- the regal sportback, gs, and tourx models will be dropped from buick's u.s. lineup after the 2020 model year, as first reported by motorauthority.
- buick has already announced that the lacrosse sedan will end production, meaning that the brand will soon sell only suvs and crossovers in america.
- the regal sedan will continue to be built in china for the chinese market.
buick is dropping the regal from its u.s. lineup after the 2020 model year, including sportback, gs, and tourx wagon models, spokesperson stuart fowle confirmed to c/d. given that the cascada convertible and lacrosse sedan are also dead for the u.s., this means that buick will soon sell only suvs in america.
the current-generation regal, which introduced a new hatchback bodystyle and the subaru outback–esque tourx wagon variant, arrived for the 2018 model year and is based on the european opel insignia. after gm sold opel to french automaker psa in 2018, gm worked out an arrangement to pay opel to continue building the car in germany. opel's production of the u.s.-market regal will end sometime soon, although buick will continue to build a sedan version of the regal in china for the chinese market.
if you take a look at buick's sales numbers, the move toward suvs makes a lot of business sense. through the third quarter of 2019, buick's three car models—the cascada, lacrosse, and regal—have only made up around 12 percent of the brand's sales in the u.s. overall. the regal has been the best-selling of these three this year, at 8849 units sold, but that number is dwarfed by the top-selling encore subcompact suv's 73,905 units sold. the encore, envision, and enclave suvs will soon be joined by a new encore gx model, which will slot in between the encore and envision in terms of size and price.
buick says that around 50 percent of regals sold in the u.s. 2019 so far were the tourx wagon version, and we're particularly sad to lose yet another longroof option on our shores. the station-wagon segment in the u.s. was already small, and it's continuing to shrink with this announcement and with volkswagen's recent decision to end production of the golf sportwagen and alltrack for the u.s.