The Buick Envista is a new SUV you’ll never hear of again, unless you live in China

As far as we can tell, Buick really only exists because of China. About 80 per cent of its total worldwide sales are in the PRC, where it works with SAIC to develop and sell a huge range of China-only cars. Which has us wondering if we’ll ever call vehicles sold exclusively in China ‘CDM’ cars, but also does a good job of explaining the new Buick Envista.  

The Envista’s a ‘urban compact SUV’, as is pretty much everything these days, and comes with a 181bhp turbocharged 1.5-litre four-cylinder – more than you’ll get from Qashqais, Mokkas and so on over in the UK. Which is a bit of a full-face slap when the Buick costs 150,000 Yuan, or about £18,600 – thousands less than a Qashqai or Puma, and about much as an entry-level Mokka. But, of course, such comparisons are ultimately moot – it’s for China only, as evidenced by its Baidu-led voice controls and navigation system.

Buick’s marketing team has done that Aston Martin / Lotus thing where the cars start with the same letter – Vantage, Vulcan, Vanquish and so on, or Elise, Exige, Evora. But Buick’s one-upped the ‘who owns us this week?’ British brands by ensuring each SUV starts with an ‘En’ – Envision, Enclave, Encore and now Envista. Pushing the envelope there, fellas, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t point out that a) Envista isn’t actually a word, and b) you left Envoy, Envy, Enjoy, Engage, Energy, Enamour, Enthral, Ensemble, Enterprise, Endure, Enhance, Endear, Entice, Enrich, Endeavour, Enlighten, Entrance, Entourage, Enchant, Entrust, Entertain and Encourage on the table.

How enervating it is to enable these endomorphs by engendering an enormous, near-endless endeavour, the entire results of which could enter Buick’s encumbering naming scheme and endure until entropy engulfs us all. Fact is, we’d enjoy it if Buick sent an envelope containing an encouraging endowment and enthusiastic entreaty for engagement in response to our entrepreneurial endeavour, if our encyclopaedic enlargement of its entangled model line entitled us to such an enrichment. But enough on that before enmity engulfs you and we make any more enemies. As far as we can tell, we probably already made enough at Buick and in China.