CarBrandLogos archive · Buick · 1904

BuickModel B

The first Buick anyone could buy, and the seed of General Motors.

Photo: Joe Kieliszek · CC BY-SA 3.0

The story

A defining chapter in Buick history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Buick Model B, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

David Dunbar Buick was a plumbing manufacturer who had patented a method of bonding porcelain enamel to cast iron, and who then spent his fortune on engines. His key idea was the overhead-valve, or valve-in-head, engine, which breathes better and makes more power for its size than the side-valve units everyone else was using. The Model B of 1904 was the first Buick sold to the public, and it used a two-cylinder horizontally opposed valve-in-head engine driving the rear wheels through a two-speed planetary transmission with a cone clutch.

1904 Buick Model B · Joe Kieliszek · CC BY-SA 3.0

Design and engineering

Only a few dozen were built at Jackson, Michigan, in the first year, because Buick was nearly broke. What the car did was convince William Durant, a successful carriage manufacturer in Flint, to take over the company. Durant knew how to sell, moved production to Flint, and within four years had made Buick the largest car producer in America. In 1908 he used it as the foundation of a holding company called General Motors.

In production

The Model B's valve-in-head layout remained a Buick selling point for decades. Its designer, by contrast, left the company he founded with almost nothing and died in obscurity.

At a glance

The facts that define it.

Body

Torpedo

Technical specification

The Model B, in detail.

Body style: Torpedo
Layout: Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive
Engine: 2-cylinder horizontally opposed overhead valve engine
Transmission: Two-speed (plus reverse) planetary transmission with cone clutch
Assembly: United States: Jackson, Michigan
Manufacturer: Buick (General Motors)