Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: What was Buick's first car?
The first Buick made for sale, the 1904 Model B, was built in Flint, Michigan at a re-purposed factory that was known as the Flint Wagon Works.[11] There were 37 Buicks made that year, none of which survive. There are, however, two replicas in existence: the 1904 endurance car, at the Buick Gallery & Research Center in Flint, and a Model B assembled by an enthusiast in California for the division's 100th anniversary.[12][13] Both of these vehicles use various parts from Buicks of that early era, as well as fabricated parts. These vehicles were each constructed with the two known surviving 1904 engines.
In 1990, the first Reatta convertible was produced. In 1991, Buick led the industry in improvement in sales and market share. A new four-door Regal came to market for 1991, the first Regal sedan since 1984. Buick also introduced a supercharged 3.8-liter V6 in the Park Avenue Ultra. Supercharging became so popular at Buick that by the new millennium, Buick was the leading marketer and industry leader of supercharged cars. 1991 saw the return of the Roadmaster after a 33-year absence. The Roadmaster was first offered as a wagon only and then a sedan was added for 1992.
The first vehicle, produced on 26 February 1948, was a Buick, with 23,388 more produced that first year. The factory was used by "BOP" (Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac) and was under the management of GM's newly created Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac Assembly Division created in 1945. The factory had produced 697,574 cars by 1959. In August of that year, it became part of Fisher Body, producing Chevrolet, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile cars.
In the late 1950s, GM lacked a personal luxury car to compete with the highly successful Ford Thunderbird—a uniquely styled, two-door, four-passenger car. To fill this gap, an experimental Cadillac design, the XP-715, was created, and the concept car was badged "LaSalle". Initially the LaSalle displayed an upright Cadillac hood emblem, but the concept car was later promoted as the "Buick LaSalle" and "Buick Riviera" concept cars Its angular look was reportedly inspired by GM styling chief Bill Mitchell's visit to London during the period, when he was struck by the sight of an elegant, custom-bodied Rolls Royce. He later said that "knife-edged" styling was what he wanted for the new model, but with a lower profile. The design itself was penned by stylist Ned Nickles.
The plant originated with Buick before the formation of General Motors. Other elements were built by early manufacturers and suppliers like Fisher Body. The Buick City concept represented a successful attempt by General Motors to experiment with just-in-time manufacturing methods in response to Japanese manufacturers. The experiment included successes: The 1989 Buick LeSabre built in Buick City was ranked the top car in the J.D. Power and Associates rankings for that year; it was the first American built car to appear on the list. In 1999, the year the plant was closed, Buick City won J. D. Power's Platinum Award for assembly plant quality . As of 2016, it is the only General Motors plant to win the award. The closing of GM's manufacturing plants in Flint, and its subsequent economic toll on the community was chronicled in Michael Moore's documentary film, "Roger & Me".
Buick is one of China's most popular, best selling automobiles.[4] In 2016, General Motors sold over 1.1 million Buicks in China.[52] Buicks have always been popular in China. In pre-World War II China, one in five cars was a Buick.[53] Buicks were used by the last emperor Puyi, the first president Sun Yat-sen, and the first premier Zhou Enlai.[4]
The Centurion name was first used on a Buick concept car in the 1956 Motorama. It featured a red and white fiberglass body, airplane-like interior design, a fully clear "bubble top" roof and the first backup camera in place of a rear-view mirror, although it was never shown to be functional. This car currently resides in the Sloan Museum at the Flint Cultural Center in Flint, Michigan.
First seen on a concept car, the Centurion was nearly identical to the contemporaneous Buick LeSabre, differing in badging and grillework, minimal chrome trim, and an absence of the VentiPorts found on other full-size Buicks. Body styles included two-door and four-door hardtops and a convertible. There were no pillared sedans. The two-door hardtop shared the handsome semi-fastback roofline with the LeSabre and other GM B-body cars (such as the Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe and the Olds Delta 88) along with a standard vinyl roof.
Buick Centuries were used in the 1975 and 1976 Indianapolis Motor Speedway as pace cars. Buick introduced a 1975 Buick Century "Free Spirit" edition replica based on the Indy Pace Car for the public with patriotic graphic decals and the Buick Hawk on the hood. This 1975 vehicle had a transmission shifter on the floor with bucket seats and "Hurst Hatch" T-tops installed. The white exterior and blue/white interior was based on the 1975 two-door sheet metal. The engine was a 350 V8, as opposed to the 455 V8 used on the Indy Pace Car. Alternatively, in 1976, Buick introduced the "Free Spirit" edition of the Indy Pace Car; it was downsized to the 1976 Special facelift sheet metal with a 231 V6. The original Indy Pace Car had the turbocharged 231 V6. The replica featured a rakish silver, black, and red paint job with black interior. The vehicle had positive-traction differential.
