Cascada is the name of two things created in Germany: a dance music group and an Opel (albeit one assembled in Poland). The former is best known for their hit 2009 single, “Evacuate The Dancefloor”, which was a Top 40 hit in the US and was popular throughout the world. The latter? Not so much.
GM boasted the Buick Cascada, the division’s first convertible since the ill-fated Reatta way back in 1991, was successfully bringing in new buyers. Around 60% of Cascada buyers were new to the Buick brand, which was a commendable achievement. Except it’s not all that surprising that Cascada buyers would be new to Buick given it’s presumably quite rare for somebody to trade in a LaCrosse or Enclave for a compact convertible. And though GM crowed about this statistic, they’ve abandoned those new buyers – 2019 is the last year for the Buick Cascada and there’ll be no replacement.
Cascada’s hit song may have made little sense – why would a dance song implore you to leave a dance floor? – but the car made a lot of sense. It was a “white space” vehicle for Buick, an Opel that was conveniently available and which filled an untapped role in the Buick range and could appeal to new buyers. Based on the 2009 Opel Astra J, the Cascada first reached European showrooms – with Vauxhall or Opel badging – way back in 2013. It took three years to reach the US. By 2016, Buick’s Opel-based products were moving away from button-heavy dashboards. And although the Cascada’s grille ditched Buick’s waterfall theme and wore a new design motif, the rest of the styling owed more to the dying Verano than to new Buicks rolling into showrooms.
GM saw fit to introduce the Cascada to Australia, too, where it wore Holden badges. Introduced in 2015, the Cascada was Holden’s first drop-top since the 2009 Astra TwinTop. That car – with its folding metal hardtop – replaced the soft-top Astra Convertible, a surprisingly strong seller in Australia.
The Cascada didn’t replicate its ancestor’s success. Holden sold 523 Cascadas in 2015, sliding to 500 in 2016. That was less than half of the MX-5’s sales tally and still a hundred units off the Audi A3 Cabriolet, which cost $AUD6k more. Consequently, the Cascada was axed in 2017. Cascada was yet another new nameplate for a brand known for orphan models. The name lasted just a single truncated generation in Holden showrooms, much like the Insignia, Suburban, Malibu, Epica, Adventra, Calibra, Tigra, and Viva, among others. How could Holden expect the Cascada to sell when nobody had ever heard the name? Given its mechanical relation to the Astra and that car’s name equity in Australia, why not just call it the Holden Astra Cabriolet?
At least the car received some advertising dollars in the US, starring in a Super Bowl commercial and some ads featuring the delightful Ellie Kemper. A compact, European convertible was exactly the kind of proof Buick needed for their recent marketing efforts which consisted mostly of ads showing people astonished that anything remotely alluring to young people could dare wear a Buick badge. Yes, it was “Not your father’s Oldsmobile again”, aka a retread of, “That’s a Saturn?” GM, a word of advice: try to keep your brands’ reputations relatively desirable so you don’t have to do this kind of damage control marketing. The Cascada’s splashy launch was enough to net 7,153 sales in 2016 but that number fell to 5,595 and then 4,136 last year.
Even the UK, that curiously contradictory home of roadsters and inclement weather, was none too enamoured of the Cascada. In 2018, it was withdrawn from Vauxhall showrooms due to slow sales – it posted just 220 sales in 2017, down from a peak of 850. It survives only in European markets but it’s marked for death. PSA, Opel’s new owners, exited the C-segment convertible segment in 2014 and they’re unwilling to develop a new Cascada. Even though there are fewer C-segment convertible offerings in Europe than there were a decade ago, Cascada sales have been disappointing – 5,910 were sold in 2014 but that number has declined every year since.
