First Drive: 2010 Buick LaCrosse CXS

When the original car arrived, those to the south of us called it LaCrosse. Not in Canada. Here, the name of Canada's national sport was dropped because it had (has) a lewd connotation en français. Enter the weakly named Allure. Thankfully, Buick has come to its senses and named its full-sized family sedan what it should have been from Day One. Ironically, the owner's manual still welcomes the owner to the 2010 Allure.

In the past, getting behind the wheel of a Buick made me forget where I was going and why I was going there, such was the drive-the-living-room-to-the-mall excitement of the Allure - it was more overly padded recliner than supportive Recaro seat in nature. Sure, it served a purpose, but, gee, what an anemic form of transportation. The LaCrosse is a very different car as it is, believe it or not, actually sporty and has a sense of purpose, all of which makes it a very distant relative to the Buicks of yore.

Gone are the somnolent interior, iffy materials and cobbled-together feel. Instead, there's a snazzy cabin (the French stitching that runs through the door panel, over the instrument binnacle and across the dash to the other door panel adds a welcome touch of elegance) that boasts rich materials. It's also very comfortable without feeling like an old pair of slippers, and it is very well equipped. In the tester's case, the list ran the gamut - everything from heated/cooled power front seats, a heated steering wheel and a heads-up display to a navigation package that included a very good harman-kardon audio system with a 40-gigabyte hard drive and a backup camera. The hard-drive-based navigation system has a neat twist ­- it warns of impending traffic delays or road works. The coverage area is limited at present (essentially Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver), but it works very well. Perhaps the only downside is being told that a highway that's moving at the limit is coming to a standstill in 8.7 kilometres - it's demoralizing.

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/cars/story.html?id=2412532#ixzz0bx7izeLt
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