Buick Motor Company / Buick Motor Company

David Dunbar Buick incorporated the Buick Motor Company in Detroit on May 19, 1903, and moved operations to Flint that fall. Flint’s first Buick, completed at a plant on West Kearsley Street, was successfully driven roundtrip to Detroit in July 1904. Motor Age magazine described the Buick as “a little machine that has attracted an immense amount of attention . . . owing to its high power and low price.” William C. Durant of Flint’s Durant-Dort Carriage Company assumed management of Buick in November. In 1905 Durant moved assembly operations briefly to Jackson, then began construction of a large Buick complex on this site. Three years later Buick led U.S. automobile production, manufacturing 8,820 vehicles. Durant used Buick’s success to establish the General Motors Company that year. William C. Durant, General Motors founder, claimed that the Buick plant he built on this site in 1905-06 was the nation’s largest automobile factory. The names of many Buick leaders are synonymous with automobile history. Louis Chevrolet, a Buick race driver, later developed the Chevrolet car with Durant. Charles Nash and Walter Chrysler served as presidents of Buick before starting their own companies. During World War I, Flint’s Buick factories built Liberty aircraft engines and ambulances. World War II Hellcat tank destroyers and other war materials were also made here. Under Harlow Curtice, a post-war GM president, Buick expanded greatly, promoting its cars as high-powered and distinctive. In the 1980s the Buick City Assembly Center was built across the street, on the site of Buick’s original north Flint factory.