Part 28: Buick Verano


The Buick Verano was a pretty short-lived model in North America, lasting from 2012 through 2017.  It was essentially a fancy Chevrolet Cruze and distantly related to the Opel/Vauxhall/Holden Astra of the same period.  It was also the first domino to fall when Buick began culling passenger cars from its model range, transforming itself into an all-crossover brand.  After the Verano got the chop in 2017, the LaCrosse was gone by 2019, and the Regal faded away in 2020.  Today, Buick's North American lineup consists of four tediously dull and utterly forgettable CUVs.

Buick's fate in China, however, is a very different story.  Over there, Buick is seen as an aspirational brand and it fields a full model range of cars, crossovers, even minivans and EVs.  The Verano is known as the Excelle GT in China and is now in its third generation.

So, the Verano was a success in China, a flop in America, and nonexistent in...... Italy.

Verano is the English name for a small northern Italian town known as Vöran in the local language.  Fewer than 1,000 people live there, so it make me wonder why Buick chose to name a car after such an obscure place?  And of the small number of people living there, I'm willing to bet not one of them drives a Buick!

So don't expect to see a Verano driving around Verano.  In fact, considering it's such a small town, don't expect to see much of anything or anyone driving around the place.

Quote from: AutobahnSHO on April 11, 2024, 03:20:34 PMWhatever happened with the fenderz???

Brought them to a shop.  Too much going on to do them myself.

I took the lady to test drive a Model Y, and she loved it a lot more than I thought she would.  I tried out "FSD" for the first time, and it was fun.  It's a fun party trick, but babysitting is more stressful than just driving to me.  I'd test-driven a 3 a few weeks prior.

I think I will probably lease a 3.  It's between a Prius and a 3.  The Prius has a CVT and FWD and no dual-zone climate control.  I'm sure the Prius has a higher level of operations and design quality going into it, but the Tesla also has a dirt-cheap lease.  3k down and $300/month (before taxes and all).   $345/month for 12k miles/yr, which is probably what I'll do.

I'll give a call to an electrician tomorrow to get a quote for a couple of 240 outlets in the garage.   

I'll still keep the Miata. It's in the body shop getting some paint cleaned up. I'll put a clear bra on it and fluid film each year so I can drive it more in the fall and spring without worrying about rust and road crud.

I test drove an 86, and it's out of the running.

The biggest thing is noise.  Some other things
- I think the gas pedal gives full throttle at about 50%.  Going from 50% to 100% in gear doesn't seem to make a big difference.
- The new-car nannies are annoying.  I'm sure they can be turned off, though.
- The steering seems to be a smidge more numb than the previous generation.
- The torks aren't where I want them even with .4L more displacement

Some good things 
- It sounds fantastic
- It still has super flat cornering and the unibody is so stiff.
- The interior is really nice - buttons and soft touch surfaces.  Simple and I liked it a lot.

Part 27: Ford Granada (North American model)


Ford has a habit of recycling it's old names.  Today's Ford Maverick, for example, is a small pickup truck.  Turn the clock back fifty years, however, and the Ford Maverick was a compact sedan and coupe.  Capri is another example.  First applied to a Lincoln, the Capri badge later found it's way onto a European Ford, a North American Mercury, and an Australian Ford.  Ford has even used the same name at the same time on different cars it has sold in different parts of the world.  Witness the European and North American Ford Escorts.  Two very different cars sold in different parts of the world but sharing the same name.  This can sometimes make things confusing unless you are VERY specific about which Escort you're talking about.

Same goes for the Ford Granada.  Ford built two very different Granadas on opposite sides of the Atlantic.  One was an attractive, efficient, and sharp-handling rival to other large European family cars.  The other was a chintzy, overstuffed, under-engineered box of misery and disappointment riding on the bones of a 15-year-old economy car that could couldn't be more American if it tried.

