruise super driving assistance system; 7 models will be equipped with the new GM VIP intelligent electronic architecture.

Supported by this, among the 12 new models, the proportion of models priced above 200,000 yuan is close to 95%, and the layout is in higher price ranges. Seven models will be positioned as the Aviar models.

This is a comprehensive upward Buick, reflecting a China that is still moving upward and a group of Chinese people who are still moving upward with keen observation. No matter what era, no matter what difficulties and problems, we will always maintain our original intention of being able to start over at any time, overcome, strive, and pursue. Buick has understood this since 1997, since 1912.

How can we understand China?

Buick tells us that it is to understand the bottom line of China. It is a matter of listening and thinking carefully, constant self-reflection and innovation, long-lasting companionship and perseverance, and always having the courage to accompany gentlemen and women even if it will cost one’s life, accompanying this group of people who are pioneering and challenging the times, to start anew.

This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.