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I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but if you were thinking of buying an Oldsmobile, you're too late. As you read this, the Olds brand, which has been around for more than a century, has just been discontinued. The Buick brand is expected to pick up most of the slack, including the sport-utility business Olds had built up with its Bravada. Enter the Rainier.

As is befitting a Buick, the Rainier is a little bit more upscale than the Bravada. The sticker on our black Rainier CXL came in at just over $41,000. That's a lot of money, to be sure, but includes just about every luxury and convenience goody you could mention.

The standard engine is a GM Vortec 4200 six that delivers 275 horsepower and 275 lb.-ft. of torque. Our test vehicle had the optional all-aluminum, Vortec 5300 V8, Buick's first V8 in almost a decade. This engine features advanced sequential fuel injection and delivers 290 horsepower and 325 lb.-ft. of torque. The result is a smooth and powerful vehicle under all driving conditions.

Both powerplants are mated to the rugged, GM Hydra-Matic 4L60-E four-speed automatic transmission. Our test vehicle also came with the optional all-wheel drive. Although we never got into any off-roading situations, it performed admirably as a boulevard luxury cruiser, which is how 99 percent of the Rainiers are going to be used 99 percent of the time.

Moreover, in the V8 all-wheel drive configuration, the tow rating of the Rainier tops three tons, which makes this a serious vehicle for trailering. Even the six-cylinder version has a tow rating almost as high.

Best of all, you can do this on regular fuel. One of my gripes in recent years has been the trend toward demanding premium fuel even in relatively small engines. The European manufacturers are the worst offenders, but they're hardly alone. It is possible to put an engine in a higher state of tune and thereby deliver more horsepower with the use of higher octane fuel. But with the difference in cost between regular unleaded and premium at twenty or thirty cents these days, you pay through the nose at the pump — and keep paying for as long as you own the vehicle. This is especially true in a large SUV such as the Ranier that only gets 18 mpg on the highway. So thank you, GM, for giving the Rainier a big-block V8 that runs on regular.

Finally, as luck would have it, we were able to do a back-to-back test with a Lexus GX470, a sport-utility of roughly the same size and purpose but costing $13,000 more. We preferred the interior styling of the Lexus, but the Buick held its own by every objective measurement — and had a better sound system, to boot. In sum, GM has done a good job with the Rainier and I highly recommend it to anyone in the market for an upscale SUV. R&D