Is there a Doctor in the house....? "Doctor car" was an old expression to signify a car that was dignified, understated, but surprising luxurious and often as expensive as the more flamboyant relatives. Doctors didn't want to look splashy, as if they were bleeding their patients pockets empty, so often cars such as the Buick made a better statement to their patients than showing up to a house call in a pink Caddy with big fins. This understated elegance has been a hallmark of the Buick image to this day. Enter the Buick Lacrosse Super. The "Super" designation is one with a long Buick history, a relic from a time when celebrities and sophisticates felt at home behind the "drippy" waterfall chrome grill. What is interesting is that the "Super" moniker does not really fit with the mission of this vehicle. The "Super" designation was devised to provide buyers with the girth and style of the Roadmaster and ,the cost saving, smaller mill of lesser Buick's driving the rear wheels. This "Super" is the exact opposite offering a large engine under the hood of a smaller Buick. In "ye-olde Buick parlance" the Century was created for just such a purpose, offering a big engine in a smaller Buick, but I suppose it's still too soon after Century's demise a few years ago for the "blue hair" to have been "vacuumed" from the collective minds of potential buyers for that name to be recycled. What is interesting is that this being the first sport inspired Buick since the beloved Gran National one wonders why that name wasn't reincarnated for this V8 power house? If Bob Lutz wasn't behind the helm I would think it was just an oversight but with the pen-ultimate car guy in control the mind races to conjecture if Buick has future plans for the magnificent upcoming Zeta platform ,for which the Camaro will be hatched , to use for that haloed nameplate. For the time being the "Super" will fill that void becoming the surrogate mother for the 5.3 V8 303HP engine that currently is under the hood of the "death row dweller" Pontiac Grand Prix. Somehow the engine draws more grins in the Buick, there is something intoxicating about a "wolf in sheep's clothing", the allure of a vehicle that is usually found at early bird dinners or the drive-up of the CVS torching a Mustang GT in a stop light race! Like a younger brother of a Heisman trophy award winner the Grand Prix GXP has never really been able to get out from the shadow of it's brother the GTO, the expectations were just too high for this front driver. So the "doctor car" is created out of a company that has been playing doctor lately itself deciding between life and death depending on which cars have the best chance of survival and giving them the donor organs under their hoods. The bottom line is that the Lacrosse Super is a chance for "old school" car lovers of all ages to enjoy the inherit contradictions of a stealth vehicle that can leave bewildered cops rubbing their head when the whoosh of V8 Adrenalin passes in Aunties Buick. What we will have to wait and see, however, is whether the "Super" gets the chassis and tire enhancements of the Grand Prix or simply the engine upgrade ,as we currently see in the powerful but unruly Chevy Impala SS. The SS has proven that a big engine without the ability to get it to the street is as useless as cosmetic surgery for a nun, it's not about the equipment,but the ability for it to be used at the street level. So we welcome the "Super" not so much for it's ability to beat out the competition, even GM's own Saturn Aura beats it to 60mph while using a quarter of the fuel on the way, but we welcome the "Super" for Bob Lutz's guts in giving a nod to us car people who care as much about the sounds and rush as about the actual spreadsheet numbers after a run. So welcome "Super" and with any luck you will retire as soon as Buick finds a better replacement only to fall back into money someday when you will get the last laugh for being different and rare atop the podium of the "Barrett Jackson" auction!
