Buick GL8: huge MPV family renewed

The fervent visitor to AutoWeek.nl will undoubtedly know that we do not only cover car news relevant to European or Dutch consumers. Our site is there for everyone and everything, for those who are considering a new or used car, but also for car enthusiasts in the broadest sense of the word. Autoland is huge and is larded with regions where special or otherwise interesting scenes take place. One of these relates to a wattle from a Buick MPV. From the Chinese department of Buick to be precise. Buick has in fact facelifted the GL8. The GL8 is in itself a special model. Buick does not sell one or two, but no fewer than three generations of them side by side! That calls for a look back.

The Opel Sintra, like the Chevrolet Trans Sport also delivered here, was in fact the Pontiac (Silhouette) version of GM’s mass MPV, but got more of an Opel snout. In China, Buick got its own version of this: the first GL8.

Whoever said that Buick would make an MPV in the eighties or nineties was undoubtedly quite laughed at. General Motors supplied the Pontiac Trans Sport and the Chevrolet Lumina APV and Oldsmobile Silhouette brothers in the 90’s. General Motors then fired several MPVs into car land, including the Chevrolet Trans Sport and the Opel Sintra, which also came to Europe. The European Chevrolet Trans Sport and the far-Opel-de Sintra were in fact Pontiacs Trans Sport, Chevrolet sold it in the US with a slightly different nose as Venture, while the Pontiac Trans Sport sold there speaks to ‘our’ Chevrolet Trans Sport seemed. The Chevrolet Venture was followed in the Chevrolet Uplander of which Buick also got a variant: the Terraza sold between 2004 and 2007. This was Buick’s first and last MPV in the United States, but in China the brand did better business with its space castles.

The second generation Buick GL8 as it appeared in 2010. Still being sold in facelifted form.

Buick released a version of the Chevrolet Venture in China in 2000 that it dubbed the GL8 (photo 2). After various facelifts, that model lasted in China until 2016. This Buick GL8 was already succeeded in 2010 by a second generation GL8, specially developed for the Chinese market, for which the partnership PANTAC (Pan-Asia Technical Automotive Center) that Buick and its Chinese partner SAIC Motor have together was responsible for. The GL8, with its design copied from the then current Enclave, naturally looks a lot more modern than its basically ancient predecessor, but the second GL8 is now 12 years old (photos 3, 4 and 5). What seems? Buick still sells that model in a facelifted form (photo 6). That in itself is special, since Buick introduced a third generation of the GL8 in 2016, which it delivers next to the old GL8 (photos 7 to 10). That third Buick GL8, in turn, has already been facelifted in 2020 and is now going under the knife again (photos 11 to 14).

The newly facelifted third generation GL8 sold side by side with the second and new fourth generation.

Buick recently presented another new GL8. This is the fourth generation of the model, which is called Buick GL8 Century in full (photos 15 to 21). That rather futuristic-looking ballroom is the production version of the fierce GL8 Concept that Buick presented at the Guangzhou International Motor Show in November. The new fourth generation GL8 is also not a direct successor to the previous generations GL8. The second GL8 presented in 2010 is still on the price list, next to its successor presented in 2016 and therefore next to the completely new GL8 Century.

The fourth and brand new generation Buick GL8 is quite opulent.

In total, the Chinese GL8 family now consists of three generations delivered side by side, which together account for no fewer than 20 variants. Logically, the oldest of the bunch, recognizable by the shoulder line that ‘sags’ at the height of the sliding door, is the cheapest of the bunch. The opulent GL8 Century has yet to be introduced to the Chinese market.

In short: a jumble of large MPVs from Buick. Yet another proof of the fact that the MPV has almost completely withered away in Europe, but is still very much alive outside the European borders and especially in Asia.