2011 Buick Regal: Love/Hate

My next-door neighbor knows what I do for a living and has seen me bring home a wide variety of cars for testing. Whether it was a compact hatchback, midsize SUV or luxury sedan, he has rarely asked me anything about them. When he saw me in the new Buick Regal, however, he stopped me the next day to ask, “What was that gorgeous car I saw you driving the other day?” I’m guessing that reaction is the exact one Buick was hoping for.

Love:

Looks The 2011 Buick Regal is a good-looking car, period. The Regal is based on the European Opel Insignia and it shows. The sleek roofline and the curve of its trunk look a lot more expensive than its starting MSRP of $26,245.  Although the average Buick buyer in the U.S. is typically a bit older, I could easily see this car appealing to a 20- or 30-something driver who’s tired of people asking him why he’s late for the Ultimate Frisbee tournament on the quad.

Hate: Center stack buttons and controls
The majority of the buttons are clustered around the main control dial, which is used to navigate and select items on the LCD screen. Where things get awkward, is that to make a selection on the screen you need to depress the slim chrome outer ring on the dial. This isn’t the most intuitive setup and could make things tricky for folks with larger fingers. And for the life of me I can’t figure out why one of the largest and most prominent buttons in the entire car is for the backup sensors. How many times in one trip could you possibly need to turn that on and off?

Read Cars.com’s full review of the 2011 Buick Regal

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