Buick Encore Has Surprised Us All

Nine times out of ten, the predictions of the critics are fairly adequate indicators of how well a car will do once it hits the open market. The rarity in which they are wrong proves to be a time for the public to discover a vehicle which represents a “diamond in the rough,” so to speak. A brilliant example of this phenomenon is the 2013 Buick Encore.

When the test drives were over and the writing revealed, this crossover seemed to have a bleak future. However, manufacturers were pleasantly surprised by the warm welcome the public gave the Encore. The reception may have been lukewarm at first, however, the enthusiasm for this crossover has been steadily growing ever since.

The first thing that turned off critics yet appealed to the public was that this Buick tried to do too much. Engineers were drawing from too many sources for the final product to contain any sort of “elegance” in design. The public, on the other hand, felt that the ambitiousness of the project was a distinct advantage that many other crossovers lacked. The competitors, who are hard to find by the way, were not being ambitious enough. The Encore also placed itself in a bit of an awkward position when it came to easily categorizing it among the many other crossovers to be released around the same time. The Encore made an attempt to reach a huge market, incorporating luxury features at a level that is not typical for Buick designs at this level. At the same time, the size of the vehicle was well below other crossovers on the market that were trying to move units based on the same kinds of expensive features.

Other factors that set off critics that were, in fact, only minor concerns to most buyers. These factors included elements such as awkward proportions on the exterior styling. For example, the headlamps took up much more space than one would normally expect to see given the amount of room with which Buick was working. There were also exclusions of features that one might typically find on the exterior of your average crossover, including LED running lights. It seems that Buick went out-of-the-box in some respects while remaining highly conservative in others.

Another potential problem that Buick faced right out of the gates is that many people still equate size with luxury. This being the case, the Encore will appear to be a scaled-down version of the full-size model that should supposedly exist somewhere. Despite this assumption, designers did an excellent job with specific visual components of the vehicle in order to give the full appearance of the size one might expect for to see in an average crossover. These elements included dark molding around the base of the body, higher ground clearance, and other carefully crafted features, all of which are not optional for standard, base models. While Buick has not tried to “pull one over on the public,” it has certainly created a subtle and masterfully crafted piece of machinery that does not honestly goes by any book when it comes to standard models of crossover design.