The Buick XP2000 or XP-2000 was the name of a

concept car A concept car (also known as a concept vehicle or show vehicle) is a car made to showcase new styling or new technology. Concept cars are often exhibited at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or may not ...

produced by

Buick Buick () is a division (business), division of the Automotive industry in the United States, American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Started by automotive pioneer David Dunbar Buick in 1899, it was among the first American automobil ...

General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...

(GM). It was assembled in 1995 by GM's Australian division

Holden Holden, formerly known as General Motors-Holden, was an Australian subsidiary company of General Motors. Founded in Adelaide, it was an automobile manufacturer, importer, and exporter that sold cars under its own marque in Australia. It was ...

, and first showcased at the North American International,

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, and

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

auto show An auto show, also known as a motor show or car show, is a public exhibition of current automobile models, debuts, concept cars, or out-of-production classics. It is attended by automotive industry representatives, dealers, auto journalists a ...

s that same year. Styled similarly to the then-current

Commodore Commodore may refer to: Ranks * Commodore (rank), a naval rank ** Commodore (Royal Navy), in the United Kingdom ** Commodore (India), in India ** Commodore (United States) ** Commodore (Canada) ** Commodore (Finland) ** Commodore (Germany) or ' ...

model, the XP2000 featured a number of new technologies that would eventually make their way into future GM vehicles. As of October 2016, the XP2000 concept is currently a part of the collection of th
J.A. Cooley Museum
in San Diego, California.

History and development

General Motors,

parent company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...

of Buick and Holden, took an interest in

rebadging In the automotive industry, rebadging (also known as badge engineering, an intentionally ironic misnomer in that little or no actual engineering takes place) is a form of market segmentation used by automobile manufacturers around the world. T ...

a Commodore for the Buick lineup in 1994. As such, GM allocated the funding to Holden to manufacture a portion of the next Commodore platform in

left-hand-drive Left-hand traffic (LHT) and right-hand traffic (RHT) are the practices, in bidirectional traffic, of keeping to the left side or to the right side of the road, respectively. They are fundamental to traffic flow, and are sometimes called the ' ...

(LHD). The project, known as "GMX 127" or "Project 127", culminated the next year in the XP2000 concept, though the project was scrapped the following year due to financial concerns. Following the cancellation, Buick general manager Ed Mertz reportedly noted that some of the car's new

technological Technology is the application of conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible tools such as ute ...

features would probably be offered soon on other

models A model is an informative representation of an object, person, or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin , . Models can be divided int ...

. Despite being scrapped, the adaption of the VT's underpinnings to LHD would not go unused. This architecture would go on to be used in the Chevrolet Lumina and its rebadged variants, as well as in shortened form for the fifth-generation

Pontiac GTO The Pontiac GTO is a front-engine, rear-drive, two-door, and four-passenger automobile manufactured and marketed by the Pontiac (automobile), Pontiac division of General Motors over four generations from 1963 until 1974 in the United States &m ...

. As of at least October 2016, the concept vehicle is a part of installations at the J.A. Cooley Museum in San Diego.

Technology

Much of the work done to produce the XP2000 was focused upon its internal technologies, showcasing future systems intended to improve driver safety, comfort, and convenience. A suite of assistance features were a part of the vehicle, including

keyless entry A remote keyless system (RKS), also known as remote keyless entry (RKE) or remote central locking, is an electronic lock that controls access to a building or vehicle by using an electronic remote control (activated by a handheld device or aut ...

heads-up display A head-up display, or heads-up display, also known as a HUD () or head-up guidance system (HGS), is any see-through display, transparent display that presents data without requiring users to look away from their usual viewpoints. The origin of t ...

voice recognition Voice recognition can refer to: * speaker recognition, determining ''who'' is speaking * speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and te ...

, advanced sectioned

climate control Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC ) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. H ...

, a

navigation system A navigation system is a computing system that aids in navigation. Navigation systems may be entirely on board the vehicle or vessel that the system is controlling (for example, on the ship's bridge) or located elsewhere, making use of radio or oth ...

, automated

seat A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but may also refer to concentrations of power in a wider sense (i.e " seat (legal entity)"). See disambiguation. Types of seat The ...

and

mirror A mirror, also known as a looking glass, is an object that Reflection (physics), reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror forms an image of whatever is in front of it, which is then focused through the lens of the eye or a camera ...

adjustment, and a crude version of lane keep assist, among others. Many of these features, while standard or optional on most vehicles today, were considered new and

innovative Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed ent ...

in the mid-90s, having little or no application at that time. Additionally, the vehicle featured eight airbags, more than the typical two of the period.

References

{{Buick vehicles Buick concept vehicles General Motors concept cars