Slow sales and muddled messaging aside, the Cascada was a competent compact. It was very much a GM product of its time, being a bit overweight albeit quite substantial in feel (if suffering from some cowl shake). That husky 3962-pound curb weight – roughly the same as a Holden VF Commodore/Chevrolet SS – meant the Cascada’s only engine in the US and Australia struggled to motivate the car with much gusto. A turbocharged 1.6 four, the Cascada’s engine produced 200 horsepower at 5500 rpm and 221 lb-ft of torque at 2200 rpm. Acceleration was therefore lackadaisical, the Cascada ambling to 60 mph in 8.3 seconds. That wasn’t a bad time for, say, 1996 but it was rather pokey for 2016 and around two seconds slower than most rivals.
Australian Cascadas were more a trickle than a cascade – with a 168 hp/192 ft-lb version of the 1.6 turbo, they hit 60 mph in just under 10 seconds. Fortunately (?), the Cascada was a rather inert handler so this didn’t feel like a waste of chassis talent. Appropriately supple ride quality further pigeon-holed the Cascada as a cruiser, no more. There was no manual transmission available in the US or Australia, just a six-speed, dual-clutch automatic.
In the US and Australia, the Cascada competed in a small yet diverse segment. There were roadsters of sporting pedigree, like the Mazda MX-5 and Fiat 124. Convertible variants of the Audi A3 and BMW 2-Series were more direct rivals, albeit priced $3-5k more. Then there were, in the US at least, pony cars like the Chevrolet Camaro and Ford Mustang. If you were after a compact, relatively luxurious convertible but didn’t care too much about performance, handling or the badge on the grille, the Cascada hit the sweet spot. That was a niche within a niche, though, which puts the Cascada’s discontinuation from markets like the US, UK and Australia into perspective.
It represented poor value when compared to a Chevrolet Camaro, which cost a few hundred dollars less and had a much more powerful turbo four. It may have been cheaper than the A3 and 2-Series but they were faster, better to drive and had more badge cred. Volkswagen’s Beetle convertible had a base price almost $8k lower in the US. And if you wanted your convertible to have a spark and make you feel good driving it, Mazda had you covered. The one ace the Cascada had was its rear seats, which could fit two adults more comfortably than any of the aforementioned vehicles. This attribute – coupled with Cascada’s presence on some rental fleets – made it more of a symbolic successor to the Chrysler 200 convertible than to anything else.
The Cascada had more direct rivals in Europe in the shape of the Renault Megane and Volkswagen Golf. There were more powertrain options, including a 2.0 turbo diesel in two states of tune and a smaller 1.4 turbo petrol four. But the Opel Cascada’s more direct competition there further exposed its flaws. What was good but not class-leading way back in 2013 is now tired in 2019.
“Evacuate The Dancefloor” isn’t an amazing song but it can be impossible to shake from your head – the same can probably be said for others songs in Cascada’s discography. GM’s Cascada, however, is regrettably all too easy to forget.
Related Reading:
COAL: 2012 Opel Astra J – On The Way Up
COAL: 2016 Opel Astra K – A Thoroughly Modern Hatchback
Curbside Classic: 1988-1991 Buick Reatta – GM’s Deadly Sin #30 – The Death of Sex and Soul
Looks like a Sebring convertible, yuck!
And not one of the decent-looking ones, either.
This is not an attractive vehicle — the forward rake of the tail makes it look like it’s standing on tippy toes, and the sheet metal’s weird collection of creases conjures up some disagreeable mental associations.
I’m all for practical four-seat convertibles, but a convertible that is not good-looking is really struggling to find the point.
Not attractive? My wife gets more compliments on her Cascada than I get on my Corvette Grand Sport.
Yes! I have always thought the same. Too much of a reminder of a Sebring convertible and for those that do not see that just in general the proportions are off. It is too small to be that fat.
I’ve yet to see one rebadged as Buick. Unlike the Holden Commodores sporting bowties.
My boss was one of the final year buyers. It replaced a Saab convertible she had driven for well over a decade (she loved the car!). It was totaled in an accident (no injuries, thankfully).
