IF YOU REALLY WANT to understand a car, wash it—not with a high-pressure sprayer but with a bucket and sponge and hose. Wear something sexy.
..But keep washing, and you'll note it is also proportionally taller (relative to overall length) than its competitors. Part of the charm of the Encore—assuming you are charmed—is its stubby, diminutive proportions, lively face and cornered-hedgehog stance. From some angles, the Encore is awfully cute. Other angles make you want to call pest control.
The Encore belongs to General Motors' global-subcompact car and crossover family (Opel/Vauxhall Mokka, Chevy Sonic), front- or all-wheel-drive vehicles with wheelbases of around 100 inches, scaled to cope with the narrow streets and stick-it-where-it-fits parking of Europe and especially China, where Buick is regarded with weird, ancestral reverence.
As a business proposition, the North American Encore program was probably an easy call. General Motors is already making a mighty slew of these things in South Korea. Additional modest costs include federalizing the vehicles, transportation, importation fees and marketing. The Encore's average mileage of 28 miles per gallon for front-wheel drive and 26 mpg for all-wheel drive won't hurt GM's corporate-average-fuel-economy numbers, either. The lines will cross for Buick at about 30,000 in annual unit sales. That is about how many Tiguans Volkswagen will sell in the U.S. this year.
Even so, Buick is being cost-conservative, offering but a single powertrain option in North America, GM's ubiquitous 1.4-liter turbocharged, port-injected four-cylinder (138 horsepower, 148 pound-feet) and six-speed automatic transmission. An AWD system (a $1,500 option on all four trim levels) provides on-demand torque to the rear wheels in case of front-wheel slip at low speeds, but architecturally the Encore is front-drive.
The Encore tests the thesis: Is there a U.S. market for a Buick-branded premium B-segment crossover? This congress of nubbins includes the Mini Countryman, the Fiat 500L and VW Tiguan, as well as the coming-soon BMW BMW.XE +0.16%X1 and Audi Q3. It is a group with a whole lot of charisma.
For now, the Encore seems to be an itty-bitty hit. It just topped J.D. Power's 2013 Initial Quality Study and something called the 2013 Apeal Study (Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout) in the subcompact-utility segment. From February through June, Buick sold more than 13,000 units in the U.S., which is a bubbling pace.
Speaking of Mini: Since the introduction of the reborn Mini in 2001, the BMW-owned company has offered a series of larger vehicles (Clubman, Countryman, Paceman), scaling up the brand's distinctive silhouette and signature visual cues to the point of courting absurdity. A big Mini seems perverse, doesn't it?
The Encore goes in the other direction, taking familiar Buick features usually writ large—the broad waterfall grille, the glammy, upswept headlamps, the soft shoulders—and shrinking them to a degree that comes dangerously close to adorable. This thing isn't your father's Buick. It's your father's Buick's keychain.
But smallness on purpose is the Encore's salient feature: close-quarters maneuverability, turning radius, ease of parking, nimbleness in city traffic, high seating position, excellent outward views. I know it is a bit of a weird concept, but in much of the world outside the U.S.—Manhattan, for instance—big cars are a pain to own. Yes, you can get a larger car for the same money; the Encore says you don't have to.
Why would any other self-respecting, life-size American buy the Encore? Grab your sponge and I'll tell you.
The pixie dust in the Encore is its command view, its pleasingly tall driver's-seat height (or H-point, for "hip") and ample headroom combined with low-cut windowsills for better sightlines and visibility. The dinky hood and broad, raked windshield form an almost flush surface, pushing the windshield away from the driver's eye position, making it easier to judge the corners of the car.
Ironically, given that the Encore is almost small enough to reach across, the add-ons for the 2014 model year will include the parking assist (proximity sensors), now standard in Premium models. The 100.6-inch wheelbase and quick steering ratio further help Encore drivers to whip around on a side street and capture an available parking spot.
Now, I have no idea how many Americans walk into a car dealership and say: Above all, it has to be easy to park! But I will tell you it sounds like one of those real world, consumer-centric needs that often go underserved by auto makers, and too little remarked upon by car reviewers, I'm afraid to say.
Lessening the driver's workload is a common theme in the Encore. Our test car a well-equipped leather-and-fake-wood Premium edition with front-wheel drive ($29,735), which includes electronic crash avoidance systems such as front collision alert (warning of unsafe closing speeds to the car ahead) and lane-departure warning. In the normal course of urban driving, the front collision system seems to be a little bit alarmist and excitable, and yet, in a world of texting drivers, I'm entirely in favor of a government mandate along these lines.
Standard amenities in the Premium package also include heated steering wheel, rearview camera, Bluetooth connectivity and Bose sound system. Voice-activated navigation is a $795 option.
Another user-friendly note: buttons. The Encore's central console (similar to the one in the Buick Regal, with cool blue backlighting) is home to no fewer than 20 actual, physical pressure switches (and two rotary dials) with affirmative and instant response, summoning various functions of the car's Intellilink navigation and infotainment system on the top-dash-mounted 7-inch color display. Easy to read, easy to find. If you've ever been made miserable by a car's mysterious, high-tech touch screen or mouse-y interface, the Buick button-fest will make you feel right at home.
Downsides? As open and uncrowded as the Encore's front cabin feels, the rear cabin is perilously squashed. Those cubic inches have to come from somewhere. If you have more than rare occasion to carry rear-seat passengers, I recommend something with a little more Y axis. Cargo space behind the rear seats totals a usable but not great 18.8 cubic feet. With rear seat backs down, the figure is 48.4 cubic feet, less than but close to the VW Tiguan (56.1) or Kia Sportage (54.6).
From a driving perspective, the Encore's greatest vice is related to one of its greatest virtues. This is a surprisingly quiet and refined machine, thanks to Buick's brand-specific "quiet tuning" measures such as acoustically laminated glass, extra damping materials in the floor and roof, and Acura-style active noise cancellation. Wind and tire noise is well muted, and engine noise isn't much of a problem since there isn't much of an engine. The wee turbo four under the hood is game and torquey at urban speeds but gets seriously winded on the interstate. Passing on a two-lane road requires keener-than-usual judgment, and you've never heard an engine so happy as this one when it falls back into fuel-conserving sixth gear at 60 mph. It almost says, "Ahhhh."
This is, after all, a city car, and in those terms, the Encore turns out to be pretty darn adorable, an elfish voyager on urban seas, small but smart. I really liked it.
But do I mean to suggest that I, your esteemed correspondent, actually, literally hand-washed the Encore? Ah, no. Hell no. Nobody washes press cars.
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