GM continues reinvention of Buick brand with new Enclave SUV

WARREN, Mich. — General Motors has redesigned Buick’s flagship Enclave SUV as the latest testament to the automaker’s ongoing reinvention of the roughly 125-year-old brand.

The updates to the 2025 Enclave — from new tech to exterior to interior redesigns — complete Buick’s refresh of its current four-vehicle lineup. In 2022, Buick unveiled an aggressive concept vehicle called the Wildcat, kicking off the brand’s new design direction.

While the Enclave is the latest of Buick’s current vehicles to receive the Wildcat treatment, it may not be the last. GM is expected to expand Buick’s lineup with a new all-electric vehicle as soon as this year and is conducting several “design studies” to determine what’s next for the once-dominant American brand.

“I’m really excited about what the brand is becoming again,” GM President Mark Reuss said during a media event at the company’s design and technology campus in suburban Detroit. “[It’s a] really talented team, really talented execution, globally.”

Reuss, who started his career with Buick as a transmission calibrator, said the design team, led by Bob Boniface, has done a great job of “bringing life back into Buick design.”

The 2025 Enclave is longer, wider and taller than the current model. It also features a more aggressive exterior design, including a larger front grill and Buick’s new “reverse check mark” headlights.

“[It’s] the flagship of the Buick brand,” said Boniface during a media event. “We talked a lot about the visual DNA and here you see it, how it translates into our largest vehicle in the range … it’s masterful use of the surface language.”

The rear appears much more truck-like, with lots of angles and wide tail lamps across the SUV.

Inside is a new redesigned interior that features a “floating” center console that doesn’t attach to the vehicle’s front instrumental panel. It also includes a standard 30-inch diagonal, curved infotainment screen.

Super Cruise, GM’s hands-free highway driving system, will be offered on each of the Enclave’s three trims: Preferred, ST and Avenir. Also standard are front heated seats, wireless charging and other safety and convenience features.

GM is ditching a current V6 variant of the Enclave due to fuel economy in exchange for a standard 2.5-liter turbocharged engine with 328 horsepower and 326 foot-pounds of torque.

The automaker said 2025 Enclave pricing will be announced closer to when the vehicle enters production at a plant in mid-Michigan. Current starting prices range from roughly $43,300 to more than $60,000.

Buick’s current lineup includes the Encore GX, Envista, Envision and Enclave crossovers/SUVs. It previously said its new EVs, starting in 2024, would all use the name Electra — a name the brand has used since 1959.

Company executives and spokespeople declined to reconfirm the timing of the new EV, saying it could launch in 2025. The brand’s website still says the vehicle’s expected availability is 2024.

Duncan Aldred, global vice president of Buick, called the brand’s progress a “pretty miraculous transformation.” He declined to comment on any additional nameplates to Buick’s U.S. lineup in the years to come.

“As you see, there’s a lot of energy, enthusiasm, passion; people keep doing things, and it informs the future,” said Aldred, who also heads GM’s GMC brand. “You’re going to have to watch this space to see what comes next.”

GM as a whole is evaluating its product portfolios amid slower-than-expected adoption of electric vehicles and changes to federal fuel emissions to better incorporate hybrids and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles alongside EVs.

In 2022, Buick announced plans to exclusively offer all-electric vehicles by 2030. (GM as a whole previously announced a target to exclusively offer EVs to consumers by 2035.) Aldred, echoing prior comments from GM CEO Mary Barra, said the brand’s future regarding EVs will be based on customer demand.

Buick’s U.S. sales increased 16.4% during the first quarter, building on a 61.4% increase in overall sales last year compared to modest results in 2022.

Despite the sales growth last year to 167,030 units, the results remained roughly 40,000 units lower than in 2019, prior to the coronavirus pandemic causing yearslong supply chain and production problems.

Much of the growth for Buick came from incremental sales gains from its new entry-level Envista crossover, which was the brand’s third best-selling vehicle during the first quarter of this year at nearly 10,000 units.

Buick has also been growing its lineup and increasing average transaction prices for its top-end “Avenir” models across its lineup. Avenir models represented about 25% of Buick’s sales during the first quarter of this year.

Aldred said he believes Buick can continue to grow U.S. sales with its new vehicle lineup, especially as Envista production ramps up and the 2025 Enclave arrives in dealerships this summer.

“When that does come out, we believe we’ll have the freshest portfolio in the industry at that point,” Aldred said. “Every vehicle, really performing very, very strongly.”

That’s not the same situation in China, where Buick and other non-domestic brands have been struggling. Sales of Buicks in China have fallen roughly 40% to about 517,000 units from 2019 to 2023. That has coincided with a 32% decline in sales during that time for GM in China, where the prominence of local car manufacturers is on the upswing.

“The market has changed rapidly … just in terms of the number of brands on sale,” Aldred said. “It proliferates the market, it just does, but Buick remains healthy and successful there.”