For most car buyers over age 50, the mention of Buick conjures up the image of the old Buick Roadmaster, or the Century, or one of the other of various models from decades past. 

Those cars don’t exist anymore. All of them were midsize or larger, and people who bought them enjoyed the comfort and durability of their performance.

Go to a Buick dealership these days, and you can choose from a list that includes the Encore, Envision, Enclave or Envista. 

The Enclave is the most expensive, but it lists for $59,500 at the upper level. The Envision ranges from $33,000 to $47,500, the Encore from $25,00-$33,500, and the newest Envista from $22,400-$29,600.

General Motors has slotted its Buick Division into the downsized, economy-minded segment, and it has done well. 

When I spent a week with a Buick Encore GX Avenir, I gave a friend a short ride and he was amazed at how quick, agile and tight the vehicle was, and for an SUV — even a subcompact SUV — how inexpensive it was.

Another friend had bought a couple Chevrolet Trax SUVs at my suggestion, and when his time to buy came around again, I strongly recommended he check out the Buick Encore for his – encore. 

It just seemed that the less-expensive Trax had a few more shakes and rattles, which were insulated and avoided by the slightly costlier Buick line. He bought one, and he is probably a customer for life.

How did Buick, home of the barges previously, make the transition to compact economy vehicles? 

It was pretty simple, really. Korea’s car industry used to have a half-dozen manufacturers but times got tight and they started going out of business. The biggest and most successful was Hyundai, and the Korean government was instrumental in getting Hyundai to take over Kia, which has proven to be a highly profitable and successful partnership. Next came Daiwoo, and as they seemed to be going down, General Motors bought the company.

Daiwoo had a history of building some high quality into their vehicles, and Buick had been successful selling cars in China and Korea, so GM used the Daiwoo plant to start building redesigned and reimagined Buicks. 

One thing Korean cars all share is a belief in high economy for its vehicles, and by building smaller and more compact vehicles, the new fleet of Buicks could perform adequately with smaller engines.

The Buick Encore GX I test-drove, in Ocean Blue Metallic, came with the Avenir package, which adds some considerable features and creature-comforts that make it popular in U.S. markets too. 

The car I tested was above and beyond the basic front-wheel-drive versions. The Avenir comes in all-wheel drive, with a compact 9-speed automatic rather than the mundane CVT of lesser models, and it is powered by a 1.3-liter turbocharged 3-cylinder that turns out 155 horsepower — not a lot, we understand, but an upgrade from the base 1.2-liter’s 137 horsepower and 162 foot-pounds of torque. 

Until you drive it, you can’t imagine how adequate a 1.3 turbo can be.

Once Buick got the Encore established, it set about to shovel all the creature features into it that it had developed in their far-reaching realm. 

So the Encore has an upgrade to the Encore GX, and that has the ultimate upgrade to the GX Avenir that grows onto 19-inch alloy wheels rather than the 18s of other models.

Included are things like leather seats, with 8-way power adjustments and 2-way lumbar controls. It has stop-start to shut down the little engine when you are at a stoplight. It adds Stabilitrak, the stability control that also coordinates the traction control. 

It also has something called active noise-control, which might be a reason it seems extra quiet. There is also a premium entertainment system with Bose speakers. And then there are the safety upgrades.

Lane-keeping alert and assist, front pedestrian braking, lane change alert leads up to the lane-keep assist. With all-wheel-drive and traction control, climbing the hills of Duluth are a snap, and winter should provide no challenge at all.

We got up to 30 miles per gallon, with an EPA estimate of 27-28. All of those features boosted the price of the Encore GX Avenir up to $37,085. 

That’s a stiff increase from the base $25,000, but when you evaluate the many features and options, you can appreciate the extra cost.