The Buick Cascada Convertible Dies a Deserving Death

We wondered what Buick was thinking when they introduced the Cascada in 2016, only a few short years ago. Last week, Buick announced the Cascada would stop production and try to sell the remaining on-hand stock at dealerships through the end of 2019. This is the Cascada's last model year in what turned out to be a truly lackluster model over its short lifespan. It was almost universally panned as mediocre, and that's in a segment that doesn't move a lot of cars, to begin with. 

It was a big risk bringing a convertible into the market, and the Cascad was not great.

Buick pushed pretty hard to promote its little convertible, a sort of successor to the overpriced and poorly received Reatta from back in the early '90s. There were a ton of high profile commercials with the likes of Odell Beckham, Emily Ratajkowski, and Ellie Kemper from The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. No amount of marketing and advertising, however, could save the Cascada from itself. 

The Cascada was inordinately heavy, structurally shaky, and incredibly slow (0-60 in 8.3 seconds, a second and-a-half slower than a Honda Odyssey minivan), which certainly didn't help its image. One of its few merits was the fact that it was generally competent in a straight line. Even the interior wasn't much to look at with its thick and plain dash, cheap materials, and so-so tech. The fact that you could deploy the smooth-operating cloth top at speeds up to 31 mph may have been its only bragging point.

Again, the convertible segment isn't exactly selling like gangbusters, so the introduction of a lackluster model into the American market seems, well, unwise. It reminds us of the Chrysler Sebring convertible that ended production back in 2010. That was similar to the Cascada in that it wasn't very attractive, had crappy driving dynamics, and was generally unappealing compared to models from the Germans.

GM has notified Buick dealerships that they should no longer accept orders for the Cascada after February since production will end during the summer. It looks like the brand will have enough stock to sell the model for the next 10 months, which seems like way too long. 

You're really better off driving with the top up so no one can see you bought a Cascada.

The sad sales figures amount to about 17,000 units over the course of three years, or not quite as many Accords as Honda sells in a single month. A Buick spokesman recently stated, "The Cascada has played its role in the portfolio perfectly, outselling many other premium convertibles while bringing in [6 of every 10] buyers from outside GM." That's a convenient way to spin things while simultaneously ending the car's production. Hrmm.