It's Buick's Century; 100th anniversary kicks off a year early.(Brief Article)

Scottish immigrant David Dunbar Buick left a promising career as a plumbing inventor (he got porcelain to stick to iron, thank him every time you take a bath) and started making his own gasoline engines in Detroit at the very tail end of the 19th century. Buick had help from engineers Walter Marr and Eugene Richard, two of the best of their day. One of their first products was the overhead-valve engine, used in more efficient form on Buicks to this day.

At just about the turn of the century (the previous century) the trio put together the first car in which that engine could spin. Theoretically that was the first Buick, but history doesn't record it that way. They were so happy with their work that they continued building prototype cars and engines and incorporated the whole process under the name ``Buick Motor Co.'' on May 19, 1903. That was the start.

The next year, shortly after moving Buick from Detroit to Flint, William ``Billy'' Durant took over. As so many carmakers are doing today, Durant wanted to merge. He tried first with another fledgling auto entrepreneur named Henry Ford, but those talks failed. So Durant created an entity called General Motors in 1908 and started a series of takeovers: First Oldsmobile, then Cadillac and Oakland (later to be called Pontiac) were taken into the GM fold by 1909. Two years later, Chevrolet was founded after Durant lost control of the struggling GM to bankers, who put a carriage superintendent in charge named Charles Nash. With help ...