2021 Buick Envision: General Motors' Latest SUV Styling

The Chinese-built Buick Envision SUV has been restyled for the 2021 model year.   As of July 2020 when this post was drafted, the expectation for its appearance on the American market is early 2021.   Preliminary information from Car and Driver magazine can be found here and here.

As I frequently mention, styling a SUV is more restricted by packaging and aerodynamic requirements than for most other types of vehicles.  The result is that SUVs from different manufacturers tend to look similar aside from ornamentation and superficial sheet meal sculpting.

The Buick-furnished images below suggest that General Motors' stylists remain trapped along with SUV stylists in other firms.

Gallery

The openings below the headlight assemblies (are they real or fake?) and their relationship to the projected-forward grille area differ from the norm.  They also do not make for an attractive composition, being somewhat more aggressive than I think necessary.  Otherwise frontal design is tasteful in terms of current front-end styling clichés.

Side sculpting on the lower parts of the doors is arbitrary, not related to the window profile or other basic body shapes.  This sculpting and the higher-up character line suggesting a rear fender both disappear around the mid-point of the rear side door.  This might be interpreted as designating a separation of front and rear styling themes -- or simply slightly weakening overall design unity.

Rear styling includes many current clichés, but fairly simplified, and not with the sharp, angular details found on Japanese brands especially.  Therefore I call this part of the car a qualified styling success.