As the old salesman’s adage goes, Buick plans to sell the sizzle, not the steak, and won’t dwell on the dirty bits necessary to bring forth the real goods.

Buick probably isn’t a brand to immediately grab the attention of Octane’s typical home-market reader. To the average Brit, and to many Americans for that matter, the founding division of General Motors is the most traditional of the traditional American makes: big, understated, up-market cars in the classic American cruiser idiom that appeal mostly to a rather automotively conservative, non-enthusiast clientele. Sort of a junior Cadillac, without the flash; my Mum back in the States loves hers perhaps a bit more than she does us kids.
   
But Caddie-clones aren’t the whole Buick story; Buick have long discreetly produced the occasional zinger that defies the stereotype. The 1961 Buick Special with its lovely all-alloy V8, late of Rover fame, will be an obvious example from the British perspective, or some here may even remember the striking boat-tailed Rivera of the ‘70s. Then in the ‘80s came the turbocharged Regal Grand National, the last of the tyre-smoking muscle cars, and soon thereafter followed the Reatta, a largely hand-made two-seater aimed at the personal luxury market.
   
And in the interests of full disclosure I should probably mention that I was working in a Buick service department in the 1990s when they first began courting America’s affluent Eurocar buyers. Alongside what was frankly some stunningly yawn-worthy rolling stock, Buick introduced tightened, toned and thoroughly enjoyable Grand Touring versions of the LeSabre and Park Avenue, the latter available in supercharged form, and a blown Regal GS that was a genuine Q-ship. We had a surprising number of high-profile trade-ins back then, including a decked-out, full-luxo 600 Merc S-Class that sent the General Manager’s face a livid purple when I nicked it for my daily lunch-time joy ride.
   
It’s therefore no surprise that Buick’s historic split personality should now re-manifest itself, and this time in ways new and green: the 2012 LaCrosse, Buick’s anchor in the crucial U.S. mid-sized segment, is arriving in dealer showrooms with petrol-electric “eAssist” hybrid power—and it’s the standard equipment engine. No other domestic automaker save Lincoln offer a hybrid in this type of vehicle, that is, a regular, straightforward, non-SUV, non-crossover, 4-door premium saloon, and Lincoln’s is an option package you have to sign up for, not standard base machinery you’d have to opt out of.
   
Which is quite an appreciable difference, when you think about it; what Buick is essentially attempting here is Mainstream Hybrid By Stealth. Traditional American car buyers don’t care much for change, that’s what makes them traditional, and despite a noticeable shift in customer demographics encouraged by those ‘90s Grand Touring versions, Buick still have a lot of trad customers. (Quite like Mercedes, actually, or Morgan…) Nonetheless, change never sleeps, and the updated, stricter US government regulations on manufacturer’s average fuel economy will start kicking in only five short years down the road.
   
So Buick are making their move, but they’re making it softly, softly; hybrid powerplants are going first into the LaCrosse and although they’ll have an ordinary petrol V6 on hand for the same price, just like Lincoln, the 4-cylinder petrol hybrid will be the feature item (hybrid Regals are coming too, but only as an extra cost option). The word “hybrid”, however, won’t be mentioned, not in the advertising or literature and certainly not on the badging.

Instead, those will be mentioning “fuel efficiency” and “economy”, hot-button issues to every American driver these days, and naturally the tagline term “eAssist”. As the old salesman’s adage goes, Buick plans to sell the sizzle, not the steak, and won’t dwell on the dirty bits necessary to bring forth the real goods.

The softly approach extends to the hardware as well. Unlike the full-hybrid Lincoln, both the LaCrosse and Regal are so-called mild-hybrids, a kind of hybrid-lite scheme also favoured by several prominent European firms. Besides the obvious benefit of being a technology already in the GM arsenal, beginning with the 2007 Vue from now-defunct Saturn, mild-hybrids aren’t intended to operate in a full-electric mode, only as an eco-boost to the petrol engine; they’re consequently less intrusive in operation than a full hybrid and drive more like a conventional car.

At the heart of Buick’s eAssist is the General’s BAS system (belt, alternator, starter) that uses a combination electric motor/generator, turned by the engine’s accessory belt, to capture “spare” energy from the 2.4-litre inline-4, store it in a battery, and feed it back though the same belt when most advantageous. Up to 15 electric horses can join in with the petrol ones on hard acceleration and under increased load, and all accessory power when the car is stationary comes from the lithium-ion storage battery.

There’s also re-generative braking for additional charging, fuel shut-off during over-run, automatic engine stop and restart in traffic queues, all the typical hybrid efficiency strategies, along with some good old-fashioned drag reduction. Aerodynamics both above and below the car were cleaned up, and shutters are fitted that selectively restrict radiator airflow, as are low rolling-resistance tyres.
 
The resulting vehicle isn’t quite indistinguishable from a non-hybrid LaCrosse, but it’s remarkably close. Low-speed drivability, typically a hybrid’s Achilles Heel, is relatively refined, with virtually none of the plunging-into-sand feeling that usually accompanies re-gen braking to a stop, and since petrol engine re-start occurs when lifting off the brake instead of when mashing the throttle, launches are smoother and less nerve-wracking. It’s still possible to confuse the software into a stumble with rapid, varying pedal inputs, like repeated changes of mind during take-off, but that’s fairly rare and passes quickly.

At a faster pace, though, it just drives like a Buick, which is actually pretty well these days—another legacy of those ‘90s LeSabres and Parks. Horsepower contributions from the electric motor blend seamlessly into the petrol engine power stream, although with only 182 petrol and 15 electric bhp pushing nearly 4,000 well-appointed pounds, performance is never going to be more than merely adequate.

Still, the petrol horses and kerb weight are unchanged from last year’s un-hybrid base LaCrosse, so the eAssist model is possibly a tiny (very tiny) touch quicker overall; Buick claim the 0-60 lasts 9.2 seconds. If you’re watching it, the six-speed automatic trans does seem to shift quite a lot when left to its own devices, but the shifts aren’t objectionable, and otherwise the only real indication you’re driving a hybrid is the animated power-flow dash display that Buick’s computer geeks simply couldn’t resist including to amaze and astound the natives.
   
There’s a downside, of course; mild hybrids don’t deliver the total efficiency of the full-strength deal. The LaCrosse eAssist is EPA rated at 25 city/36 highway mpg, versus 19/30 for its all-petrol predecessor, while the Lincoln MKZ Hybrid gets a 41/36 estimate, and the Lexus HS Hybrid earns a 35/34. But the Buick is roughly £3,000 cheaper than the Lincoln, and more than £4,400 below the Lexus, and Buick is betting that a car that gives a significant portion of a hybrid’s fuel economy advantages, with very few of a hybrid’s perceived on-the-road drawbacks, at no price penalty over their beloved “normal” cars, will appeal to buyers who would never dream of tackling the Brave New World under other circumstances.
   
In fact, it’s a bet on which they’re already doubling-down. In the exploding Chinese market, where Buick is a genuinely player not just in the luxury category, but in total sales, hybrids are an even harder pitch than in the USA; in all of 2010, Toyota are said to have sold one Prius in China—count ‘em, one. After dipping a petrol-electric toe in the water there in 2008 with a full-hybrid LaCrosse, Buick are taking another shot with the LaCrosse eAssist. As zingers go, this could be Buick’s most audacious ever; it could also be their biggest dud. Yesterday’s zinger can be today’s tradition; it all comes down to timing.