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About Buick

Buick (pronunciation: [bjuː.ɪk] ) is an automotive brand in the United States in 1903 was established. The brand is owned by the General Motors group and produces cars in the USA, Canada and China. The sales markets are North America , China, Israel and Taiwan. Buick is positioned as a lower luxury brand, comparable to the former Swedish Saab division.

History

David Dunbar Buick was born on September 17, 1854 in Scotland. When he was two years old, he and his parents emigrated to Detroit in the United States. In 1869 he started working for a company that made plumbing products. When that company had problems by 1882, he took it over with a partner. Buick was also the inventor of, among other things, the garden sprinkler and a cheaper method of providing cast iron with a layer of enamel. With those innovations and under the management of Buick’s partner, the company became successful.

In the 1890s Buick became interested in the internal combustion engine. In 1899, he sold his stake in the company for $ 100,000 and started the Buick Auto-Vim and Power Company. Here he focused mainly on stationary engines. Later he also built a car but ran out of money after only one car was built. In early 1902, he founded the Buick Manufacturing Company with the intention of building and selling motorcycles and cars. By the end of the year, money had run out with only two cars built. Yet he had then invented the overhead valve engine that allowed higher power than the side valve engine. In 1903, Buick borrowed $ 5,000 from a friend with whom he founded the Buick Motor Company in Flint , Michigan on May 19, 1903.

General Motors

Buick sold the company to James Whiting who brought in William Durant to lead it. That was the end of Buick’s share. Durant, meanwhile, made Buick the largest automobile builder in the United States and founded General Motors in 1908 with the capital earned as a holding company above Buick. By 1910, through various acquisitions, General Motors grew into a large group of more than 30 companies. Buick continued to grow and gained a good reputation for reliability. During World War I , Buick also produced aircraft engines and ambulances .

In 1925 a Buick was sent around the world, including Belgium and the Netherlands, to demonstrate the reliability of GM as an exporter. In 1926, production climbed to more than 260,000 units. Buicks were also built in Canada and parts were shipped overseas, including Belgium, to be assembled on site. In 1929, a sales office was also opened in Shanghai, China. Sister brand Marquette was also launched that year , which ended in 1930.

As a luxury brand, Buick was hit harder than other brands by the Great Depression in the early 1930s. In 1933, production collapsed to barely 40,000 pieces. In 1934 the new Buick Series 40 was introduced which delivered excellent performance for a limited price. Production climbed back to 78,000 units that year. In 1936, the Buick Roadmaster and other successful models were added. Production thus climbed to nearly 200,000 copies.

After World War II

On February 2, 1942, Buick’s factories switched to war production before World War II . The company made aircraft engines and M18 Hellcat tank destroyers , among others .

Economic heyday followed after World War II. By 1950 sales had risen to 550,000 units and further to 745,000 in 1955. In 1948, the first Dynaflow automatic gearbox was introduced on the Roadmaster, and a pressurized V8 followed in 1953 . In 1949, Buick’s well-known portholes also appeared in the flanks.

By the late 1950s, an unloved style, technical difficulties, and an economic downturn caused Buick to deteriorate. By 1959, production had fallen below 250,000 units. All models were dropped that year. New designs came with new engines and new transmissions and new names. The Buick Electra became the new top model and replaced the Super . The Electra 225 replaced the Roadmaster and the Limited . The Special and the Century also disappeared. In 1961 the name became Specialreused for a compact model. In 1963 that new Special also got Buick’s first V6 built. Sales rose again to 450,000 units. Over the 1960s sales continued to grow, eventually reaching a record 821,165 copies in 1973. Then the 1973 Oil Crisis struck and sales for the next two years were below half a million.

Buick revived with the development of more economical engines in attractive lighter models. Where the American car industry and General Motors as a whole were hit hard by the crises, Buick increased its market share. Models with front-wheel drive were particularly successful in that period. In 1984, over 1 million Buicks were sold worldwide. In 1989, Buick was ranked first in North America and second in the world in a quality survey conducted by market research firm JD Power and Associates . The success in this and other studies was then also played out in marketing .

Recent

Edward H. Mertz, who became general Buick manager in 1986, defined Buick’s future as the builder of the most American of all GM brands. Buicks would grow powerful, remarkable, and mature. Emphasis was placed on performance, detail and comfort. In 1991 Buick was the fastest growing brand on the American market. In 1999, a GM joint venture in China began production of the Buick Regal for the Chinese market. In 2001 the same joint venture launched the Buick Sail, a family car based on the Opel Corsa. In 2002, the brand celebrated its 100th anniversary.

Features

Emblem

Buick’s emblem consists of three shields placed diagonally in a circle. They are red-white-blue in color from left to right. This emblem is known as the Trishield and was introduced in 1959 for the 1960 model year. The shields represent the three models that then formed the range, the LeSabre, the Invicta and the Electra. The shields themselves are derived from the family coat of arms of founder David Buick. Previously, another derivative of that coat of arms has been used since the 1930s.

Portholes

A traditional style feature of Buick are the so-called portholes. First used in 1949, these were a series of three or four portholes on either side at the front of the flank. They originally came from the tuned car of designer Ned Nickles and had lights there representing the fighter jet exhausts. Those lights were never used by Buick. Cheaper models had three and more expensive four. When reused in 2003, models with a V6 engine had six and those with a V8 had eight.

Style line

Another style feature that was in use from the 1940s to the 1970s is the sweepspear, a curved line across the side of the body that departed at the front, after the front wheels curved down to the rear wheel, then the rear wheel followed up to get to the taillights in a straight line. At first that line was chrome , then vinyl, and finally a groove in the metal.

Radiator grille
Another feature from the 1940s is the oval radiator grille with vertical lines. In the early 1950s, those lines were thick teeth and the whole was sometimes referred to as dollar grin.

Markets

Before World War II, Buick was sold worldwide. In China, one in five cars before the war was a Buick. In New Zealand were Buicks built but that market the brand disappeared after the war. Buick was sold in Europe and the Middle East until 1996. Currently Buick is primarily a local brand for North America with some overseas markets.

Buicks are sold in Israel and are imported by Universal Motors, Ltd. Shanghai GM, a joint venture, is building its own Buick models in China. GM Taiwan was founded in 1989 and imported Buicks for the Taiwanese market , among others. In 2004 GM signed a licensing agreement with the local company Yulon . In 2006 the first Buick, a Buick LaCrosse , was produced.