I didn’t realize the Cascadia was offered under the Holden brand, too. I’ll have to see if my boss wants an extra badge. (c:
Two thoughts about the Cascada. For one, the first time I got to see one in person at the Chicago auto show, it was very apparent the backseat wasn’t ever going to fit real sized people, regardless of reasonable dimensions on paper. The photo of the interior in the article highlights this when you realize how far forward the front seats are in that shot. Secondly, this past winter I was walking past one in a fairly upscale neighborhood, and did a double take. The only thing I could honestly think of that would create this were bullets. Evacuate the dancefloor indeed:
Maybe they’re speed holes…
People REALLY dislike these cars. They’re ugly, but I don’t think they deserve to be shot…
A women not too far from my house has a Cascada. It, and one Jim Klein and I saw on our way to Detroit in 2017, are the only two I’ve seen.
Wow, nearly 4,000 lbs for a car that is 186 inches long? It’s always interesting to see how heavy contemporary vehicles can be. Structure, top mechanism, and all components certainly add up although that 1.6 can’t be overly heavy.
Mentioning the seeming contradiction of adverse weather and roadster popularity reminded me…..eons ago my father was car shopping not overly long after Chrysler had just reintroduced the convertible. The owner/salesman and he were discussing those new LeBarons and at that time (a year or so into production) the owner/salesman told us that Chrysler was selling more convertibles in Minnesota than any other state. His take? When the sun shines, the people living in such areas want to soak in as much as possible.
Wow, that car does one thing like a real Buick – it weighs two tons. My 67 Ford Galaxie convertible weighed in at right about that figure.
I thought the car might do better than this, but it appears not. I had read some early reviews that the back seat is for groceries and little else. And being more expensive than a Camaro, well no wonder it languishes on the lot.
I continue to believe that there is a market for a legitimate 4 place convertible, but it must be a car that looks “right”. I cannot define what “right” is, but the Cascada is not it. I think Chrysler has made a mistake in not offering a Challenger convertible.
That weight really is staggering, considering this is a FWD compact (“Golf class”) car. It’s almost exactly twice the weight of the gen1 Golf/VW Cabrio.
The existence of Buck Cascada is more to fill the void left out by Chrysler 200. There was only one entry-level luxury cruiser convertible for a long time and Chrysler LeBaron/Sebring/200 was holding the role pretty well in North America and in international market occasionally. The news about no replacement for Chrysler 200 was rather late to break out and soon afterwards Buick convertible was announced.
When this car launched as a Buick in the US, I thought GM shipped the tooling for the 2005 Pontiac G6 Convertible to Poland but the tooling for the folding hard top was damaged in transit, so they used soft tops instead. I still believe I am at least partially right about my initial assessment. There is too much in common between the Pontiac and the Buick for there not to be any relationship.
If a team at GM did indeed start with a “Blank Slate” and ended up with a generation 1.5 Pontiac G6 imposter on purpose minus a folding hard top option, then GM needs to do some serious house-cleaning. Probably one reason why they sold Opel. Also no wonder the Camaro has been stuck on “retro” since its re-birth if this is the best GM can do with a blank slate. GM is indeed lucky that they can still channel the “back-catalogue” of Harley Earl and Bill Mitchell. Hell I’d take Irv’s Grand National over this abomination.
Dated “Badge Engineered” Styling – check
Overpriced – check
Underpowered – check
Deadly Sin? Most likely for Buicks car division, when they had the option to build the Avista and Avenir concepts instead or at least a reasonable facsimile. The future for Buick looks to be crossovers imported from and/or designed in Asia, if there is any future at all left in the US for Buick at this point. Possibly a rebadged Tahoe or continued rebadging of the Traverse as the range topper.
At least in this case GM had the decency to pull the plug before making a final year revision that addressed all of the cars faults and make it appealing to enthusiasts. Probably too many faults needed addressing to make it worth the effort. There is little reward and demand in this segment. (Re)Launching product with a ten year old design language from an orphan division does not help matters.
On the Avis lot at the Fort Lauderdale airport last week, I saw four Cascadas lined up against the back fence, unloved and more than a little lost in a sea of grayscale crossovers and SUVs. The lot attendant told me that these cars were rarely rented, even during the height of the tourist season, because customers either wanted something larger to fit all their family members and luggage, or something overtly sporty, like a Camaro, to play with while on vacation. I made a mental note to check the Avis used car lots after the season in June to see whether there are a plethora of low mileage, steeply depreciated Cascadas available for a bargain price.
