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The Beginnings of Buick Performance The man behind the first Buick was David Dunbar Buick, who had previously developed a method to affix porcelain to cast iron, and thus also gave the world the white bathtub. Buick sold his plumbing business to Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company in 1899 and soon started a business to manufacture gasoline engines, a venture that was reorganized in 1902 to the Buick Manufacturing Company. Joining Buick’s venture were Walter Marr and Eugene Richard, the latter of whom had worked for Oldsmobile. Among the three, the famous Buick valve-in-head engine was built and tested in 1903. In Flint, Michigan the first production prototype Buick arrived on the scene in the early summer of 1904 and the very first Buick was sold in August of that year. Within two months sixteen Buicks had been ordered but David Buick’s company was in severe financial trouble with its investors. On November 1, 1904, the investors took over the company and turned over its reigns to the co-owner of the Durant-Dort Carriage Company, one William Crapo Durant.
When first approached by the investors, Billy Durant was not very
interested in the “horseless carriage” business but conceded to
try out a Buick for a few weeks, after which he became enthusiastic.
Durant was an excellent businessman and salesman. Within the year he
increased the capital stock in the Buick Motor Company from $75,000
to $1,500,000, and eventually brought Cadillac, Oldsmobile and
Chevrolet into the fold, the beginnings of General Motors.
Durant’s initial interest and his success with Buick came down to
the obvious superiority of Buick’s valve-in-head engine. This
design was new to the American market and it performed much better
than the prevalent flathead engines. If not for Buick’s engine,
the Buick Motor Company and its cars probably would have disappeared
in a few years because Durant wouldn’t have bought Buick and
General Motors would not have been born. So even in the very
beginning of the American automotive industry, Buick, the company,
was an innovator in engines designed for superior performance to its
competition.
Early Racing Once Durant got Buick, the company, on its feet, he set about to promote the cars. Even in this early age of the automobile, one of the best ways to promote a car to the public was to race it. Racing was becoming a most exciting new American pastime. It seems the "win on Sunday, sell on Monday" notion dates to these earliest days. As Durant assembled the General Motors Company, he recruited some of the best drivers of the day to make up his Buick racing team, including "Wild" Bob Berman and the three Chevrolet brothers (Louis, Arthur and Gaston). In the 1910’s, the Buick racing team was quite successful. However, now Durant himself became over-extended, which led to a take-over of General motors by a consortium of New York financiers. And once they ousted Durant, they dissolved the entire racing effort. Instead, their efforts were put into making the Buick the elite car of the medium-price range, the legacy that Buick has carried ever since. In fact, this was done rather successfully up until the stock market crash and great depression of the early 1930’s. Certainly, there are some interesting parallels, and perhaps some lessons, in Buick’s long run from the perspective of the public’s perception of the company and its image. For example, during the years of the great depression, rumors began to circulate that the Buick nameplate was about to cease. Buicks had been selling as a substantial part of the medium price range but this entire class of vehicles was being squeezed out by the economic events of the day. However, the new Buick General Manager, Harlow Curtice introduced the Series 40 in 1934 which was essentially a Chevrolet body mounted on a Buick straight-8 chassis. This car’s exceptional performance, for that period, was matched by phenomenal sales. Of course such sales assured the continuation of the Buick name and it became the springboard for the hottest-performing car in the medium-priced class throughout the late thirties and early forties. In 1935, the Series 40 became the Special, the Series 50 became the Super, the Series 60 became the Century (named for the claim that it had a top speed of 100 mph) and the Series 90 became the Limited. All had overhead-valve straight-8 engines. In 1936, the three larger engines were all replaced by a 320 ci unit that would be the mainstay of Buick engines until 1953. Also, the Super series was renamed Roadmaster. With this engine consolidation, the Century series earned its name, and became a hot seller and market driver for Buick. The Century could truly hold a steady 100 mph, a feat that few cars of this price class could duplicate. As time went on, this engine went from 120 hp in 1936 to 165 hp in 1941. With the engine upgrades, the Century line was always at the head of the class for performance, right up to the cessation of auto production during World War II.
And what had become of William Dunbar Buick? He had left Buick
entirely at the end of 1908 to manufacture carburetors, and later
two more automobiles, the Lorraine and the Dunbar. All these
ventures failed. By 1928, in his seventy-third year on earth, he was
working at the information desk at the Detroit School of Trades. He
died in 1929, impoverished, at age 74. Considering what he started,
his tragic career is as remarkable as Billy Durant’s was in its
enduring success.
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Web Site Build Date: January 2002 |