2018 Buick Regal: A Buick We're Genuinely Excited For
What it is: As before, Buick’s new mid-size Regal will be little more than a European-market Opel Insignia wearing the Buick insignia, er, Tri-Shield. With Cadillac’s rear-drive ATS busy chasing the BMW 3-series, the front- or all-wheel-drive Regal has always seemed more like a low-budget Audi A4. The new Insignia/Regal looks to move further upscale to pull even closer to the A4.
Why it matters: The rumored arrival of a Regal wagon on our shores would have been enough to get our attention, but the new Insignia’s sharp, athletic styling has us genuinely excited about a production Buick (we can’t remember the last time we said such a thing).
Platform: The same E2XX platform underneath the latest Chevrolet Malibu.
Powertrain: To keep the base price below $30,000, the Regal may come standard with the Malibu’s 163-hp, turbocharged 1.5-liter inline-four, paired with an automatic transmission to drive the front wheels. Much more enticing is the idea of a 2.0-liter turbo four producing between 260 and 300 horsepower mated, as it is in the Insignia, to an all-wheel-drive system incorporating the same GKN-supplied torque-vectoring rear differential used in the Ford Focus RS. Given that Buick killed off the manual-transmission version of the previous Regal GS for 2015, we’re sad to say that a stick-shift option is unlikely.
