page_title: Buick
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: Buick / History / Early years
context_page_description: Buick is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors. Named for automotive pioneer David Buick, it was among the first American marques of automobiles, and was the company that established General Motors in 1908. Before the establishment of General Motors, GM founder William C. Durant had served as Buick's general manager and major investor. Buick was the first production automobile maker in the world to equip its cars with overhead valve engines, which it did in the year 1904.
  For much of its existence in the North American market, Buick has been marketed as a premium automobile brand, selling luxury vehicles positioned above GM's mainstream brands, while below the flagship luxury Cadillac division. In addition to wealthier buyers, Buick has also had a reputation of appealing to older buyers. In North America, Buick vehicles are almost always sold alongside GMC vehicles at joint dealerships, allowing the same dealer to market both upscale cars and trucks.
  In 2017, Buick sold more than 1.4 million vehicles worldwide, a record for the brand. The main market is China, where 80% of Buick-branded automobiles are sold.
context_section_description: Buick is one of the oldest automobile brands in the world and the oldest in the United States. (Autocar, founded in 1897, is the oldest motor vehicle manufacturer in the western hemisphere; while originally an automobile maker, Autocar now builds heavy trucks. Oldsmobile, also an early auto maker founded in 1897, is now defunct; Studebaker was founded in 1852, but did not begin producing automobiles until 1902; Ford produced his first car in 1896 but did not start the Ford Motor Co. until 1903, and during the period in between was involved with other automobile manufacturers such as Cadillac, founded in 1902).
  The first two Buick automobiles were made in 1899 and 1900 at the "Buick Auto-Vim and Power Company" by chief-engineer Walter Marr, but company owner David Dunbar Buick was reluctant to begin making automobiles, being satisfied with stationary and marine engine production, so Marr left Buick in 1901 to found his own automobile company under his own name. His replacement was Eugene Richard, who applied for a patent in 1902 for Marr's valve-in-head (overhead valve) engine, which patent, number 771,095, was awarded to Richard in the name of Buick in 1904. In 1903, the third Buick automobile was made, this time by Richard, but in 1904 Buick, whose company was now called "Buick Motor Company", moved from Detroit to Flint, Michigan, and Richard stayed behind. Marr was rehired in Flint as chief engineer, to begin making automobiles in production. That year, 37 Buick automobiles were made, production increasing to 750 in 1905, 1,400 in 1906, 4,641 in 1907, and 8,800 in 1908, taking the number one spot away from close competitors Oldsmobile, Ford, and Maxwell.
  David Buick incorporated his company as the Buick Motor Company on May 19, 1903, in Detroit, Michigan. Buick had been financed by friend and fellow automobile enthusiast, Benjamin Briscoe, who in September, 1903 sold control of the business to James H. Whiting (1842–1919), of Flint Wagon Works, in Flint, Michigan. Whiting moved Buick to Flint, to a location across the street from his factory, with the idea of adding Buick's engines to his wagons. David Buick stayed on as a manager, and re-hired Walter Marr as chief engineer. The engine Buick and Marr developed for this automobile was a two-cylinder valve-in-head engine of 159 cubic inches, with each cylinder horizontal and opposed to the other by 180 degrees.
  Whiting built only a few automobiles in 1904, the model B, before running out of capital, causing him to bring in William C. Durant that year as controlling investor. Durant built a few more model B's in 1904, and greatly stepped up production for the model C in 1905, and spent the next four years turning Buick into the biggest-selling automobile brand in the US. During the 19th century, Durant had made his fortune as co-owner, also in Flint, with Josiah Dallas Dort, of the Durant-Dort Carriage Company, which by 1904 was the largest carriage-making company in the country and one of the largest in the world. Durant moved most Buick production to the former Durant-Dort Imperial Wheel plant in Jackson, Michigan in 1905. Buick continued car production in Jackson through 1907, when Factory #1 was completed in Flint. The Jackson plant continued production with Buick trucks through 1912. David Buick sold his stock upon departure in 1906, making him a wealthy man, but he died in modest circumstances 25 years later. In 1907, Durant agreed to supply motors to R. S. McLaughlin in Canada, an auto maker, and in 1908 he founded General Motors.
  Between 1899 and 1902, two prototype vehicles were built in Detroit, Michigan by Walter Lorenzo Marr. Some documentation exists of the 1901 or 1902 prototype with tiller steering similar to the Oldsmobile Curved Dash.
  In mid-1904, another prototype was constructed for an endurance run, which convinced Whiting to authorize production of the first models offered to the public. The architecture of this prototype was the basis for the Model B.
  The first Buick made for sale, the 1904 Model B, was built in Flint, Michigan at a re-purposed fact
caption: Louis Chevrolet driving a Buick Bug in the 1910 Vanderbilt Cup