2025 Buick Enclave Avenir Might Be The Greatest College Graduation Pickup Car Ever

College graduation weekend can be a stressful time for any parents, and the 2025 Buick Enclave Avenir is here to help. After going on a 1,500-plus-mile road trip to a massive college in Virginia while shuttling around half a dozen people and hauling a small apartment's worth of furniture, I can confidently say the Enclave Avenir is built to handle this task.

I know it might sound sort of niche — I mean, how many college graduations are you going to go to in your lifetime anyway? But, the skills it demonstrated over my exhausting test are easily transferable to all sorts of life situations. It's these skills that set the Enclave Avenir apart from just about everything else on the road today.

Full Disclosure: Buick lent me an Enclave with a full tank of gas to do a 1,500-mile road trip to Blacksburg, Virginia.

All Buick Enclaves are powered by the same turbocharged 2.5-liter inline-4 motor found in its platform siblings, the GMC Acadia and Chevy Traverse. It pumps out a respectable 328 horsepower and 326 lb-ft of torque, which is more than enough to move this massive, 4,700-pound seven-seater from 0 to 60 mph in 6.1 seconds with the help of an eight-speed automatic and optional all-wheel drive. That's not winning any races, but it's more than enough for a big three-row SUV. Around town, its sound is rather muted, but every once in a while there's going to be a grumble of that four-popper under heavy acceleration.

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Where it excels is the highway. Long road trips in this thing are a cinch. The motor returns about 24 mpg, pretty solid fuel economy for something this big without a hybrid motor. Over 1,550 miles of testing, that number actually beats the EPA rating of 19 city, 24 highway, 21 combined.. When factoring in its 21.7-gallon fuel tank, the Enclave can easily go over 520 miles between fillups. Not too shabby for a long, long ride, which is exactly what I did.

You see, my little cousin (who is now 22 and also 6'5") just graduated from college at Virginia Tech, so I was enlisted to help move his stuff from his apartment in Blacksburg, Virginia, to his childhood home in Northern New Jersey. When I was enlisted for this task, I knew there were two things I'd need out of a car: lots of space and excellent adaptive cruise control. Luckily, the Enclave Avenir has both.

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A real highlight of this car — and most modern General Motors products at this point — is the Super Cruise Level 2 hands-free driving system, a $3,730 option. It makes every other Level 2 system in the industry feel like child's play. When cruising down the highway, it's not uncommon to go an hour without needing to touch the wheel or pedals. Of the 1,500-ish miles I drove, at least 1,200 of them were with Super Cruise engaged, and not once did it ever feel sketchy or out of its depth. Set it at 85 mph and forget it. The Enclave Avenir effortlessly wafted me through rural Virginia. It's quite something.

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Even taking Super Cruise out of the equation, though, the Enclave Avenir is a genuinely nice place to be. I know a lot of effort has been spent over at Buick to shake the coffin car aesthetic it garnered over the years, and this massive crossover certainly does a lot to achieve that. It's got just the right amount of tech, focused around a massive, curved 30-inch screen that serves as a gauge cluster and infotainment display. I can't say for sure, but I'm 99% positive this is just the unit GM uses in Cadillacs flipped upside down. In any case, it's wonderfully easy to use and has enough features to make anyone on a long journey happy. The gauge cluster is also fairly customizable, and the driver can even throw a full-size map in it to help on a long drive. It's sometimes hard to convey how good an infotainment system is, so I'll say this: I often found myself using the native system and built-in Google Maps navigation rather than Apple CarPlay because it all worked so well. That speaks volumes if you ask me.

Passengers are also going to find plenty of soft-touch materials and genuinely interesting design shapes and choices inside the Enclave Avenir. All of the leather feels legitimately premium and the metal treatments are actually metal. It's still not a Cadillac, but it definitely has a fit and finish appropriate for a car that costs $65,125 (including destination) crossover.

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Something else the Enclave Avenir has going for it is some very comfortable front seats. They've got a massage function, but it's pretty meh. Regardless, they're still very comfy and didn't leave me feeling sore, even after eight hours of driving.

