A gentle giant of a CUV

JOHN LEBLANC FOR THE TORONTO STAR

The Enclave's designers disguised its fortified-minivan looks with some distinctive sheetmetal.

John LeBlanc

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

General Motors has so much confidence in the Enclave, its first workable luxury crossover, it's asking it to do the job of three other Buick vehicles – the Rainier, Rendezvous and Terraza, all of which have been given their walking papers for 2008.

Built off a new, large-crossover front-wheel-drive unibody platform, the five-door, seven- or eight-passenger Enclave shares most of its engineering DNA with the Saturn Outlook and GMC Acadia (and a Chevrolet tentatively dubbed Traverse coming in '09).

A base Enclave CX FWD starts at $40,885.

I drove a $51,295, top-of-the-line, seven-passenger CXL with optional all-wheel-drive. With every major option added (trailer towing packages, chrome wheels, power moonroof, killer audio, video and navigation systems, etc.), a loaded Enclave will run you no more than about $61,000.

With Buick sitting above the other GM crossovers in brand hierarchy, across the board, an Enclave is about $5,000-7,000 more than an almost-as-nice Outlook.

If you need the room of a minivan, or one of those monster SUVs, the Enclave (like the Outlook and Acadia) excels.

Its cabin is extremely wide and long. The standard second-row captain's chairs fold flat and slide forward with a single lever, leaving an easy alleyway back to the 60/40-split, fold-flat third row.

As long as they're not wearing shoulder pads, the third row can handle adult-size passengers with plenty of legroom. The area behind offers a generous 535 litres of cargo space. With the second and third rows down, there is 3,300 litres or 3.3 cubic metres of cargo capacity – more than your Vegas-loving neighbour's Cadillac Escalade.

Under the hood, the Buick has the same 3.6-litre V6 (rated at 275 hp, 251 lb.-ft. of torque in the Enclave) and six-speed automatic transmission as its Saturn and GMC siblings.

Flatly put: when compared to GM's conventional, body-on-frame big SUVs – such as the Chevrolet Tahoe or Suburban – these new crossovers are lighter, roomier inside, deliver better fuel economy, and ride and handle more like cars than trucks.

Keep in mind, maxing out at about 2,000 kg they also can't tow as much as truck-based SUVs with more powerful V8s.

GM's platform-sharing strategy begs the age-old question: Why pay the Buick's Enclave premium pricing over, say, a less expensive GMC Acadia or Saturn Outlook?

Styling, for one.

Between the three GM crossovers, the Buick definitely has the most distinctive sheetmetal. Unlike the boxier-looking Outlook and Acadia, Enclave designers disguised its fortified-minivan looks by drawing in the vehicle's head- and taillights toward its midsection along opposing metal swooshes. All the Buick's exterior curves are nicely framed, with added slices of chrome and those vaunted Buick "ventaports" on the hood (which, in the Enclave's case, are neither vented, nor ported).

Arguably less successful is the upgrade done to the Buick's cockpit over lesser Saturns and GMCs.

I can understand the compulsion to add the cliché bits of American luxury trim, such as mismatched brushed metal and chrome plastic trim, an impossible-to-read analogue clock stuck in the dash, and wood appliqués that look about as real as Burt Reynolds's hair. (Hey, you gotta show the extra Buick money went somewhere.)

But where the Outlook presents driver instrumentation in a clear, straightforward manner, Buick has created tunnels that limit your angle of sight and incoming light – not very good for the geriatric vision of the average Buick customer.

The flashiest of the GM crossover triplets may or may not float your boat, but as the most luxurious of the trio, its engineers have delivered the quietest cabin by virtue of using laminated front-door window glass, acoustical windshield glass with sound-absorbing material, foam structural fillers and special engine mounts. As such, the inside of the Enclave is Sunday mass quiet.

Based on a scenario that doesn't involve transporting half of your child's screaming soccer squad at the time, Buick claims the Enclave CXL AWD is quieter than established crossovers, such as a similarly equipped $63,675 Acura MDX Elite, $73,095 BMW X5 3.0si, $82,500 Mercedes-Benz GL450 or $69,345 Volvo XC90 3.2.

With a wheelbase that's more than 500 cm long, the softly sprung Enclave only hints at road irregularities – yet doesn't just float along like some lithium-filled marshmallow.

Unfortunately, its helm does feel distant. Steering is quick and light, but not up to the sensual standards of a similarly equipped (though, admittedly smaller) $51,989 Mazda CX-9 GT AWD.

Neither is the Buick's straggling straightline performance, which, at almost 9 seconds for 0-to-100 km/h, is more than a second slower than the Mazda's.

Despite Buick's ambitions, with its commodious cabin, value pricing and luxury car ride, the new Enclave will more than likely find favour with former minivan or traditional SUV owners than the Bimmer and Merc crowds.

Surely no one's shedding a tear for the departed Rainier, Rendezvous or Terraza, but now with only the Allure and Lucerne sedans alongside in Buick showrooms this fall, only time will tell if the rookie Enclave will be able to live up to its advance billing.

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