I think you’ve nailed it, William. The car is not big enough for the sedate, mature crowd but is not sporty enough for those looking for that sort of thing. Sometimes hitting a middle ground just doesn’t cut it.
I would be tempted for Cascada as a replacement for 200 convertible so I checked it out in Detroit car show years ago but it turned out way too small for that role. And interior doesn’t look or feel as good as the Chrysler convertibles neither ( Sebring/200 )
Throughout the Cascada’s run, Buick has shouted about the low fleet sales rate of the nameplate. It has always seemed to me this is the true reason. Not a great deal of more-profitable fleet sales meaning it’s a success in the market, and more it’s too poorly packaged to be a success even at the rental counter. Not that convertibles need to necessarily have massive interior room, but this car isn’t soft, comfortable, roomy, or overtly sporty. Add in the lack of advertising, struggling brand and awkward name, plus the twisted German lineage (isn’t this built by PSA now?), and it was bound to end with a whimper.
When I saw one of these on the road for the first time I thought that the proportions looked a bit odd. It looks almost as wide as it is long. Then I had a chance to see one up close and see that it was indeed a fairly short car. When I found out that it was based on the Astra I thought that I had read it wrong….a Buick based on a small, compact sedan?
I live in Florida where these should be popular but I have only seen 2 so far, a white one and a black one.
When I saw a YouTube road test I was surprised to find that this car is so heavy and that it has such a small engine.
Really, not a bad car for empty nesters or as a family’s second or third car. But the price, the power, the nameplate are all working against it.
No wonder GM could never turn a profit with Opel (in recent decades).
Always wonder WTH Opel was intending with this thing. Previous Astra convertibles were quite successful, this thing was a lot heavier and pricier and entering a dying segment to boot. A competent car but Opel as a brand was and still is snob poison.
This car is very unattractive. It’s quite twee, reminding me of the ill-conceived and short-lived Mercury Capri roadster of I can’t remember exactly when.
The current Buick ads feature one of these with a pair of surfer girls where the friend, holding her board, asks perplexed “where’s the roof rack???”. If there was ever a question to be asked that can perfectly sum up the irrelevance of this car in 2019 I cannot think of a better one, yet it came straight from the horse’s mouth.
200 convertible successor was my immediate takeaway when these first were announced, but unlike the Chrysler, who had an uninterrupted line of dorky little convertibles in this class going back to Del Griffith’s K car, the Buick was completely out of left field and immediately out of place. Just came off to me as yet another half assed attempt to cram a failing Opel product into a slightly less failing Buick and hope for the best.
They have started running those commercials left and right here. At the end, they tout their 7 vehicle lineup, 4/7ths of which are walking dead (Cascada, Lacrosse, Regal and TourX). Just 3 dumpy crossovers of questionable value left after next year.
I’m guessing they sold it in NZ as a Holden Ive seen a couple in traffic but Ive seen one with Vauxhall Griffen on the grille and one in LHD which I guess was an Opel, nearly as popular as ZB Commodores in private hands, GMs badge engineering makes BMC and Rootes look like rank amateurs, Thanks for this William I didnt realise it was just an Astra under the ragtop, will we see them with a folding metal roof now PSA owns the Opel brand?
One of the very few convertibles that looks better with the top up.
“When the sun shines, the people living in such [colder/grayer] areas want to soak in as much as possible.”
True, drop tops used to sell well here. But, larger sunroofs have taken precedence. Buick is better off selling “Cute Utes” with huge sunroofs. BTW: The Enclave/Traverse is not designed in Asia.
