Lankford Buick Pontiac GMC Blog

Even though this year’s Buick Open is behind us and the next is nearly a year away, the golfers are still remembering the highs and lows of this year’s tournament — more than one golfer is driving around in a new Buick car. This tournament is something all Buick owners have on their radar, but it wasn’t always that way. Here’s a quick history of everybody’s favorite golf tournament.

- When the tournament started in 1958, Buick was the first corporate sponsor for the PGA tour. The first Buick Open was won by Billy Casper, and he took home $9,000, the highest purse on the tour at that time.

- By 1965, the tournament purse had reached $100,000 — still not an insignificant amount of money — and that was the same year Tony Lema won his second Buick Open in a row. This is the only time in the tournament’s history that someone has won back to back years.

- In 1979, the Buick Open was won by its first PGA rookie, John Fought. Five years later, new Buick cars become the official cars of the PGA tour.

- In 1989, the purse for the Buick Open breaks $1 million. Ten years after that, Tiger Woods wins the tournament for the first time and signs a sponsorship deal with Buick. Tiger gets himself a new Buick car.

- In 2003, the purse for the Buick Open goes up to over $4 million. It’s come a long way from the $9,000 in 1958!

- This year, the total amount given to charities by the Buick Open breaks the $9 million dollar mark. Interestingly, the total amount given to charities by Buick through sponsored events broke $32 million in 2005. That’s a lot of new Buick cars!

To check out your new Buick, stop by your King of Prussia area Buick dealer today.

In the past, automakers used to assign special designations to their models to indicate special performance features, such as “trail rated” to indicate off road performance. With the ever-increasing cost of gasoline, Pontiac has added a new designation: XFE.

Following European trends, where gas prices have been extremely high for quite some time, fuel efficiency is becoming increasing important to North Americans and is becoming synonymous with social responsibility. Hence the newly designed Pontiac G5 XFE, with greater fuel efficiency and lower environmental impact.

Quickly reacting to this new trend, Pontiac engineers went back to the drawing board to find minor tweaks that could improve fuel efficiency. Among the changes made were a recalibration of the G5’s engine, a change to the drive ratio, and switching over to low rolling-resistance tires. The overall effect was to increase the Pontiac G5 XFE’s fuel efficiency to 25 mpg in the city and 37 mpg on the highway. This represents a 9% increase over the non-XFE model.

The tradeoff is that acceleration and handling may not be quite as good as previous models, but Pontiac is certain that their customers will be willing to make that tradeoff. No other automaker other than GM and their Pontiac division have talked about doing this in North America, although it is common practice in Europe. Says Stephanie Brinley, an employee of consultants Auto Pacific: “People were aware of the environment, but they didn’t change their buying behavior until fuel prices went up. Now they can buy a fuel-efficient model and say ‘I’m helping the environment,’ when they’re really motivated by the savings.”

Some observers point out that there may be a short shelf life for sub-brands such as the Pontiac G5 XFE. They claim that as more models are released with higher fuel efficiency numbers these numbers will be taken for granted by consumers. While vehicles with low fuel efficiency may be going the way of the dodo, Pontiac is certainly doing the right thing by drawing attention to their new brand.

To check out the all new Pontiac G5 XFE, stop by your Conshohocken area Pontiac dealer today.

As North American drivers continue to watch the price of fuel increase, more and more of them are choosing cars over trucks. This has led to General Motors cutting production of their truck models, SUV’s, and vans by 170,000.

A large drop in sales in of their light truck models and SUV’s have triggered this move by GM. They are hoping to make up for this lack by boosting production of their fuel-efficient cars and smaller, lighter SUV models such as the GMC Acadia by 47,000 units. The company will be idling 7 different plants in North America and Mexico for up to as many as 12 weeks to accommodate this cut in production.

While this may come as a disappointment to truck enthusiasts, there is a silver lining to this cloud. To try and stop the slump in truck sales GMC has been offering interest free loans to purchase trucks and have offered loan periods as long as 6 years while they try to sell the inventory they have left. What this means to those who either need to drive a truck or prefer to drive a truck is that there has never been a better time to buy a GMC truck.

In some instances, casual drivers have made the decision to sell their own trucks as they make the move towards smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. This has created a buyer’s market, meaning that there has never been a better time to buy a used GMC truck either. Prices on used trucks and SUVs have dropped 15 to 30% over the last year, with models having a blue book value of $17,000 actually selling for around $11,500.

Bet of all, they are the same GMC trucks you have become accustomed to. Even though they may have dropped somewhat in value, they were still made to the same exacting standards of value, safety, and performance that have been a hallmark of GMC. This is the time to purchase the truck you’ve always wanted at new, lower prices.

For great deals on GMC trucks, stop by your PA GMC dealers today.

The 2008 Buick Enclave replaces the Buick Rendezvous, and is a wonderful improvement over that vehicle. Set to compete with the Mercedes R-Class, Audi Q7 and Lexus RX 350, the Enclave’s unique interior and sheetmetal position it as a potential market leader.

The Buick Enclave is built on GM’s Lambda platform and features third row seats, a 3.6 liter 275 horsepower VG engine and a six-speed automatic transmission. Unlike the other GM vehicles build on the Lambda platform, however, the Enclave features a number of luxury options as standard equipment. For example, it comes with a six-way power driver’s seat, power liftgate, a rear backup camera, HID headlamps, MP3, CD and XM stereo system and patterned cloth seats.

One of the first things you’ll notice when you drive the Buick Enclave is its quiet ride. It features front-door side glass, triple door seals, an acoustic laminated windshield, dampening material on the underbody and even engine mounts. You can talk to anyone in the vehicle without having to raise your voice, which is especially useful in a vehicle that seats six or seven people.

The ride in the Enclave is comfortable and isolated, and steering precision is decent, requiring few steering corrections. If you are looking for a roomy SUV with luxury features and refined style, the Enclave is the vehicle for you.