Hoovey689

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Wear a ponytail? Buy a Buick Verano

With the launch of the $23,470 Buick Verano, General Motors has its work cut out in differentiating this luxury compact from its mass market sibling, the Chevrolet Cruze. Verano's price tag starts less than $500 above a top-of-the-line Cruze LTZ, but GM has a few arrows in its premium-product quiver to insure Verano doesn't come off as a badge-engineered baby Buick.

While we're more interested in the engine upgrade, which puts the 2.4-liter four-cylinder from the Buick Regal underhood, GM is touting the Verano's "1,000-hour" seats. They share leather, foam and padding with the top-of-the-line Buick LaCrosse, and are designed to prevent "hot spots" when driving long distances, says GM in a new press release. (The 1,000 hours GM refers to is the development time that went into the seats, not the duration you can sit in them before experiencing discomfort.)

The icing on the cake is that the Verano's seat head rests are "positioned to accommodate ponytails and other up-dos without compromising the occupants' postural comfort," says GM. Which, of course, makes us wonder whether we might someday see a Steven Seagal special edition Verano.

http://www.autoblog.com/2011/10/19/w...-buick-verano/

mmarshall

Here's some more images of the interior. It does seem to have been taken, in large measure, from the LaCrosse, except that the primary-gauge-tunnels seem to be from the Regal.