Meet the new 2019 Buick LaCrosse ST.

Photo: Buick Pressroom

Chevrolet may be moving in the direction of phasing out larger sedans like the Impala, but look on the bright side: we still have the Buick LaCrosse.

Personally, my taste has always run most toward the first-generation Buick LaCrosse, which clearly shared many styling cues with the last-generation Buick Riviera coupe—an example of which I am a proud owner.

Why are Passenger Cars an Endangered Species? A Demographer You’ve Never Heard Of Just Might, Indirectly, Hold the Key

Photo: GM media website.

Unless you’re a hardcore demographics geek like me, you’ve probably never heard of Kenneth W. Gronbach. If you have heard of him, chances are you’re a regular listener to Coast to Coast AM, the popular nationally syndicated talk radio show, on which Gronbach has been interviewed a couple of times by host George Noory.


But regardless of whether you’ve heard of him, Kenneth W. Gronbach, author of Upside: Profiting from the Profound Demographic Shifts Ahead, just might be the most important demographer alive. And his take on millennials, the generation that has overtaken baby boomers as the largest demographic group in the U.S., just might go a long way toward explaining the ongoing decline of the traditional passenger car or sedan—a phenomenon that we at Auto Enthusiasts Newsblaster like to call #DeathOfCar.

If you’re like Kenneth Gronbach, you understand that one of the most dangerous errors of omission that any enterprise can make is to have an incomplete or oversimplified understanding of how demographic factors can profoundly affect economic trends and business outcomes.

In his talk-show appearances, Mr. Gronbach relates that he learned this lesson the hard way. In his days as an advertising-agency owner, he gained a first-hand understanding of the importance of demographics when he lost a large client in the motorcycle industry.

As Ford Pulls the Plug on Fusion, Taurus, Another Tire Drops in #DeathOfCar

With Ford's decision to pull Fusion and Taurus from North American Dealerships, the Fusion may now be truly riding off into the sunset. Photo: Ford media website.

First, let's put things in perspective.

The Ford Fusion is a car that we have spent a lot of time ragging on lately as an example of what's wrong with passenger car design today—those look-alike body shapes that are supposedly driven by safety requirements and other regulations, and those awful, awful grilles.

So we're not exactly sad to see the Ford Fusion go, at least not its current generation.

2019 Nissan Altima Aims to "Reignite Interest in Midsize Sedans"

As American automakers continue to announce phaseouts of storied passenger car models like the Chevrolet Impala and Ford Taurus, many of us among the ranks of auto enthusiasts can look with hope toward overseas producers to maintain the vitality and interest of the sedan and coupe format.

If the designers behind the 2019 Nissan Altima have anything to say about it, the sixth generation of the company's top-selling sedan – with more than five million sold since introduction – is about to reinvigorate interest in midsize sedans.

Once the dominant body style in most major automotive markets, sedans sales have experienced erosion in favor of consumers' preference for crossovers and compact SUVs. That has left the leading global sedan manufacturers in a unique position of competing not only with each other, but within their own model lineups for sales.