What the hell happened to Buick? Back in the day - and I'm talking waaay back in the day - Buick sat up there with Cadillac as a highly desired luxury car. Long, sleek, elegant lines. High-end styling. Superior ride. Then somewhere along the way it devolved into the go-to car for your grandfather to take grandma to bingo.

Gramps' canary yellow Skylark may have been a huge hit at the retirement community, but Buick hasn't been getting guys' engines revving for decades. Telling your buddies, "I'm thinking of buying a Buick" doesn't evoke jealousy, it gets the same reaction as telling them, "I'm thinking of ordering a Cosmo. They're delicious."

So when GM invited me to attend a Buick lunch last month, right before the New York Auto Show, I declined. I figured spending a few hours hearing all about the latest Lucerne (tag line: "For People Who'd Rather Not Draw Attention to Themselves"), wasn't worth the free piece of grilled chicken. But I got hungry, so I went anyway.

Turns out the people at Buick might be just as bored with the cars, and as distressed the nameplate has lost it's luxury luster, as the rest of us. Because it looks like they are finally doing something about it.

Here are two of Buick's latest concepts, the re-imagined Riviera (top), and the drop-top Velite. Both of which are designed to showcase Buick's new global design direction, shake off the "old fuddy-duddy" feel and inject some much needed excitement back into the brand.

Each of the new concepts exhibits the classic Buick design cues: the waterfall grill, three porthole vents on each side, and a boat-tail back end, but adds a whole new level of styling around them.



The front-wheel drive Riviera (which I was told has a good chance of going into production fairly close to the concept version), was unveiled at China’s Auto Shanghai last year. It brings back the long, sweeping lines of the original Buicks, but with a more modern, almost futuristic feel. The designers told me the look they were going for was ...There's more