Buick Excelle GT

Buick Excelle GT
Overview
Manufacturer	SAIC-GM
Production	2009–2023
Body and chassis
Class	Compact car
Layout	Front-engine, front-wheel-drive

The Buick Excelle GT (Chinese: 别克英朗; pinyin: Biékè yīnglǎng) is the name for the compact car manufactured by SAIC-GM under GM's Buick brand.

The original Buick Excelle (Chinese: 別克凱越; pinyin: Biékè kǎiyuè)^[1] was based on the Daewoo Lacetti developed by Daewoo Motors. Parallel to the Lacetti-based Excelle, Shanghai GM introduced a new car, also called "Buick Excelle" in China, but called "Ying Lang" in Chinese.^[2] It is based on GM's global compact car platform "Delta II" which was developed at Rüsselsheim in Opel's International Technical Development Center (ITDC). The globally sold Chevrolet Cruze as well as South Korean market Daewoo Lacetti Premiere were both based on this same Delta II platform.

Since the 2009 economic crises and the subsequent demise of the Saturn brand and reduction of GM's North American brands to four, certain Opel models were no longer aligned with the Saturn brand, but now with the Buick brand instead. Consequently, the models built and marketed by Buick China were twins of some Opel variants of GM's global platforms prior to the purchase of Opel and Vauxhall by Groupe PSA in 2017, while the Lacetti-based Excelle was re-positioned below Buick's newer offerings.

In China, a hatchback called the "Buick Excelle XT" debuted in 2009, which was essentially a rebadged Opel Astra J. A sedan debuted in 2010 called the "Buick Excelle GT" (Chinese: 别克英朗GT; pinyin: Biékè yīnglǎng GT).^[3]

A North American version of the Excelle GT was assembled in the United States from 2011 to 2016, and marketed as the Buick Verano.

In August 2016, Buick China decided to end 13 years of production of the original Buick Excelle (2003-2016) despite strong sales, with 2.68 million units sold over the course of 13 years. Citing its low price while the Buick brand was being moved upmarket in China as a main reason, there was no direct successor, with sister brands Chevrolet, Baojun and Wuling filling in the lower end market niche left unoccupied by the departure of the Buick Excelle.^[4]