I noticed on a Buick TV commercial recently that they have seven distinct models, four cars (Regal, Regal TourX, LaCrosse and Cascada) and three Crossovers (Encore, Envision and Enclave). Since I don’t pay much attention to new Buicks, I was a little surprised they have such a full showroom. I suppose the crossovers aren’t bad, if you are looking for that sort of thing, but the only one of the seven I actually kind of like is the TourX. Besides being really expensive, the thing that turns me off of it is the superfluous plastic body cladding. If they offered the clean euro version in the U.S., I might be really tempted.
Having a convertible model is always a commendable thing. I like choices, and I like drop tops. That’s about as positive as I can be about the Cascada. Even the name is terrible. I can never remember it, probably because it is a made up word. And I don’t see enough on the road to assist my poor memory.
The styling does nothing for me. Too cab-forward. Too wedge-shaped. Too short (for a Buick). The character lines don’t help it. I could go on, if I was motivated to, but the car doesn’t inspire the passion to even complain bitterly about it.
Perhaps it’s my love of traditional Buicks that keeps me from appreciating the division’s recent models. To my eyes they just don’t have the charisma that Buicks had even into the 90’s, to say nothing of their heyday in the 50’s-70’s.
They are just starting to brag about their impressively large lineup, while in the last 2 months they have announced death dates for more than half of that same lineup will happen over the next 12 months.
Similar to GM’s huge holiday employee pricing ad blitz, mere days after announcing the plant closures and layoffs.
I’m not sure if it’s refreshing to see this lack of polish in today’s overly PC world. It’s just kind of unprofessional.
William, I think this is the most astute observation on recent GM branding strategy that I’ve ever read: “GM, a word of advice: try to keep your brands’ reputations relatively desirable so you don’t have to do this kind of damage control marketing.” Kudos!
By the way, perhaps Buick could have doubled or tripled their US sales of this car if they had subtly changed the name to Cascadia and marketed it heavily in Oregon and Washington states. Not being familiar with the European version when they were launched here, I just assumed it was a Cascadia, not Cascada. The latter word is awkward to pronounce in American English … is it Cas-KAY-duh, Cas-CAAH-duh, or just rhyme with Canada?
RE: PSA buying Opel.
Read somewhere that one reason was to simply get a “German brand name” to use.
It looks like a hot tub with a windshield, and a very squashed down one at that. Even worse, in a brilliant marketing move, they made it look completely generic. A convertible is a halo car, meant to compliment the rest of the lineup. Where is the Buick signature grille? My first though upon seeing one was that it was dead on arrival.
Funny you mention halo effect; I’m not so sure people in general feel that way anymore. They make perfect rentals for that “perfect” moment, but outside of that, they are extremely compromised vehicles that don’t seem to offer any real cachet compared to what people expect anymore. Panoramic sunroofs killed that dream, I’m sad to say.
I guess I’m dating myself. Your perspective is probably more accurate than mine.
Not a bad looking ride, but sweet Jesus, that is a terrible song!
Others have mentioned Cascada rentals … having lived most of the last 40 years either in Silicon Valley or on the California Coast, I see a lot of rentals. Sebring convertibles, then Mustangs and now more Cameron’s, even Mini convertibles. I suspect the two or three Cascadas I’ve seen were probably rentals. I am actually seeing a few Buick Encores around town that don’t appear to be rentals, though perhaps they are just dealer service department loaners. Not that we even have a Buick dealership in my town.
Even a slight parking-lot tap on the rear bumper could be very expensive to fix.
For whatever reason GM decided not to market the Cascada in Canada.
When people analyse why GM went bankrupt again for possibly the final time, this car will feature into a prime reason why. GM’s previous failures have been largely good ideas with poor execution, either in quality/reliability or driving dynamics, like the Fiero or mediocre ideas which no one bought so how can we tell how well they were done, like pretty much everything else made over the last 20 years.
At least the Reatta was attractive and probably drove pretty well for 1989 and its undynamically demanding proposed audience. This thing is ugly, unbelievably overweight, has a highly suspect Opel made in Poland heritage, and is more expensive and more cramped and less sporty, well known, and dramatically less appealing than its Mustang competitor.
