On Monday’s post for PA dealers, we left you hanging. We were discussing David Buick and how he turned his talents and little business knowledge into what it is today. Without him, who knows where the Buick PA dealers or any others would be today?
Where it went from there is complicated. In 1903, just months after Buick’s company went bankrupt, two brothers from the wealthy Briscoe family provided some capital for him to get started again. Before Buick made a profit from this, he used up all of this money, too. The Briscoe brothers unloaded the Buick Manufacturing Company to a local entrepreneur – James Whiting – of Flint Wagon Works. Within a year, Buick created its second car. But again, debt abounded and the Whiting family looked for a buyer for the company.
The man who helped David Buick become a major automaker was William Crapo Durant of Durant-Dort Carriage Company. He didn’t like cars, but he knew a good investment when he saw it. He loved how the Buick he drove for two months could “climb hills and run through mud like no other car made.” As such, six weeks after investing in the company, he went to the New York Auto Show and returned to Flint, Michigan with more than 1,000 orders for Buick cars. This is when Buick began major production and started turning a profit.
And so goes part two of the early days of Buick directly from your PA dealers. While you’re waiting for the third and final part of the trilogy on Friday, why not visit a local Buick dealer with a new appreciation for the man and the vehicle?
