The Buick Encore is a young-person's car that wears a badge long associated with more mature individuals. It shouldn't work, but it does, yielding impressive sales for the brand and cementing Buick's crossover-driven comeback from near-death during the financial crisis.
As a one-time Buick owner — my parents gave me their Regal in the 1980s — I've approached the Encore with skepticism since the "cute ute's" debut over half a decade ago. I'll never forget the first time I drove one, in 2014. Man, is this thing small, I thought.
But over the years, the Encore has stood out because it's part of a brand that's thought of as "near luxury" and is supposed to rise above the mass market and prepare buyers, in the General Motors' logic, to graduate to a Cadillac someday.
That old brand ladder doesn't apply anymore, but for the Encore to make good on its brand promise, it needs to be comparable to a small BMW utes, even though one might want to match it up against Mazda and Kia.
For 2020, Buick has rolled out the all-new GX level of the Encore, and I spent a week testing it in New Jersey and New York. Here's how it went.