Here’s a cool Buick Sail SR-V, seen in Dongba District in Beijing in 2017. The little wagon looked a bit dusty but was otherwise in fine shape, largely original and fitted with rare white Beijing license plates. The Sail is very rare today, so let’s have a good look at it.
Shanghai GM
Shanghai-GM, now known as SAIC-GM, manufactured the Buick Sail SR-V from 2001 to 2004. Early joint-venture cars carried these cool SHANGHAI GM badges. Later on, the Chinese government launched a new law requiring car makers to use Chinese-language badges. In the early 2000s, Buick became a very successful brand in China, selling a broad lineup of MPVs, sedans, SUVs, and small budget cars. Buick was regularly a top 5 brand! Today, Buick has dropped to the 20-25th place.
The badge is interesting: 昊普汽车俱乐部 (Haop Qiche Hulebu, H.P. Auto Club). In the 2000s and 2010s, every city in China had hundreds of private car clubs, in addition to dealer-funded clubs and brand clubs. Folks would go to huge car meetings, eat together, and even go on holidays. Sadly, it seems the H.P. Auto Club no longer exists.
The Buick Sail SR-V
The Buick Sail SR-V is essentially a rebadged second-generation Opel Corsa (B) wagon, but, somehow, it looked much cooler, especially in the red color scheme. The SR-V came standard with roof rails and tinted windows. The mud flaps were a factory option. My kid attended the primary school in the background – just a short walk from our home.
The stickers were standard too on every trim level of the Buick S-RV. The font is unique; it doesn’t match any other font that Buick used in China.
The mud flap has a hole in it. The shiny piece of trim on the wheel arch is an aftermarket accessory. These were highly popular in the 2000s, especially in northern China. They came in all sizes and sorts, with some covering the entire arch and some covering part of it, as we have here. In the late 200os and early 2010s, the trend was over, and the shiny stuff started to disappear.
The interior of the Buick Sail SR-V
The Buick Sail SR-V carried over the basic design of the Opel Corsa’s dashboard, albeit with an updated center stack. The owner added thick white seat covers to stay warm in the cold Beijing winters. The plastics look a little dirty, but a good cleanup will fix that. The black steering wheel is original.
A mysterious grabbing device. Initially, I thought it was a steering-wheel lock, but it is too long, and it has a distinctive forked/grabber head that doesn’t seem to fit on or around the steering wheel. So, it likely is a pick-up tool (reacher), used to pick up or retrieve objects without bending down or reaching into awkward places. On the other hand, the head does have a lock, and a reacher wouldn’t need that. If anybody knows what it is, please let me know in the comments below. Other cool stuff: it still has the factory-standard radio-CD player, finished in light gray. Beautiful. The gear lever for the automatic gearbox looks super sturdy.
This appears to be an army-issued vehicle access permit bearing the PLA’s distinctive red star and 八一 (August 1) emblem, together with the car’s Beijing license plate number, 京A·HYS928. Perhaps the car’s owner worked for the PLA or a related unit or company.
Specifications and price of the Buick Sail SR-V
Buick offered the Sail SR-V with 3 engines: 1.2, 1.4, or 1.6, mated to a five-speed manual or a five-speed automatic. Today’s car has the 1.6 under the hood, mated to the automatic. The output was 90 hp and 128 Nm, good for a 165 km/h top speed and a 0-100 acceleration time of 12.7 seconds.
SCX was the top-trim level. AT refers to automatic transmission. Note the pretty Sail badge, in yet another font. This badge is quite rare, and Buick only used it for the very early cars. Later, it was replaced by an overly designed Sail logo. In 2001, the Buick Sail SR-V SCX AT 1.6 sold for 79.800 yuan, and that translates to about $10,160 USD in 2004 value. That was a sweet deal! In 2005, GM launched a rebranding operation, and the Buick Sail became the Chevrolet Sail. Production lasted until 2009. After that, Chevrolet launched two more generations of Sail-named cars in China, until it withdrew the name in 2023.
Today, the original Buick Sail sedan and Buick Sail SR-V wagon have become quite rare, due to a lack of new parts and ever-stricter emission tests. That’s a big shame, because they were good cars for the masses that did almost everything right. There is still a huge market for this kind of entry-level car, but local Chinese brands have taken it over completely.
The white plates
Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen only issued white license plates for passenger cars in 2002 and 2003 as part of an experiment where citizens could create their own alphabetical/numerical combinations. The experiment ended after citizens got too creative, choosing combinations like “sex,” “CIA,” “FBI,” and the infamous “USA-911,” which appeared on a Beijing car shortly after the September 11 attacks. Following the uproar, authorities canceled the experiment but allowed owners to keep the non-offensive plates. The Sail SR-V in the photos has 京A HYS·928. “京” is short for 北京, Beijing.