There’s definitely a much overlooked market for the sort of ladies who have disposable income, are “mature,” or “empty nesters” and like wine, hair colouring, Nora Roberts novels, purse dogs, rhinestone reading glasses, and such, and those ladies loved the Sebring and Solara convertibles and for good reason. They, and I, want a four seater convertible, cos fun is best shared with friends. The Sebring was good looking and had decent dynamics and had a reasonable back seat and a lower price. The Toyota was ok looking and came with the promise that it would be a convertible, so as much fun as anything which started life as a Camry can be, like when an accountant puts on a fun hat.
This car has no useable back seat and is ugly inside to boot. That high, black plastic cowl and beltline makes it like sitting in your black plastic garbage can. It’s just as cramped as sitting in a garbage can as well. Then this car has some truly bizarre ergonomics, with millions of tiny identical buttons scattered randomly down the dashboard and center console, in contrast to the Mustang, which has a simple and coherent and attractive arrangement.
GM used to build cars which people wanted very badly and bought. Then they built cars which people wanted, but perhaps didn’t buy because of quality/reliability/resale. Now GM is building these oddities like the SSR and this thing, that no one would conceivably want to buy, and doesn’t, so it’s going away. GM is slated to disappear in a few years as well, I bet.
Note. I really don’t like this car.
Or GM, apparently.
I highly doubt those Cascada buyers you describe — and I know exactly the kind — really drive around friends all that often and would care about the lack of back seat space. Maybe those ladies are different around your neck of the woods but somehow I doubt it.
You actually probably give the Reatta disproportionately more credit. You say it drove well for its undynamically demanding proposed audience, and I’d say the Cascada probably does the same. I wouldn’t call its Polish Opel heritage suspect as Opel’s reliability has improved leaps and bounds since the dark days of the 1990s, even if I wouldn’t put it at Japanese levels.
There’s really not as much of a market for a convertible that seats 4-5 people comfortably. If there was, Chrysler wouldn’t have abandoned it. By the end of the first 200’s run, they pretty much had a monopoly on it.
Opel’s fascination with buttons was indeed ridiculous but, as someone who’s had some seat time in a first-generation Insignia, Opel interiors of that era are otherwise rather nice. Volkswagen-esque in their execution. The Mustang may have had fewer buttons but that switchgear is pushed down lower on the dash, some of it is horribly tacky (even in the latest model) and there are some really low-rent materials. And I say that as someone who achingly wants a new Mustang…
Your complaints about the Cascada’s weight, ergonomics, high beltline etc are valid but your loathing of GM creeps into your argument. And I say that as someone who sees the Cascada as a bit half-baked.
I really did love GM at one point. Oldsmobiles were lustworthy objects growing up, we had a new 91 Calais which was a really nice little car, a 95 Cutlass Supreme, I had a 93 Cutlass Convertible, an 86 Cutlass Supreme Brougham, a 96 Ciera, an 00 Grand prix, all of which were relatively desirable and most of which were relatively well put together cars, then I had an 01 Omega, which makes me terrified of Opels to this day. The Supremes were stylish, drove well, the four door was very well made and durable and reliable (the convertible was awful, but it was fun, luxurious, beautiful inside and out, and it had FOUR ADULT SEATS) . But nothing in the last 20 odd years has struck me as remotely desireable or interesting. I don’t (think I) have an irrational hatred for GM, it’s more like that really good friend you had in high school who made a long series of very bad decisions and you feel a little pity for them, but at the same time, you see they got what they earned and they keep making terrible decisions and you at some point think, well, you not only made your bed, but you’re lying in it and you keep doing these things against all decent advice, and you just say, I don’t want this person in my life any more until they are less toxic.
Having owned a 2016 Cascada for 7 years now, I can tell you that it has been an excellent car. If you have driven one, you know that the power is more than adequate and very smooth. The ride is comfortable, the rear seats have way more room than a Camaro or Mustang, and the car gets compliments on its looks on a regular basis. Plus the front wheel drive provides for year around driving in snowy climates. With the Cascada gone, there are no reasonably affordable alternatives for a comfortable 4-passenger all-season convertible.