At some point, the weight of the evidence surely must tip the scales in favor of Buick, the aspiring General Motors upscale brand fashioning one of the all-time great comebacks/revivals/reversal of fortunes in automotive history.

Almost no one expected to see Buick racking up record global sales and winning plaudits for quality by 2016. But here we are. Buick is strong and growing, winning awards and grabbing attention from buyers too young to associate Buick with such great cars as the Buick Wildcat and Buick Special.

Buick is doing well all over the world, save Canada. The key to success in Canada is the 2016 Buick Envision crossover. It competes in very heart of the Canadian marketplace where Buick needs to be.

2017 Buick Enclave Sport Touring Edition with Satin Black Ice grille accents

How quickly the Buick story has changed. At the end of the last decade, Buck was a seriously ailing brand. Indeed, as far back as 2005, former vice-chairman Bob Lutz called Buick a “damaged brand” during a conference at the New York Auto Show. By 2009, as GM went into and emerged from bankruptcy, Buick was on life support. A mercy killing seemed imminent for a terminal brand with a proud history.

At the time, legions of experts were certain that Buick belonged in a grave beside Hummer, Saab, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Saturn. But GM officials, not to mention the restructuring team at what then was called Government Motors, took note of Buick’s powerful presence in China – where affordable Buicks are popular with 30-somethings and the county’s elite drive or are driven in a Buick.

Status? China’s last emperor, Pu Yi, was chauffeured in a Buick until he abdicated in 1912. Sun Yat-sen, founding father of the Republic of China, and Zhou Enlai, premier until 1976, were also driven in Buicks. Buick had an historical foundation in China on which to build a comeback.

Buick’s Avenir concept is a vision of where the brand would like to go with a flagship sedan.

Of course, none of that resonated much with the general North America public and most pundits in 2009. Buick’s buyers were seen as wrinkly retirees with one foot in the grave and both hands unscrewing the top of a Geritol bottle while the Golf Channel aired in the background. Buick’s lineup was littered with uninspired, me-too models assembled without imagination from GM’s parts bin. Buick was a tired relic, an exemplar of GM mismanagement going back decades.

The Buick Avista concept is a 2+2 coupe that Buick says pushes the brand’s design “ethos” and rekindles its historic performance roots. This is no Buick Century, that’s for certain.

Yet here we are in 2016, and Buick is doing better than anyone would have imagined in 2009. A strong and profitable presence in China has been the key to what we’re seeing now: 2015 sales of more than 1.2 million, the third straight year for record global sales at Buick.

(Oddly, Buick car sales in Canada were down 7.2 per cent last year and truck sales were down at even more troubling 10.2 per cent. Buick’s global picture is much brighter than the Canadian one. Buick in Canada has long been in desperate need of a compact crossover, a problem soon to be solved. Read on.)

Buick officials say they’re on track for another sales record in 2016, largely on the strength of a wave of new sheetmetal – finally. After a three-year lull, Buck has new models in the product pipeline.

The Cascada convertible – Buick’s first convertible in 25 years — will help Buick’s image, while sales in the important China market will get a boost from the new Verano hatchback. A new version of the Verano is expected in North America later this year or in early 2017.

There’s more. The 2017 LaCrosse will arrive as a new design this summer, but more importantly, the Envision compact crossover hits showrooms this year. The Encore mini-crossover gets a freshening this year; next year the important Enclave SUV (sport-utility vehicle) will finally, finally get a re-make.

Buick has high hopes for the 2017 LaCrosse which has a lovely interior. Unfortunately, sedan sales are sliding. What Buick needs most is a new Enclave SUV, not a LaCrosse.

The All – New 2017 Buick LaCrosse

Buick is refashioning its lineup after focusing on the basics of quality and customer service for several years. The results: in the most recent Consumer Reports ranking of auto brands, Buick took the No. 7 spot, ahead of Toyota, Honda, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Lincoln, Acura, Infiniti, Cadillac and others. Buick was the top-ranked Detroit-based brand and CR recommends 80 per cent of Buick’s lineup.

There’s more. The most recent J.D. Power and Associates three-year Vehicle Dependability Study ranks Buick No. 3 overall, just behind Lexus and Porsche. The Verano compact premium car, the Encore small SUV and the LaCrosse large car were ranked first in their respective classes.

Buick’s comeback appears to be the result of fortunate planning and creative crisis management from a Government Motors team with foresight and enough business savvy to see that the tri-continent strategy for Buick could work. That is, Opels in Europe and Buicks in China and North America are nearly identical. Spreading development costs across three continents gives Buick the economies of scale needed for a revival.

Buick will try to inject new life into the Enclave SUV with a specialty model, a Sport Touring Edition. A new Enclave is expected next year.

So far, so good. Now Buick needs to fashion the second phase of what Buick officials call “our journey”: successfully launch a wave of new products that drive sales in North America and in Europe (Opel), while maintaining Buick’s strength in China.

Buick may yet stumble, perhaps even suffer heavy criticism from falling short of today’s great expectations. Talk of life support, however, has been removed from the conversation entirely.