In Part 4 of this series I profiled the Lincoln Versailles which, along with the Mercury Monarch that sat next to it in the same showroom, was based of the Ford Granada you see above.  If you ever wanted to know what you'd get if you took a 1960 Ford Falcon and gave it 50 percent more weight, 25 percent less power, and 100 percent more disco-era cheesiness, here's your answer!  Vinyl roofs, tufted velour, plastiwood dashboard trim, stand-up hood ornaments and other tacky 1970s accouterments could all be yours either as standard or as options, depending on how much you wanted to spend.  I assume all that tinsel was there to distract you from noticing the Granada's performance.  Or rather, the lack thereof.  The base 3.3 litre "Thriftpower" six cylinder Granada only made 72 horsepower, 70 if you lived in California.  Ordering the larger 4.1 litre Triftpower six or the 4.9 litre or 5.8 litre Windsor V8s made only marginal difference.

Ford's advertising at the time liked to compare the looks of the Granada to that of a Mercedes Benz, as if anyone would be fooled into thinking you were driving a Mercedes.  Yes, Ford's marketing people really did think it's customers were that dumb....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrW5UsDUvwM


Sometimes mistaken for a Mercedes?  By whom?  The legally blind?

The Spanish certainly wouldn't have been dumb enough to confuse these two cars.  Besides, they had their own, vastly superior Ford Granada they could buy.  The only Ford Granadas you're likely to see in the southern Spanish city sharing its name are those built in Germany.  The Broughamtastic barge we got from 1975-82, would look utterly ridiculous anywhere outside North America.

In watching some of the you tubes showing how to rebuild a flathead, it's pointed out that the drive gear that spun the gear attached to the cam shaft was some sort of nylon/plastic/synthetic material in order to reduce the noise of metal to metal gears.  Seems that Henry wanted the engine to run as quietly as possible.  The contemporary replacement part is made of aluminum now.

I would add that the car that I first remember my parents having was a '38 Ford 2 door sedan.  Riding in the back seat, I became enamored with the rhythmic sound of that engine note that was quite audible inside the car.  Not a lot of sound proofing.

Quote from: FoMoJo on April 17, 2024, 05:43:34 PMGood information.  As mentioned, the Ford V8 had some teething problems, but progressively got better.  The V8 flathead, in the '51 Mercury I had as my first car, it was 8 years old when I bought it, ran so smoothly and quietly you could hardly tell it was running, but there was a lovely sound coming out of the tailpipe.

The quietness makes sense: no clattery valve gear sitting up top.

Edit: Also low compression ratios generally make for less racket.

LOLS

"Inventor of the Miata Reacts to Tiktok Miatas".


EDIT:

FASCINATING history!

I had a hybrid Sienna as a rental a couple years back and was amazed at the mileage. I was seeing 35 mpg in mixed driving. Also the radar cruise and lane keeping was pretty good.

Last week I had an Equinox rental. It was fine. Not great, not terrible, just fine.

Rented 3 minivans in a row last week on a family vacation. One in Los Angeles (hybrid Sienna), one in Maui Hawaii (Pacifica), and one in Kauai Hawaii (Pacifica). Wanted to get an Odyssey (to check out the three main brands) but they didn't have any on the lot. With 5 people (myself, wife, two kids, and mother in law) wanted 3 rows and especially with luggage, felt the minivan was the way to go. 

Hybrid Sienna - Averaged 30 mpg which to me is amazing for a vehicle shaped like a large refrigerator on wheels. Other than that, I expected to like this car more. It was fine but engine was really loud and coarse when accelerating rapidly. Pain to move the 2nd row forward to get to the third row (had a base model where it was manual).

Chrysler Pacifica - Drove like a 4 cylinder Camry (which I had owned in the past). This is a good thing. Perfectly competent A to B transportation. No problem driving up 10 thousand feet on the side of a volcano with a decent load of passengers.

When we got back, drove home from the airport in our Infiniti QX60. Yeah the Infiniti is a softer quieter ride than the minivans I had rented and the interior is nicer but that's to be expected. 

I'd rent the minivans again over a 3 row SUV if total passengers exceeded 4.