2010 Buick LaCrosseCXS is an American Lexus.

By Dan Neil

Fighter pilots call it Aotarget fixationAo when you become so focused on a single adversary that you lose situational awareness and fly into something large and obvious, like the ground. BuickAAEs 2010 LaCrosseAua near-luxury, mid-size-to-large sedanAuwas built to put the cross-hairs on a single bogie, the Lexus ES350, and IAAEll tell you right now, it blows the Lexus out of the sky. Pow. Parachute. Smoking crater. Oh, you can quibble over one detail or another. The LaCrosseAAEs roof A-pillars are huge and make it hard to look through a corner on a tight, two-lane road (itAAEs also possible to lose sight of pedestrians in crosswalks). There are moments that the cabin, with its Aqua Velva-blue ambient lighting, thick chrome instrument bezels, luminous LCD screens and spread of glowing buttons, looks like the flight deck of some drug-addled dirigible. But no fair appraisal of this car can conclude anything but that the Buick is as good as or better than the Lexus in every way: ItAAEs as dead quiet, as thoughtfully designed, as this-minute in its technology. My top-of-the-line CXS had a 3.6-liter direct-injection V-6 under the scalloped hood, a six-speed Aisin automatic transmission, continuously variable suspension damping with Sport mode, Harman/Kardon sound system, touch-screen navigation and adaptive headlamps. Out the door at $39,195. And yet with all of the semiconductor circuitry, servos, gadgets and displays, the LaCrosse feels deeply, foundationally sound. All is hushed and serene. Everything is damped. The whole car feels packed in ermine. It is an American Lexus. But is that enough? In other words, has bench-marking the ES350AuLexusAAE best-selling sedan, by the wayAuleft the LaCrosse blind to challenges from other competitors in this segment? After all, the ES350 is a tarted-up Toyota Camry and enjoys its place in the market primarily because of the aspirational updraft of the Lexus brand. Personally, the ES350 bores me like nothing since AoThe FountainheadAo. How does the Buick stack up against, say, the Hyundai Genesis or the Infiniti G37 sedan, both finely tailored, tech-sodden sedans with rear-wheel drive? What about the brilliantly executed Acura TL, with its torque-vectoring all-wheel drive? The competition among near-luxury, mid-size sedans makes a Cuban cockfight look tame. Born in a blizzard of pink slips and a tsunami of tears, the Buick LaCrosseAuthe first new car launched by GM since it emerged from bankruptcyAuhas to be more than on par with some middling Lexus. It has to be fantastic. This is a brand in a hole the size of AIGAAEs. Not only is Buick synonymous with AoMatlockAo-watching crapulence (the average age of a Buick buyer is 68); the parent company, GM, is feeling the unaccustomed disdain of Red State America on account of the Obama administrationAAEs $83.5 billion auto-industry bailout. I have not gotten a single e-mail from anyone saying, AoYou know, I love and support my country, so IAAEm going to buy a GM car.Ao But IAAEve gotten maybe 100 e-mails that say, in effect, AoIAAEll never buy a GM car until the government gets out of the car business.Ao Is the LaCrosse enough of a car for them to hold their noses past the stink of bankruptcy and the reek of government ownership? ItAAEs a pretty great car, but honestly, I think the LaCrosse would have to come equipped with naked wood nymphs to placate these dissidents. Time for some shopkeeping: The base LaCrosse ($27,835, delivered) is powered by a 3.0-liter direct-injection V-6 good for 255 hp. The up-level trim package is the CXL ($30,395). Add all-wheel drive (with brake-based limited-slip differential) and the price goes to $32,600. The top-shelf model is the CXS ($33,765), with a 3.6-liter V-6 putting out 280 hp. The Touring Package adds 19-inch wheels and variable-damping suspension and Sport mode, with electronics that put a sharper edge on the transmission, steering, throtatle and suspension responses. Daringly, Buick will offer a 2.4-liter four-cylinder (172 hp/182 pound-feet of torque) in the LaCrosse this fall. That will be just about when gas prices will spike again, I predict. Some people have wondered why GM kept the Buick division and shed Saturn, which has the freshest and most fuel-efficient product lineup. The answer: China. Buick is a prestigious luxury brand there, and in fact, the new LaCrosse was a joint effort between GMAAEs American and Chinese design studios. The Chinese contingent was responsible for the LaCrosseAAEs insanely fussed-over interior. Example: The dash material is synthetic leather, but itAAEs French stitched with real thread. No corners are gracelessly cut hereAuno ugly cover plates, no exposed fastener buttons and the barest minimum of seams. The whole transverse sweep of the cabin, the two-tone materials bisected by a lyric bow of ambient lighting and wood grain that plays into the doors, looks great, especially at night. GM execs claim the cabin reflects Aofeng shuiAo design principles in its sculpted and harmonious form language, although I might have expected a red door somewhere. In any event, the interior is excellent. I parked the LaCrosse next to a new Lexus to compare, and it wasnAAEt even close. Style aside, the biggest marker of Chinese influence is the carAAEs enormous back seat. According to GM, about 25 percent of Chinese buyers will be chauffeured. If legroom is high on cross-shoppersAAE list, the LaCrosse will score a clean kill. Complaints, I had a few. The exterior styling is really strongAumasculine, well planted, with a lovely roof archAuin every direction but the front. I canAAEt quite fathom the headlight design, which looks like Dame EdnaAAEs spectacles, and the odd chamfering of the hood, a design detail that doesnAAEt seem to go anywhere. And the car is about 250 pounds heavier than it ought to be, a fact that robs the LaCrosse of some much-needed verve and agility. The CXS gets off the mark smoothly, and it hits 60 mph in about 7.5 secondsAureasonably quickAubut the extra weight doesnAAEt help it in corners, and there is the inevitable tendency of a front-drive car to overwhelm the tires and understeer. I look forward to trying the all-wheel-drive model. To say the LaCrosse handles better than the ES350 is the damnedest of faint praise. The weight is telling because weight is the most expensive thing to get out of a car. I read the poundage as an artifact of the pre-bankruptcy GMAuindeed, a metaphor of the company before bankruptcyAAEs radical dieting. Still, the LaCrosse is the car that most thought couldnAAEt be built by Buick. ItAAEs actually desirable. On the long road to recovery, itAAEs a good start. LATWP News Servic

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