The sleek new LaCrosse takes the field as Buick’s larger replacement for its similarly front-wheel-driven Century and Regal sedans. As the older cars’ monikers imply, they had been around for quite some time. It makes you wonder if Buick isn’t reworking its aging midsize family models into a breezily named new car as an inexpensive way to take on such competitors as the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord.

Midsize Buick’s marketing director, Mark Hines, responds that the LaCrosse’s new handle is justified by the radical departure it makes from the cars it replaced. Still, he sees no reason to play up the fact that GM Canada built the sedan on Buick’s W-Car intermediate platform – which is anything but intermediate in terms of the number of years its been around. That’s just the sort of thing that can cause you to distrust the sincerity of marketing directors. However, once you’ve driven Mr. Hines’s Buick, as we have, you might wonder what made you so cynical in the first place.

Cynics should consider that the LaCrosse enjoyed the best kind of executive oversight when General Motors’s vice-chairman Bob Lutz delayed the car’s program a full year in order to make sure the car’s team got everything right. And while the resulting automobile can boast that 80% of the parts tucked into its understated exterior are new ones, its greater significance might lie in the fact that – after years of the having focused on putting out trucks – the LaCrosse heralds Buick’s return to the business of building passenger cars.

The LaCrosse looks like a Buick, only better. Its lines – extending from a trademark oval grille to a nicely sculpted and integrated rear panel – appear to have been downplayed with singular determination. Unfortunately, we suspect that this may have resulted in a level of understatement that might seem overplayed, or to put it more forthrightly – lame – to others. However, while we don’t cotton to the way the LaCrosse’s C-pillar courses, we’re not one of those types. We actually liked the fact that the sedan turned no heads other than some curious ones riding in the Buicks it replaced.

The LaCrosse might be followed by a new Buick premium sedan, convertible, and flagship sedan. The auguring auto comes in three trim lines beginning with a base CX and going up a notch to a midrange CXL, each of which use GM’s stalwart overhead-valve 200-horsepower 3.8 liter V6. Positioned above these is the LaCrosse CXS, which derives its 240 horses from the General’s double-over head-cam V6.All have a four-speed automatic transmission, four-wheel disc brakes, and optional head-protecting curtain-side airbags in addition to their standard torso-side ones, while only a CXS will get you standard ABS and traction control and a sport-tuned suspension. All LaCrosses offer five-place seating with front buckets, or room for six with a flip-and-fold front center seat.

Our test LaCrosse, a leather-appointed CXS done up in Cardinal Red Metallic, had the buckets. These faced an easy-on-the-eyes dashboard that was blessed (or afflicted) with the same simplicity (or blandness) as the car’s exterior. At the center of the faux-wood trimmed dashboard a pair of vents traced a truncated arch, the general shape of which is something you’ll find on Buicks going back to the 1940s. We thought these vents a tad too petrochemical in their molecular composition, but say what we will, the dash’s remaining plastics were softly textured, and its instrumentation and switchgear ergonomically placed. A convenience package, and such things as $650 chrome-plated wheels, a $325 satellite radio, and a $295 “chrome appearance package,” helped bring the LaCrosse’s sticker up to just under $33,000.

A description of the LaCrosse’s seating could come straight out of the car reviewer’s inventory. As such, its chairs were roomy and comfortable, except where the headroom (and rear legroom) of some taller occupants might be involved. In addition, a six-way power seat and tilt steering wheel allowed us to adjust to an optimal driving position – something that does as much for a driver’s appreciation of a car’s handling as would Bilstein shocks on a Stradivarius suspension.

But it’s on the road where the LaCrosse CXS hustles with speed and grace. For one, it accelerates like a star forward. From there on out all is driving pleasure – with an excellent power-to-weight ratio attended by forthright steering, a quiet ride, powerful braking, and Euro-style composure.

We do have three caveats, though: First, it’s important to remember that we’re describing the CXS here, and not one of the other, significantly less well kitted-out LaCrosse models. Second, near the end of its weeklong stay with us, the LaCrosse’s fuel use had averaged only a disappointing 17 miles a gallon. Third and last, as impressive as it is, the LaCrosse has to move the ball way downfield before it can achieve the goal of matching Accord’s legendary status.

Of course, by that time, Buick will probably be itching to change the name again.