Buick, Buick

Whiting (1842-1919) Flint Timeline Project-James H. Whiting , who moved it to his hometown of Flint, Michigan, and brought in William C. Durant in 1904 to manage his new acquisition. Buick sold his stock for a small sum upon departure, and died in modest circumstances twenty-five years later.

Some documentation exists of the 1901 or 1902 prototype with tiller steering 1901 Buick perhaps 1902 similar to the Oldsmobile Curved Dash.

The creation of General Motors is attributed in part to the success of Buick, The free-wheeling gambler who created conservative General Motors so it can be said Marr and Richard's designs directly led to GM.

Using the profits from this, Durant embarked on a series of corporate acquisitions, calling the new mega-corporation General Motors. At first, the manufacturers comprising General Motors competed against each other, but Durant ended that. He wanted each General Motors division to target one class of buyer, and in his new scheme Buick was near the top — only the Cadillac brand had more prestige. This is the position Buick occupies to this day in the General Motors lineup.

The division needed to come up with a name. One of the Buick executives had returned from a recent trip to the British isles and told the other executives that the British referred to going 100mph as "doing the century". The executives liked the Century name and it stuck.

The number of Buick models on offer fell over time, with the compact and performance segments being abandoned altogether.

Over time Buick has become a traditional luxury brand in the GM group whereas Cadillac has focused more on cutting edge products.

In January 2009, Buick unveiled the new 2010 LaCrosse sedan, a radical departure from the model it will replace in mid-2009 and from Buicks of the recent past. So far, the car has drawn praise from critics and auto journalists and adds another bright spot to Buick's stable. There have been rumors on Edmund's and Motor Trend that Buick will have a roadster sedan in 2010.

This design, known as the Trishield , was adopted in 1959 for the 1960 models and represents the three models that comprised the lineup that yearLeSabre, Invicta, and Electra. The shields are adopted from the shield of the Buick family crest, which in modified form had been used on Buicks since the 1930s. A version of the traditional crest appeared on Electras through the 1980s.

The source of this design feature was a custom car of Buick stylist Ned Nickles), which in addition had a flashing light within each hole each synchronized with a specific spark plug simulating the flames from the exhaust stack of a fighter airplane. Combined with the bombsight mascot (introduced in the 1940s), the ventiports put the driver at the controls of an imaginary fighter airplane. The flashing light feature was not used by Buick in production, but the portholes remained as nonfunctional ornamentation.

Often, people would denote their cars as " Four-Holers " or " Three-Holers " to assert the car's class. When the number of portholes was standardized across the entire model line, buyers of the higher cost models complained bitterly that they felt shortchanged. In 2003 they were re-introduced on the Buick Park Avenue. After the Park Avenue was discontinued, Buick salvaged the portholes to appear on the new Lucerne. In a break with tradition, the Lucerne's portholes refer directly to engine configuration: V6 models have three on each side, while V8s have four on each side.

In 1959, Buick had the aerodynamic Delta Fin . The fin made parking difficult and blocked the drivers line of vision. In 1960, the fin was snubbed down and disappeared in 1961.

In the early 1960s, most models began to evolve a wide, rectangular pattern, until the '65 Skylark and Electra models appeared with full-width rear lamps. Since then, wide taillamps have been a Buick hallmark.

This has sometimes been called the Buick "dollar grin" particularly on the early 1950s models, which had thick, highly-polished ribs that somewhat resembled teeth. The 1950 model took this tooth theme to its extreme as the teeth crossed over the bumper exposing the 1950 "grin". The 1951 model reined in the theme bringing the teeth back behind the bumper.

This waterfall grille bears some resemblance to grilles of Buicks from the 1980s, such as the Grand National.

For the 1970 model year, Buick re-named its "Gran Sport" performance models (not to be confused with the Chevrolet Corvette "Grand Sport" cars) as "GS" models, and initially this was headed up by the powerful GS455 Stage 1, so named for its 455 cubic inch (7.4L) engine, with its high performance "Stage 1" package. Built on the same "A-body" platform as the Chevelle, Cutlass/442, and LeMans/GTO, the GS cars were performance based vehicles spawned from Buick's Skylark line, and shared all of the A-Body GM offering's tendency for good looks. Both hardtop and convertible "GS" models were offered.

GSX colors ran the spectrum that year, if that range included just yellow and white. Subsequent GSX models offered a variety of colors to go with the GSX signature hood blackout treatment and the swept wide pin striping vaguely reminiscent of the famous Buick "sweepspear". GSX models could be ordered with 350, 455, or 455 Stage 1 engines, and were outfitted with the usual GS options such as dual hood scoop hood with functioning "ram-air" intake, and dual exhaust. Horsepower ratings for the Stage 1 455s were a relatively mild 360 hp (or 370 depending on sources), but featured a pavement-tearing of torque at 2200 rpm, good to propel the relatively weighty GS455 Stage 1 equipped cars to quarter-mile times under 13.4 seconds. Buick halted GSX production after the 1972 model year.

Some Buicks were also built in Europe or were available with specific trim for European market until 1996.

From then onwards, all GMC products were sold by Chevrolet dealerships. In 1990, after a heavy modification to the protectionist policy of the sixties, GMC started assembling the Buick Century in Mexico, at the plant in Ramos Arizpe, in the state of Coahuila, just south of Texas, and selling it through Mexican Chevrolet dealerships, so it was not uncommon for many people to call it "Chevrolet Century". In 1997 GMC stopped production of Buicks in Mexico and the brand has not been sold there ever since.

Back then, they were also built at the GMNZ plant in Petone, outside Wellington. At the end of World War II, the Buick name was not revived.

In the early 1990s, Buick, along with other GM brands, was very popular and frequently seen on Taiwanese streets. Park Avenue, 3rd & 4th generation Regal, and 6th generation Skylark used to be sold in Taiwan.

Source: Wikipedia > Buick