Reports of an upcoming Buick-badged Opel Cascada are certainly not new, but it appears that the car’s launch is only a year away.
Scheduled to launch in the US in late 2015 as a 2016 model, the Cascada-based Buick convertible has been recently shown to Buick dealers.
The upcoming Buick model was shown at a business meeting in suburban Detroit in mid-August, according to two people who attended cited by Automotive News. So what did they see? Nothing surprising: the sources said the two-door, four-seat Buick with a folding soft-top roof looked nearly identical to the Opel version, except the badging.
The Opel Cascada is based on the Astra platform, also used by the Buick Verano compact sedan – itself a rebadged Opel Astra sedan. However, the Cascada is an inch (25.4mm) longer and wider than the Verano. It is not clear whether the Buick-badged version will retain the Cascada name, which means “waterfall” in Spanish.
The US model’s engine lineup is not clear either. In Europe, the Opel Cascada is offered with a 138hp 1.4-liter turbocharged petrol engine, a 1.6-liter turbo petrol available with either 168hp or 197hp and a 2.0-liter diesel available in two states of tune – 163hp and 192hp. GM didn’t comment on the report.
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