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Despite a bit of a slump in the final quarter and a couple of model cancellations, Buick ended 2019 with sales that were almost completely identical to the year before.
Buick sold 206,929 vehicles in 2019, compared with 206,863 the year before — a statistically insignificant difference of just 66 units.
After a long history as a brand focusing on premium sedans, Buick is in the midst of a shift to a lineup of all SUVs and crossovers — and that transition is fully reflected in the sales numbers for each model.
Buick’s 2019 Bestseller: See photos, specs, and more for the 2020 Encore
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Crossovers Dominate 2019 Buick Sales
Buick’s runaway 2019 bestseller was the subcompact Encore crossover. The Encore led with 102,402 units sold — nearly 50 percent of the brand’s entire sales total for the year — and it also expanded on the previous year’s numbers by 10 percent.
The Buick lineup’s largest crossover, the midsize Enclave, was the brand’s second-place model. It sold 51,156 units, a 3 percent gain over last year’s total.
In third place was the Envision, a compact crossover that’s bigger than the Encore but smaller than the Enclave. Envision sales rose by a strong 10.2 percent to 33,229 units.
Encounter the Enclave: Get the details on Buick’s three-row crossover
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Cars Fade from Buick Lineup
Altogether, about 90 percent of 2019 Buick sales came from its three crossovers. The remaining 10 percent was made up of car sales.
Buick’s top-selling car was the Regal, which comes in Sportback, GS, and TourX wagon models. The Regal was down 26.6 percent from the year before, selling a total of 10,363 units. After the 2020 model year, the Regal will be cancelled.
The other two cars in Buick’s annual sales report, the Cascada convertible and the LaCrosse sedan, have already been discontinued. The LaCrosse notched 7,241 sales (down 53.4 percent) and the Cascada rang up 2,535 sales (down 38.7 percent).
It’s clear that Buick is banking its future success on crossovers, and the brand isn’t staying idle on that front in 2020. Hoping to capitalize on the popularity of the Encore, Buick is introducing the slightly larger Encore GX this spring. Will it be enough to offset the cancellation of all the brand’s cars? We’ll find out soon enough.
A longtime editor/writer and recently transplanted Hoosier, Caleb Cook lives in Xenia, Ohio. His favorite activities are reading and listening to music, although he occasionally emerges from the heap of books and vinyl records in his basement to stand blinking in the sunlight. Once fully acclimated to the outside world again, he can be observed hanging out with his wife, attempting a new recipe in the kitchen, attending movies, walking the dog, or wandering into a local brewery to inquire about what’s on tap. See more articles by Caleb.