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MAY 19th, 2003
100 YEARS of Automobile Manufacture
In 1903, Buick Motor Co. was hardly one of the more promising of the hundreds of tiny automobile companies struggling to emerge across the country. Its founder had produced only two cars in three years of trying. David Dunbar Buick, though an inventor of merit, was sometimes scorned as a dreamer. His company was in debt, its engineer had just left, and its financial backer wanted to bail out.
David Buick, born in Arbroath, Scotland, Sept. 17, 1854, had been a successful plumbing inventor and manufacturer in Detroit when his head was turned by gasoline engines in the late 1890s. He started a succession of companies: Buick Auto-Vim and Power Co. (1899 or 1900), Buick Manufacturing Co. (1901 or 1902) and Buick Motor Co. (incorporated May 19, 1903), all in Detroit.
These companies produced engines for power boats and farm use. By early 1901 a horseless carriage, referred to in letters as “the Buick Automobile,” existed. But Buick traditionally dates its beginnings to 1903 because that was the year Buick Motor Co. was incorporated, refinanced and moved to Flint.
On Sept. 11, 1903, James H. Whiting, manager of the Flint Wagon Works, announced that the wagon works directors had bought the Buick company and would move it “bag, baggage and David Buick” from Detroit. By December, a new one-story brick factory on W. Kearsley Street in Flint was up and running and engines were being built. On Jan. 22, 1904, Buick Motor Co., Detroit, was dissolved and on Jan. 30, 1904, Buick Motor Co., Flint, was incorporated.
Buick claims one of the most important and dramatic chapters in the history of the American automobile. Important? Buick was the financial pillar on which General Motors “today the world’s largest automaker “ was created.
Also, the roster of Buick’s early leaders is an all-star lineup of auto pioneers “William C. Durant, GM’s founder, Charles W. Nash, a founder of what became American Motors, Walter P. Chrysler, founder of Chrysler Corp and Harlow H. Curtice, a GM chief executive in the postwar era and Time magazine’s 1955 “Man of the Year.” As legendary GM President Alfred P. Sloan Jr. once wrote, “Buick had the management of stars.”
Then there’s Louis Chevrolet, who helped Durant found the Chevrolet Motor Co. His earlier stint at Buick was not as an executive but as a star of the Buick racing team.
By the 1920’s, Buick was becoming the car of choice for kings, sultans and political leaders and winning competitions from South America to Australia to the Soviet Union.
To commemorate Buick’s 100 years, Buick Communications have released a special “Buick Centennial media kit” Our website thanks Buick Communications for this material and has included three additional new menu items developed from it’s content.
“100 Years” The Buick Story - events, people and cars, with pictures.
“Emblems” Buick logos and emblems used through the 100 years, with pictures.
“Dream Cars” A compilation of Buick concept vehicles, with pictures
Posted 07/2003 |
