Walter
Murr
and
Thomas
Buick
Buick’s chief engineer, Walter
L.
Marr
(left),
and
Thomas
D. Buick, son of founder David Dunbar Buick,
drove the first Flint Buick
in
a
successful Flint-Detroit
round trip in July 1904.
David Buick was building gasoline engines by
1899,
and
Marr,
his engineer, apparently built the first auto
to
be called
a
Buick
in
1900. However, Buick traditionally
dates its beginnings
to
1903.
That was the year the
company
was
reorganized, refinanced and moved from
Detroit to
Flint.
Buick has always been
a
product
innovator. Buick engineers developed the
“valve-in-head” engine,
a
light, powerful and reliable
engine which would eventually influence the entire
automotive industry.
William
C.
Durant was instrumental
in
promoting
Buicks across the country using his Durant-Dort
C‘miage Co. outlets and salespeople as the nucleus
of
a
giant distribution system.
He
knew the Buick
as
a
“self-seller.”
If
automobiles could be this good, he
thought, maybe
it
was
time to switch from the horse and
buggy business to automobiles.
At the 1905 New York
Auto Show, Durant took
orders
for 1,000 Buicks
before
the
company had
built
40.
On Buick’s
success, Durant created
a
holding company,
September
16,
1908.
He
called
it
General Motors.
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