Happy birthday, Buick & Ford

Motor,  Aug 2003  by Nash, Tom

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MOTOR Magazine isn't alone in celebrating 100 years in the automotive realm. Both Buick and Ford Motor Company also turn the century corner this year.

Henry Ford, the most famous of the early auto pioneers, founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903. An earlier attempt at automaking, the Detroit Automobile Company, had faltered and was taken over by Henry Leland, who renamed the company Cadillac.

Ford is most well known, oi course, as the builder of the inexpensive Model T, which made cars affordable for almost everyone. That, in turn, mandated Ford's perfection of the moving assembly line and the $5 a day wage-both industry landmarks. Today, Ford stands as one of the true leaders in the global automotive arena.

On a more subdued scale, Buick has chugged and hummed along to its own centennial. David Dunbar Buick, a Detroit plumbing inventor and entrepreneur, designed engines and a car or two before the turn of the last century. But things didn't start rolling until the company was incorporated and moved north to Flint, Michigan, where 37 cars were made in 1904. In 1908, William C. Durant brought Buick and Oldsmobile together, then added Cadillac and Oakland (later to become Pontiac) to form General Motors. Chevrolet joined the company in 1917. Buick has survived to this day as an upscale, comfortable vehicle line with touches of luxury and convenience.

Copyright Hearst Business Publishing Aug 2003
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