Welcome to the eighteenth instalment of our "On the Road to..." series! The deal is simple: manufacturers loan us vehicles, we drive them to sweet locations, shoot photos along the way and then share that experience with you.
This week I took out the Buick Encore, a sub-compact SUV with much of the luxury feel of the Enclave that I recently , but in a smaller package. If you listened to that I did on CKNW with Mike Eckford on Friday you'll have heard me say that I'm "not at all afraid" of this fog that's rolled in on us here in the city, then you heard me immediately contradict myself by saying that it makes me claustrophobic (afraid!). Mike suggested that I take a trip above the fog layer, and so that's exactly what I did with my kindergarten-aged son.
Above is a photo of the Encore once we reached our destination above the layer of fog. The journey to this point took us across the Second Narrows bridge and almost into Deep Cove before we found ourselves heading into Mount Seymour Provincial Park and the border between low lying fog and freedom.
The lookout near the top held the first dose of that freedom, and it allowed for some great photos.
But our goal was the get to the chairlifts and do some walking around Seymour proper. We did. And it was incredibly warm and pleasant. Almost unbelievably so after coming from the chilly doom of the mist in the city.
On the way down we found ourselves a sweet trail to putter down.
And of course we once again crossed the threshold of sunshine and fogsville. This photo was taken pretty much right at that point. Our day got progressively more flat and grey beyond here.
So how did the Encore fare? Swimmingly. As I mentioned above, it's got the luxury of the Enclave but is compacted into a tiny little machine. We averaged less than 9L/100KM which is even better than the fuel consumption of some small cars I've driven lately. To be honest I was actually shocked by the fuel economy. So much so that it overshadowed the tech features, the comfort, and the overall feel of the car, which all got A's. If you're looking for a crossover I would definitely recommend taking this one out for a test drive.
Learn more about the Buick Encore at
