The Detroit News - General Motors Co. sells a model in China so popular with executives that it's often lined up outside galas and high-end restaurants: the Buick minivan.
If it's surprising that China's business elite prefer these big, boxy models to luxury sedans, it's perhaps more striking that GM's Buick GL8 is the hands-down leader. The Detroit automaker did so poorly in minivans that it quit making them in the U.S., where they are often considered the least-glamorous family haulers.
"It is a perfect example of where one product can be revered in one country and reviled in another," said Rebecca Lindland, an industry analyst with IHS Automotive. In China, the Buick GL8 is "ubiquitous, like a Town Car in Manhattan or chauffeured limousine in L.A. The assumption is that someone important is in one."
Sales in China of the GL8, which retails for as much as $61,000, rose 28 percent last year to 66,900, said researcher LMC Automotive. That's more than double the sales of Honda Motor Co.'s Odyssey, the No. 2 foreign-brand minivan.
Minivan sales will grow 13 percent this year to 560,000 units, the second-best performing category after sport-utility vehicles, the China Association for Automobile Manufacturers forecasted on July 26.
With an interior modeled after a luxury yacht, the GL8's appeal is that there's room for several adults to sit comfortably and conduct business. The newest version comes with automatic sliding doors and a 220-volt electric socket for laptops, as well as optional leather seats and DVD player.
"In the U.S., if you have a chief executive driving a minivan, it looks funny," said Allen Tsaur, president of Asian operations for Ohio-based Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. in Shanghai, who has leased four GL8s during the past decade. "Here, people accept that. It's become the norm."
The minivan is a high-margin vehicle that helps boost GM's profits while most of its growth in China is coming from cheaper, bare-bones commercial vans.
