![\"regal_sportback-open\"](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/-mm-\/e364340c27a8138a344d3b17c75a51f079c508b6\/c=395-0-3402-2261&r=x404&c=534x401\/local\/-\/media\/2018\/01\/03\/DetroitNews\/B99612337Z.1_20180103164439_000_GSP1PVB2E.1-0.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/div>Regular readers of this column know that my favorite cars are affordable, compact hot hatches like VW GTIs, Ford Fiesta STs, even wild-winged Honda Civic Type Rs. Small though their sales numbers may be, they boast supersized bandwidth: low center-of-gravity and turbocharged engines for performance \u2014 and five-door, hatchback utility for carrying stuff.<\/p>\n
Right on these hatches\u2019 rear bumpers is a new breed of five-door beauties that have caught my wandering eye. Call them sportbacks.<\/p>\n
Budget-friendly kin of high-end, five-door thoroughbreds like the Tesla Model S and Audi A7, the appeal of the new Buick Regal Sportback and Kia Stinger sportback should be no surprise \u2014 they mix the hot hatch\u2019s appealing recipe, but in a bigger pan.<\/p>\n
The Stinger was a 2017 Detroit show-stopper and is a finalist for 2018 North American Car of the Year. Its rear-wheel drive power, sleek shape and interior volume not only recast the Korean maker as a sports brand, it brings Fifth Avenue design to Main Street showroom windows.<\/p>\n
Running in its luxurious footsteps is the 2018 Buick Regal Sportback, which transforms Buick\u2019s vanilla, mid-size sedan into a graceful swan. And it\u2019s even more affordable (stop the presses!) than the Kia.<\/p>\n
Heck, if Audi had a nickel for every time someone benchmarked to its stunning A7, they would be able to pay back all of parent VW\u2019s Dieselgate fines in a fortnight. Since its birth in 2009, the A7 has been the sedan-beauty standard (well, the Aston Martin Rapide is more stunning, but it also costs the same as your house), eclipsing even the venerable Porsche Panamera sportback.<\/p>\n
As the SUV sales revolution has threatened to make sedans as irrelevant as snow tires in St. Croix, sedan designers have had to recast the traditional, three-box, four-door concept. Their answer was as simple as hiring cheerleaders to rev up sleepy Detroit Lions fans: sex appeal.<\/p>\n
The mid-size, front-wheel drive Chevy Malibu and Honda Accord were given sleek, Audi-like four-door coupe designs. But the premium-segment all-wheel-drive Regal goes further.<\/p>\n
Designed and built in Germany as a rebadged Opel Insignia, the Regal Sportback\u2019s ski-slope roof opens with hydraulic struts like a hatchback (thus the term sportback) to mimic the A7 and Model S in beauty, cargo utility and all-wheel drive dexterity. Cost of entry? Just $32,540.<\/p>\n
Add three inches of wheelbase and subtract 200 pounds of weight from the previous generation and you have a bigger, nimbler, 250-horse looker with a European accent that brings real personality to the mid-size dance floor.<\/p>\n
Buick needs every bit of that charm because the $30,000 mid-size disco is ferociously competitive \u2014 and not just from Regal\u2019s usual Acura, Lincoln and Infiniti rivals. Indeed, those competitors, which Regal handles with better looks and value, are the least of its worries.<\/p>\n
Take the Accord stallion that\u2019s neck-and-neck with the Stinger for Car of the Year. Like the lovely Mazda 6 \u2014 which will arrive later this year with a turbo-4 spitting a serious 310 pound-feet of torque \u2014 Honda\u2019s a mainstream brand with premium abilities.<\/p>\n
Loaded to $36,700 \u2014 $2,000 shy of my Regal Essence trim \u2014 and the Honda matches the Buick feature for feature: 252-horsepower turbo-4, smartphone app compatibility, seat memory, adaptive cruise-control, blind-spot assist. And then it trumps the Buick with a nicer interior (wood trim, silver-bezeled cupholders), 10-speed transmission, packed steering-wheel controls and a heads-up display. Why GM starves the Regal Sportback of the latter \u2014 which the General invented! \u2014 is a mystery.<\/p>\n
Row the two cars through the twisties and the Honda\u2019s turbo-4 is more responsive, its chassis tighter, its 10-speed tranny a match for the Buick\u2019s eight-speed unit.<\/p>\n
But the Regal brings moves of its own.<\/p>\n
While the Accord\u2019s huge trunk could hide an elephant, the Buick\u2019s hatched opening is more versatile. Pop it open, flatten the rear seats, and its 60 cubic feet of space will easily swallow a bicycle and three pieces of luggage.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s that all-wheel drive thing. The Accord doesn\u2019t offer it \u2014 though I should note, the Buick can be had with front-wheel drive like the Accord for just $25,000, as Buick tries to do some down-market poaching in Accord value territory. Slogging through Michigan this time of year, all-wheel drive is a priority in the Payne family. Mrs. Payne won\u2019t leave home without it, which has made her a Subaru groupie.<\/p>\n
