Buick

From Classic Car Life

Buick is a brand of automobile sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, Qatar, Kuwait, and Israel by General Motors Company (GM). It is GM's North American-based entry-level luxury brand.

History

Early years

Buick is currently the oldest American automobile manufacturer and among the oldest automobile brands in the world. It originated as the Buick Motor Company, an independent motor-car manufacturer, and was incorporated on May 19, 1903, by David Dunbar Buick in Detroit, Michigan. Later that year, the struggling company was taken over by James H. Whiting (1842-1919), 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.

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 steeringsimilar to the Oldsmobile Curved Dash.

In mid-1904 another prototype was constructed for an endurance run, which convinced James H. 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. There were 37 Buicks made that year, none of which survived. There are, however, two replicas in existence: the 1904 endurance car, at the Buick Gallery & Research Center in Flint, and a Model B assembled by an enthusiast in California for the division's 100th anniversary.Both of these vehicles use various parts from Buicks of that early era, as well as fabricated parts. These vehicles were each constructed with the two known surviving 1904 engines.

The power-train and chassis architecture introduced on the Model B was continued through the 1909 Model F. The early success of Buick is attributed in part to the valve-in-head engine patented by Eugene Richard. The creation of General Motors is attributed in part to the success of Buick, so it can be said Marr and Richard's designs directly led to GM.

The basic design of the 1904 Buick was optimally engineered even by today's standards. The flat-twin engine is inherently balanced, with torque presented to the chassis in a longitudinal manner, actually cancelling front end lift, rather than producing undesirable lateral motion. The engine was mounted amidships, now considered the optimal location.

Durant was a natural promoter, and Buick soon became the largest car maker in America. 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 that Buick occupies to this day in the General Motors lineup. The ideal Buick customer is comfortably well off, possibly not quite rich enough to afford a Cadillac, nor desiring the ostentation of one, but definitely in the market for a car above the norm.

At first, Buick followed the likes of Napier in automobile racing, winning the first-ever race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

In 1911, Buick introduced its first closed-body car, four years ahead of Ford. In 1929, Buick Motor Division launched the Marquette sister brand, designed to bridge the price gap between Buick and Oldsmobile; however, Marquette was discontinued in 1930. Buick scored another first in 1939, when it became the first company to introduce turn signals.

Recent years

Overall sales of the Buick brand peaked in the 1984 model year, when falling oil prices and the prevailing economic recovery buoyed the sales of traditional full-sized automobiles, in combination with the popularity of newer, smaller offerings and performance oriented turbocharged models. Subsequently, sales fell as downsized premium luxury coupe, full-sized and mid-sized models were poorly received by the public in the period between 1985 and 1990. As well, the advent of sport luxury compacts from German manufacturers such as BMW were drawing customers away from traditional luxury brands.

The number of Buick models in the lineup fell over time, with the compact and performance segments being abandoned altogether. By the 2000s, Buick was now a traditional luxury brand in the GM group, emphasizing comfort and safety, whereas Cadillac has focused more on cutting edge products that were performance oriented and avante-garde styled. The Buick LaCrosse and Rendezvous are slotted against the Lexus ES and Lexus RX, respectively, while the Cadillac CTS is intended to compete against luxury performance imports from German and Japanese manufacturers.

Buick introduced their first SUV in 2001, the Buick Rendezvous crossover, which provided the much-needed success for the marque, given the decline of its aging customer base, and single handedly brought a large number of younger, wealthier "conquest" buyers into Buick showrooms who otherwise wouldn't have considered purchasing a Buick. Certainly a major contributor to the Rendezvous's success was an aggressive value-pricing strategy that made the Rendezvous US$6,500 less than a comparably equipped Acura MDX and US$8,000 less than the Lexus RX300. The Rendezvous handily exceeded GM's predictions of 30,000 to 40,000 units a year by a large margin, which helped offset the poor sales of the Pontiac Aztek with which it shared its Ramos Arizpe, Mexico, assembly line. Commercials featuring Tiger Woods aired during the Buick Classic golf tournament. The truck-based Buick Rainier was added to the lineup in 2004.

Future of Buick

In 2005, reports began spreading that GM was exploring the possibility of eliminating the Buick brand, to cut costs. The speculation was based on the temporary suspension of GM's planned Zeta project to develop new rear wheel drive cars fitting the Buick market niche . GM also has started consolidating of Buick, Pontiac, and GMC trucks into single dealer franchises, which would make it simple to eliminate the Buick brand without leaving dealers devoid of product.

However, with the development of the Zeta platform still ongoing (including the introduction of the 2006 VE Commodore and the new 2010-model Chevrolet Camaro), and the cancellation of the Pontiac brand at the end of the 2010 model year, Buick will survive.

Buick began consolidating its lineup in 2005, replacing the Century and Regal with the LaCrosse (known as the Buick Allure in Canada where, in some French speaking regions the word "lacrosse" is a double-entendre with a crude sexual connotation), and the LeSabre and Park Avenue with the Lucerne in 2006. Both of its SUVs, the unibody Rendezvous and truck-based Rainier were discontinued in 2007 to make way for the new and highly successful 2008 Enclave, while the slow-selling Terraza minivan was also dropped for 2008. This left the marque with just three models in the United States. In 2008, Buick sales slipped from an average of four cars per dealer per month to three, in addition to two trucks.

In January 2009, Buick unveiled the new 2010 LaCrosse sedan, a radical departure from the model it replaced 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, especially when the car was compared to the similarly placed Lexus ES and came out the winner on nearly all counts. As of this writing, demand has exceeded supply and General Motors is looking at opening up additional manufacturing capacity to meet this.

In the 2009 J.D. Power and Associates Vehicle Dependability Study, Buick tied with Jaguar as the most dependable brand in the United States.

At its extended product review in August 2009, GM announced Buick's future lineup. LaCrosse and Lucerne models will continue in production to cater to Buick's traditional upper medium price/entry-level luxury markets. In addition, a small Pontiac Vibe sized crossover based on the Gamma II platform will be produced. Another, larger, compact crossover will start production in 2011, and a hybrid version will utilize the 2-mode hybrid system that was planned to be used in the cancelled Saturn VUE hybrid. The Regal will return in 2011 along with a new compact sedan that will be assembled in China. In worldwide sales, Buick showed a huge resurgence during the months following the release of the new LaCrosse.

Credit for this page must go to the excellent Wikipedia, the original page can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick