Acadia nice but not different enough entrant to crossover field

GMC, whose sales are second only to Chevy in General Motors' hierarchy, is reaching for new territory with the new Acadia, a full-sized crossover with sophisticated styling, lots of versatility and plenty of value given its extensive standard equipment list.

The Acadia comes in SLE and SLT forms, and its engine is a 275 horsepower 3.6 liter V-6 that gets 18 miles per gallon in the city and 26 on the highway in a front-wheel drive version, and 17/24 for all-wheel drive.

Standard equipment includes full power accessories, OnStar, front row side impact air bags, first, second and third row head-curtain side impact air bags, air conditioning, cruise control, remote keyless entry, tire pressuring monitoring system and StabiliTrak stability control system with rollover mitigation .

Though I have not driven the Acadia, I'm impressed with what I've seen from a distance. It's a beautifully done product with precision fittings, durable, contemporary interior, and best of all, lots of space in the third row. And interestingly, it's so aerodynamic that it has a drag coefficient that is exactly the same as Corvette's ZO6!

That third row roominess will, I suspect, nail a lot of sales for GM because most other competing products on the market cannot claim to have anything but cramped third rows designed for occasional use only.

Wisely, GM has given the Acadia some of its own stylistic flavorings inside and out. But I'm not sure it's enough. It still looks too much like the Saturn Outlook, another of the GMC crossover triplets that costs quite a bit less.

In today's style-conscious market, you can never have enough individuality. Though Acadia is undeniably pretty, why didn't they give it a more distinctive look, as they did with the Buick Enclave, which has won raves all across the board for its appearance?

But that resemblance issue is a relatively small one when you think of all that this product offers. Acadia is a breath of fresh air, both for GMC and for GM itself.

Prices start at just under $30,000, but with options, a price in the low 40s is not an impossibility.