Who Owns Buick And Where Are Its Cars Built?

Buick is one of America’s first car brands, having been founded in 1899. This car brand has had its moments in the spotlight, with the company making some of the coolest classic muscle cars, and even legendary models like Buick Grand National. However, it also had its missteps, with the company producing some models that you should always steer clear of.

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Because of its history in America, you might assume Buick is an American car brand. However, car brands change owners all the time, with just five companies owning some of the top car brands in the world. Furthermore, globalization and outsourcing meant that some car brands are no longer owned by the same company that started them — and they aren’t even built in the same country. For example, MG (or Morris Garages) started as a British brand, but it’s now owned by SAIC, a Chinese company, and is made in China, making it one of the four major car brands you’ll be surprised to know comes from the East Asian country.

Because of this, you might be interested to know who actually owns Buick and where it builds its cars. So, let’s look at the brand’s ownership history and also see where its new cars come from.

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Buick as a company started in 1899 as the Buick Auto-Vim and Power Company, which produced internal combustion engines. This changed in 1903, when the company pivoted to making cars and changed its name to Buick Motor Company. At that time, it was owned by its founder and namesake, David Dunbar Buick, but was soon purchased by James Whiting and his partners. The following year, Whiting hired millionaire William Crapo Durant to become Buick’s general manager, who then went on to found General Motors in 1908. Durant brought the Buick brand under GM’s wing — the first of many to be owned by the American automaker.

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Even though GM has sold some brands and even put some marques out to pasture, Buick was able to hold on through the ups and downs, allowing it to stay alive as one of the oldest American car brands to survive to the current day. During its heyday, Buick sat alongside Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac in GM’s portfolio. These five brands allowed GM to have an offering for every price point in the market, with Chevrolet sitting as the automaker’s entry-level offering and Cadillac it’s most luxurious one.

Although Pontiac and Oldsmobile have since been discontinued, Buick continues to survive as GM’s premium badge, offered between the affordable Chevy and luxurious Cadillac. Currently, Buick offers four models in the U.S. — the Envista, the Encore GX, the Envision, and the Enclave. These are all crossover SUVs, reflecting the demands of the American market. However, you might be surprised that GM isn’t only the only company that makes Buick cars.

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While Buick is an American car, it also has an international presence, too; particularly, in China. In fact, about 80% of its annual sales comes from the East Asian country, showing how popular it is among the Chinese people. When GM wanted to set up a manufacturing plant in China, it went into talks with SAIC, where the two companies founded SAIC-GM with an equal 50-50 split in ownership. Although SAIC-GM does not own the Buick brand, it’s the manufacturer of Buick cars for China and other nearby regions for export. Furthermore, it develops and designs cars for its own market as well. For example, Buicks offers sedans, minivans, and even EVs in China — models that are conspicuously missing from the American market.

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Without SAIC-GM, Buick would have followed Pontiac and Oldsmobile to the graveyard. But because of its popularity in China, with the brand hitting peak sales of more than 1.2 million cars annually in 2016 and 2017, GM was able to retain Buick during its most trying times.

Given that Buick is an American brand, you can expect that its most major manufacturing facilities would be located in the U.S. Since it is under the General Motors umbrella, factories that make Buicks also make other models like Chevrolets and GMCs. However, the only Buick model that’s assembled in the U.S. at the moment is the Buick Enclave, which is built in the Lansing Delta Township plant in Lansing, Michigan.

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There are a few other factories that built Buick models in the past, like GM’s Fairfax, Kansas factory, which made Buick LaCrosse models, and the Orion Assembly site at Lake Orion, Michigan, which assembled the Buick Verano. However, these models have since been discontinued, and their replacements aren’t made in the U.S. So, even if you bought a Buick, you might be affected by dock strikes and other supply chain disruptions since the majority of Buicks models are imported, at least for now.

Given that China is Buick’s biggest market right now, it just makes sense for the company to make build cars there. So, the Buick Envision is assembled in Shanghai, China, in the SAIC-GM factory, and it is then imported into the U.S. The Buick Encore GX is also made in China, in its Yantai, Shandong location. However, the factories also produce SAIC-GM cars for the local market, including Buick, Chevrolet, and Cadillac models.

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Aside from assembling cars, SAIC-GM also has the GM China Advanced Technical Center, GM China Advanced Design Center, and the GM China Advanced Materials Lab in the country. This allows the company to research and develop new GM models that it could sell in China, export to neighboring countries, and also bring back to the U.S., like the Envision.

What’s more interesting, though, is that Buick offers electrified models in China that have been made locally and not available in the U.S., despite the federal government’s push for electrification. These include the Buick Electra E4, Electra E5, and Velite 6, which are pure electric vehicles, and the GL8 minivan, which is available with a gasoline engine or as a PHEV.

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Aside from China, GM also has factories in South Korea that build Buick models. The GM Bupyeoung Gu plant produces the Envista and Encore GX for North America. So, if you order these two models from Buick at an American dealer, GM still needs to ship them from halfway across the world before you can park them in your driveway.

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So, out of the four models that Buick current sells in the United States, only one is fully assembled on our shores. The rest of the cars are built in China or South Korea and shipped to customers when ordered. We’re happy that Buick is still alive after all these years, and we certainly do not discount SAIC-GM’s role in keeping the brand alive during the 2008 recession. Perhaps GM will one day return to building cars for the U.S. market in American factories.

Doing so would help its engineers and designers build cars that are fit for the American market, as well as making buying a Buick much easier. Besides, Buick is an American car, so it wouldn’t hurt to have American hands build its models, at least for those sold in America.

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