David Buick

"If I'd only got into the automobile business on the ground floor, what a millionaire I'd be today! If I'd started in like Ford and Dodge, I'd be sailing a yacht around the world right now. Well, they were lucky birds, those guys. They got a break."

So, to himself, ruminates many a U. S. man-in-the-street, dazzled by world-wide Fords, by General Motors balance sheets, by Chrysler skyscrapers. But such envious persons might well harken to the story of David D. Buick. Mr. Buick was in on the automobile ground floor. He was working on his Buick before the old Ford Motor Co. was incorporated. But no millionaire became Mr. Buick. No break got he. He died in Detroit last week, obscure, impoverished. And when he went to his work, he walked.

In 1901, David Buick (then 46) was a partner in the Detroit plumbing concern of Buick & Sherwood. At that time, Henry Ford was a machinist. R. E. Olds was making his first experiments with the Oldsmobile. Novel was the theory that a gasoline motor could furnish better transportation power than the horse. But Mr. Buick saw the future of the motor car. He sold his Buick & Sherwood interest. He sold his patent-rights in a bath-tub enamelling process. He raised $100,000. His first factory was a barn in his back yard; his first workman was his son Tom.

At the end of three years the $100,000 was gone. In its place was an engine that sometimes worked. Mr. Buick advertised in Detroit papers. He wanted a partner with capital. Among replies to the advertisement came a letter from one J. H. Whiting, Flint, Mich., banker and carriage maker. Mr. Whiting was willing to invest in the Buick automobile, provided that Mr. Buick could demonstrate the soundness of his invention by driving it from Detroit to Flint. The first Buick started out from Detroit under its own power, but was dragged back by a team of horses. It had broken down in Pontiac. Undiscouraged, Mr. Buick started out again, this time completed his 60-mile journey. Thereupon Mr. Whiting put up $35,000. The first Buick company was organized, with Mr. Buick controlling the stock.

Soon dissension developed. The partners could not agree on sales-methods. They began to build stationary engines as a kind of side line to keep themselves in business until their automobile was perfected. While they were arguing, others were acting. Ford had a car at $850. There was a Cadillac at $750 and an Oldsmobile at $650. But the Buick was a good car. It won competitive tests. Trade papers praised it. At last orders began to come in. Sales were rising; profits were in sight. But production costs increased also, made necessary another reorganization, another influx of capital.

This time Buick went to William Crapo Durant, then head of Durant-Dort Carriage Co. Now he had found someone who thought of financing in terms of good round figures. Under Durant direction, Buick stock salesmen went from door to door, sold stock to farmers, schoolteachers, clerks, widows, to any who would buy. And for once, at least, hardly any promise could have been made too glowing for the future performance, hardly any prospectus could have been phrased in too superlative terms. Able, persuasive, Durant raised for Buick more than $1,000,000. Now (1906) there was a good time coming, but not for David Buick. There arose arguments, disputes, misunderstandings. After three years as general manager. Mr. Buick left the company he had founded. In the later growth of the Buick Motor Car Co. and in the development of General Motors, he took no part. He left the company with a block of stock which would soon have made him an exceedingly rich man. But David Buick seemed to have no affinity for money. He could not make it himself and he was not content to let abler business men make it for him.

Disappointed in motor cars, Mr. Buick determinedly tried his luck in other fields, and always with unfortunate results. He went to California and organized an oil company. To finance the oil company he sold much of his automobile stock. Then title litigation wrecked the oil company-- expensive litigation that consumed the remainder of the stock. With what he saved from the oil disaster. Mr. Buick went into real estate. He became partner in a company that controlled many acres. Unfortunately, they were Florida acres, and when the Florida boom collapsed the last of Mr. Buick's fortune went with it.

In 1924 Mr. Buick went back to Detroit. He had no money. He was 69. Nobody had a job for him. Finally he became instructor in the Detroit School of Trades. As he grew more feeble, he was put at the information desk. He was a thin, hunched little old man, who peered at questioners through heavy glasses.

Mr. Buick died of cancer at Harper Hospital, Detroit, after a month's illness. Shortly before going to the hospital he said: "I'm not feeling sorry for myself or worrying about the past. I'm not accusing anyone of cheating me. It was the breaks of the game that I lost out in the company I founded. I'm looking forward to the future. Money means nothing--except to insure comforts for the future."

The two millionth Buick was produced in the fall of 1928.