Regal\u2019s four paws ain\u2019t your average zoo animal. Armed with twin-clutch packs in her rear, the all-wheel drive all-the-time Buick can send torque to any wheel it needs to, meaning you can conquer slippy, icy conditions that would bedevil a Subaru \u2014 or even on some, more expensive Audi A5s \u2014 with more traditional open differentials.<\/p>\n
I confidently plowed through snow before Christmas in an Audi SQ5 SUV. But I feel more confident and connected to the road in a lower-center of gravity Regal. That\u2019s just physics.<\/p>\n
The Buick\u2019s all-wheel drive system also helps the front-drive biased car rotate better through corners, but the Buick is not a car you\u2019ll be tempted to flog like the eager Accord or Stinger. You\u2019ll drive with confidence and style. With its attractive winged grille and LED-lidded lights, it\u2019s country club-pretty compared to the ready-to-rock-the-night-club Accord.<\/p>\n
That said, the Regal\u2019s design could be less, well, stuffy German. Buick\u2019s Enclave does some wonderful things with chrome across its tuckus that are absent in the Regal \u2014 and there\u2019s that bland (if ergonomically commendable) dash.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the Regal \u2014 on sale now \u2014 is saving some panache for its pricier brothers: the 310-horse, V-6-powered, performance GS and the stunning Tour X wagon. With these two vehicles \u2014 which I will test later this year \u2014 the Regals cover a lot of customer real estate from $25,000 all the way to the mid-$40,000s. In a smaller sedan marketplace, that\u2019s clever.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a lot of personality for a brand that once had the presence of a wallflower. And it\u2019s well-timed in a $30,000 aisle stuffed with neat toys. Those toys include entry-level Germans like the Mercedes CLA, Audi A3 and BMW 2-series. But despite their brand cachet, these cars simply can\u2019t compete with the larger, feature-rich Buick and Honda. That\u2019s how much the gap has shrunk between luxury and more mainstream brands.<\/p>\n
Brand matters, but the Buick and Accord offer comparable value to sport utilities with more sex appeal. And should you have the need for speed, you can always spend a few extra coins on the Kia Stinger. It\u2019ll stow your bike while you hunt down Panameras.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a New Year\u2019s resolution idea: More sportbacks, please.<\/p>\n
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne. Catch \u201cCar Radio with Henry Payne\u201d from noon-1 p.m. Saturdays on 910 AM Superstation.<\/p>\n
2018 Buick Regal Sportback<\/strong><\/p>\n VEHICLE TYPE<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n FRONT-ENGINE, FRONT OR ALL-WHEEL DRIVE, FIVE-PASSENGER SEDAN<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Powerplant<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n 2.0-liter, turbocharged inline-4 cylinder;<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Transmission<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n 9-speed automatic (front-wheel-drive); 8-speed automatic<\/p>\n (AWD)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Weight<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n 3,417 pounds (FWD base)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Price<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n $25,915 base FWD; $32,540 AWD<\/p>\n (38,715 AWD Essence trim as tested)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Power<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n 250 horsepower, 295 pound-feet torque (AWD)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Performance<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n 0-60 mph, 6.2 seconds (AWD, Car and Driver)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Fuel economy<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n EPA mpg est. 22 city\/32 hwy\/26 mpg combined(FWD);<\/p>\n EPA mpg est. 21 city\/29 hwy\/24 mpg combined(AWD)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n Report card<\/strong><\/p>\n HIGHS<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n SPORTBACK STYLE, HATCHBACK UTILITY; GET THE ALL-WHEEL DRIVE<\/p>\n TRIM<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Lows<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n Interior lacks character; is it a better value than the<\/p>\n upscale Accord?<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n Overall:<\/strong>\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Regular readers of this column know that my favorite cars are affordable, compact hot hatches like VW GTIs, Ford Fiesta STs, even wild-winged Honda Civic Type Rs. Small though their sales numbers may be, they boast supersized bandwidth: low center-of-gravity and turbocharged engines for performance \u2014 and five-door, hatchback utility for carrying stuff. Right on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21663"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21664,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21663\/revisions\/21664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\n
\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n
\n \n \n \n \n \n