Oh, and just as an added bonus, everyone I passed on my road trip surely remarked on what a good-looking car the new Enclave is, especially in Avenir trim with my test car's 22-inch wheels and Ocean Blue Metallic paint. Sure, it's a massive crossover, but it is a pretty one in my opinion.

While the front two seats are the best two positions in the Enclave, the five rear passengers won't be lacking too much, either. In the Avenir, the second row is fitted with two very comfy captain's chairs that are heated. Behind them is a three-seat bench for people you don't like quite as much, but they're still not lacking. Everybody has their own air vents and there are enough USB-C ports to power an entire Apple Store.

The Enclave does a lot of things really well, but what it most excels at is space. It's got loads of it. First of all, there's enough room to seat seven me's in this car. At 6-foot-1, I can sit behind my driving position in the second row, and then I can sit fairly comfortably in the third row as well. That's damn impressive and not something many other vehicles can really do.

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I mean, it makes sense. The new Enclave is 207.6 inches long and 79.6 inches wide — it better fit a lot of people, and it did. While I was down in Virginia, I used the Enclave to transport seven full-sized adults from place to place in and around the VT campus, and it did a really good job of it. Admittedly, I could tell that the little four-popper was working overtime to move an extra 1,500-ish pounds of humans and luggage around, but it was able to keep its composure.

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As you might expect, it's equally as good at carrying luggage and most of a college student's furniture. You see, along with attending the graduation ceremony, I had to bring a lot of his stuff back home since my family was going to run out of room in their cars. This was no problem for Enclave. With all seats up, the Enclave still has 22.9 cubic feet of trunk space. If that's not enough — which it wasn't for me — drop the second row to gain access to 57.1 cubic feet of room. If that still isn't enough room (which it wasn't), you can be like me and drop all five rear seats. That'll give you a gargantuan 97.5 cubic feet of cargo room. Sure, you can argue a minivan will have even more space, but there's no minivan with adaptive cruise control as good as this, so I'll trade some cubic feet for that.

The Enclave isn't really a cheap car, but you also shouldn't expect it to be, as it sits atop the Chevy Traverse and GMC Acadia in GM's portfolio. Prices start at $46,595 (including destination) for a front-wheel-drive Preferred trim. Still, the buyer isn't losing out on too much. You still get a 360-degree camera, 20-inch wheels, a power liftgate, a heated steering wheel, heated front seats, adaptive cruise and other safety features, and that 30-inch screen with Google Built-In. Not too shabby.

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From there is the $49,095 Enclave Sport Touring, which gives you sportier-looking 20-inch wheels, a Bose audio system, gloss black roof rails, a rear spoiler and some different body molding. Even though it's the ST trim, it's not actually any sportier than other Enclaves — it just looks a bit sharper.

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At the top of Enclave mountain, you've got my test vehicle, the Enclave Avenir. It starts at $59,695, but that price gets you LED headlights and taillights, 22-inch wheels, a panoramic sunroof, ventilated front seats with memory, active noise cancellation, a power tilt and telescoping steering column, an even better Bose audio system and some bespoke quilted leather interior options. If you want all-wheel drive on any trim, that's going to add an extra $2,000 to your price.

I know nobody wants a minivan anymore, and that's why vehicles like the Enclave Avenir exist. I'm starting to come to terms with that and realize there are actually some real benefits to big CUVs over minivans. You get things like a higher ride height, easier ingress and egress, better looks (argue with a wall) and more theoretical off-road utility. The Enclave Avenir has all of those things and more.

Moving can be stressful. Moving someone after they graduated from college? Buddy, you've got no idea what that's like. A vehicle less fit for the job would have only added to the chaos of the weekend, but the Enclave Avenir stepped up in ways I didn't think it could. Throughout my rigorous testing, it never faltered, never failed and never let me down. What this car is, is a moment of serenity, and I think that's what a lot of parents really want.

Andy Kalmowitz / Jalopnik

Andy Kalmowitz / Jalopnik

Andy Kalmowitz / Jalopnik