2016 Buick Cascada Review

And you know what? It works.

What’s there is just fine, even on the base model, which lists for $33,990, including the boat trip over from Poland. The test car, a Premium model, started at $36,065, and $395 for the “carbon black metallic” paint (we’d choose white, which is free) plus $925 in destination fees brought the total to $37,385.

We’d be fine with the base model—the upscale version gets mostly electronic aids such as front and rear parking assist—and the only way to tell the base from the Premium is the absence of sensors in the former’s front bumper. We were told, though, that lease incentives are available on the Premium, making it actually cheaper to drive than the base car.

Buick didn’t give much thought to equipping the Cascada with a solid folding roof, given that the car is already a porky 3,979 pounds due to lots of under-chassis bracing that absolutely eliminates cowl shake on the roughest roads. The multi-layer soft top is fine, raising and lowering in about 15 seconds (Buick says 17 seconds), and you can do it at speeds up to 31 mph. The top folds neatly under a hard tonneau and leaves a decent 9.8 cubic feet of room in the trunk, compared to 13.4 cubic feet with the top up.

It’s surprisingly quiet with the top up, very tolerable with the top down. A folding wind deflector in the Premium model stretches across the back seat when you have no passengers, and it’s effective. There’s a pair of pyrotechnically activated bars in the rear that pop up if the car rolls over— and Buick thinks the bars and the car’s six air bags are enough to earn the top safety rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, interesting as NHTSA typically doesn’t test convertibles.

Interior space is fine up front, better than you’d think in the two rear seats. You can actually wedge four 6-footers into the cabin, but none of them will be eager to take a cross-country trip. One interesting feature: Move the power front seat forward, climb in the back seat, and move the front again. Proximity sensors return the seat to about a half-inch from the rear passenger’s knees, and stop it automatically.

The corporate 1.6-liter turbo-four sits beneath a big black plastic engine cover that says ECOTEC— come on, guys, at least try to dress up the engine compartment on a premium-brand model. It pumps out a rated 200 horsepower, with 207 lb-ft of torque, which is adequate but nothing more for the two-ton convertible. The six-speed automatic can get confused when you accelerate hard then back off, but otherwise, it helps the little engine the best it can. Yes, there is a manual transmission offered overseas, but it’s of no interest to Buick.

Buick would like to sell 10,000 Cascadas in its first year; even though it’s an Opel, the U.S. model allegedly has 600 unique parts, and add in the cost to get it federalized, and Buick already has put in a pretty significant investment. Even though China is Buick’s most important market—the company sells 1 million cars a year there, 250,000 here—China won’t get the Cascada. Why? “Because with their pollution,” said a Buick executive, “why would they want to put the top down?” He said it; we didn’t.

Buick has no plans now to pursue the rental car market, but down here in Florida, it seems a natural. Florida, California, New Jersey, New York, and Texas absorb half the convertibles sold in this country, and that’s where the Cascada rolls out first. Wherever you are, it should be at a dealership near you shortly.

There’s really no direct competition for the Cascada, especially with the Chrysler 200 convertible and Volkswagen Eos gone. Buick would like to think people will cross-shop it against Audi’s A3, and buyers will immediately find it is more similar in size and content to the pricier A5, but that seems optimistic.

Still, 10,000 sales are well within the realm of possibility. But what do we know? We liked the last convertible Buick built 25 years ago, the Reatta, and only now is it getting some overdue respect.
Nicely done, Buick—a fitting Encore for that last little SUV.