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GM aims for Regal welcome

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By TOM KRISHER

The Associated Press

Published: November 12, 2009

DETROIT - Two General Motors cars due in showrooms next year must be hits to help the automaker turn around sales and pay back its big debt to U.S. taxpayers.

The Buick Regal midsize sedan and Chevrolet Cruze compact, both sold in key segments of the U.S. car market, face stiff competition and other obstacles to success.

GM was to roll out the Regal today in Los Angeles, and it's counting on the sleek-looking sedan to claw out a new market for the once-stodgy Buick, now the official brand of bingo night.

Buick has been absent from the tough midsize market since 2004, and the Cruze was recently put on hold because GM wasn't happy with how it drove.

Executives have high hopes that the Regal, much of it designed by GM's Opel engineers in Ruesselsheim, Germany, can help bring to Buick the younger buyers crucial to the brand's long-term growth.

So far this year, the midsize segment is the biggest part of the U.S. car market, making up 47 percent of sales; Camry dominates with 294,000 sales.

The Regal is designed to compete with the sporty Acura TSX made by the Honda luxury brand, and the Volvo S60.

Pricing wasn't announced, but it will be between the mainstream midsize Chevrolet Malibu at $21,325 and the $27,835 base price of a larger new Buick, the LaCrosse, aimed at luxury buyers.

At first the car will have only one engine choice, a 2.4-liter, 182 horsepower powerplant that gets about 30 mpg on the highway. By next summer, a 220-horsepower, 2-liter turbocharged four with power comparable to a V-6 will be available.

Stephanie Brinley, an analyst with the AutoPacific marketing and consulting firm, predicts that GM will sell about 40,000 Regals in its first full year, not a huge number but enough to bring critical profits to GM. Last year, Acura sold almost exactly 40,000 TSX models.

"It doesn't really matter how many they sell of the Regal. It matters if it's profitable," she said.

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