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From: Hachiroku ハチロク on 13 Jul 2010 19:06
Could it be Buick is selling BMWs rebadged as Regals? No such luck. It's
based on an Opel design and was supposed to have been a new Saturn:


The thought of holding a vehicle launch drive for a new Buick sedan at
Germany's Nürburgring race track would have been considered utterly
absurd 18 months ago to just about anyone except Jim Federico. Federico is
General Motors' vehicle line executive for its global mid-size car
platform code-named Epsilon II. In those late pre-bankruptcy days, few
outside of Federico's team had any idea what Buick had in its pipeline.

In that intervening period, Saturn, Pontiac and Hummer have all passed
into the history books and Saab has been sold off. The car that was
intended to have become the second generation Saturn Aura has now been
re-purposed in North America as the all-new Buick Regal. We had a brief
introduction to the car last fall, but when the time came to really
exercise the Regal, Buick invited us to its birthplace in Germany to show
off its moves. Is the Regal really a genuine European sports sedan as our
title claims? Read on to find out.

The GM Europe engineering team working out of Russellsheim, Germany has
primary responsibility for development of the mid-size platform with
additional input and support coming from engineering and design teams in
the United States and Asia. While developing the Insignia, the intent has
always been to take it upmarket from the European-only Vectra it replaced
to compete directly with Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Federico and his
team wanted the Insignia to be taken seriously as a German sports sedan,
something the Vectra never really achieved.

Buick already offers an Epsilon II-based model in North America as the
LaCrosse. The Regal, however, is being targeted at a very different
customer than its larger brother. The LaCrosse is more luxury oriented
with Buick seeing the Lexus ES350 and Acura TL as its primary competitors.
The Regal will be marketed as a more sporting sedan aimed at the Acura TSX
and Volkswagen CC.

This flexibility has allowed GM to easily produce multiple variants of the
Insignia/Regal on the same assembly line. The Opel factory in Russellsheim
has been building production Regals for North America for several weeks
now and will continue to do so for another year. Before driving the Regal
we toured the Russellsheim factory and saw Regal sedans and Insignia
sedans, hatchbacks and wagons interspersed on the assembly line.

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/05/06/2011-buick-regal-first-drive-in-germany/
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