Billy Durant was a natural promoter, and Buick soon became the largest car maker in America. Using the profits from this, Durant embarked on a series of corporate acquisitions, calling the new megacorporation General Motors. At first, the manufacturers comprising General Motors competed against each other, but Durant ended that. He wanted each General Motors division to target one class of buyer, and in his new scheme, Buick was near the top—only the Cadillac brand had more prestige, a ranking that Buick occupies currently in the General Motors lineup. To save on resources, Buick vehicles shared a common platform, called the GM A platform, that was shared with Chevrolet, Oakland, Oldsmobile and Cadillac. The ideal Buick customer is comfortably well off, possibly not quite rich enough to afford a Cadillac, nor desiring the ostentation of one, but definitely in the market for a car above the norm.
The Buick Model B was Buick's first model. It was built in Jackson, Michigan and was introduced in 1905 at the New York Auto Show. William C. Durant introduced the car himself at the exhibit, and took new car orders at the car show. It had a 2-cylinder, horizontally opposed engine – the world's first production OHV (overhead valve) engine – installed lengthwise within the frame, had a planetary transmission, with a cone clutch and two forward speeds and one reverse gear. The engine was rated at 21 bhp. In later years, it was renamed as improvements were made.
In the 2000s, Buick's lineup was modified with the compact and performance segments being abandoned in favor of the crossover/SUV market which was growing in popularity. In 2000, Buick headed into the new millennium with a redesigned LeSabre (best-selling U.S. full-size car for eight straight years) and a more powerful Century. Since the first Detroit experimental car of 1899-1900, and first Flint production car of 1904, more than 35 million Buicks had been built. The 2000 LeSabre was introduced in March 1999 and was now built on GM's G platform; however GM chose to continue to refer to it as the H platform.[32] The LeSabre was manufactured at GM's Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly factory in Hamtramck, Michigan and Lake Orion Assembly, in Lake Orion, Michigan. Some of the changes with the redesign included a new grille that did not open with the hood, and slightly smaller exterior dimensions. Despite its somewhat smaller exterior size, it still offered similar interior room and more trunk space than the previous model. 2001 saw Buick's first entry into the crossover market with the introduction of the Rendezvous as a 2002 model. In 2003, the Buick Centieme crossover concept car commemorated Buick Motor Division's 100th anniversary. Some of the Centieme's exterior design and interior features would later appear on the 2008 Enclave crossover. In 2004, Buick added the Rainier mid-size SUV and the new Terraza minivan was added a year later.
Replacing the Wildcat as the mid-line full-sized Buick positioned between the lower-priced LeSabre and the larger and more luxurious C-body Electra 225, the Centurion was promoted more as a mid-level luxury car than the Wildcat, which was marketed as a sporty/luxury performance car. The Centurion was offered initially with only the 455 in³ big-block V8 in two power output ranges determined by the presence of either a single or dual exhaust. The '71 Centurion produced @4400 rpm and of torque @2800 rpm with the base 455. The Centurion was also offered in the 455 Stage 1 and a Manual Trans configuration as well during the early portion of the 1971 model year. This was known as the A9 and B6 Option when ordering the car. What also separated the car from the LeSabre was that when the car would be ordered or recognized as a Centurion it would be branded as a 4P as the first two letters of the Vehicle Identification Number.
Believing buyers of their farm wagons would be interested in buying many more Buick stationary engines Flint Wagon Works bought existing supplier David Buick's business, Buick Motor Company, in September 1903 for its stationary and marine engines and its plans to manufacture automobile motors and transmissions. Flint Wagon Works built a suitable new building on the opposite side of West Kearsley Street. Some cars were built with these engines and sold with the brand name Whiting-Buick (after chairman James H Whiting). The first production Buick cars were built in that building in 1904. 
In response to the downsized Cadillacs, Lincoln introduced a series of advertisements in late 1985 titled "The Valet" which depicted parking attendants having trouble distinguishing Cadillacs from lesser Buicks (Electras) and Oldsmobiles (Ninety-Eights), with the question "Is that a Cadillac?" answered by the response "No, it's an Oldsmobile...or Buick." At the end, the owner of a Lincoln would appear with the line "The Lincoln Town Car please." The commercial campaign saw the emergence of the new advertising line for the brand, "Lincoln. What a Luxury Car Should Be." which was used into the 1990s.[13]
The Buick Velite is a roadster concept car designed by Buick and built by Bertone. It was first presented to the public at the 2004 New York International Auto Show.
In 1961, Buick introduced the first V6 engine installed in an American passenger car, called the Fireball V6 in the Buick Special, and three VentiPorts appeared on the side. This still was not tied to cylinder count however, as the V8 LeSabres continued to carry 3 Ports per side. Also during this era, Buick used what the '67 Buick GS brochure called "vertical VentiPorts" to describe trim details seen on the lower half of front fenders on the Skylarks and Wildcat lines. The specialty Riviera model had neither, akin to the '53-54 Skylark. VentiPorts were used on most models over the next 2 decades.
The "first generation" Buick Skyhawk is a subcompact, four passenger, hatchback automobile that was introduced September 1974, and produced for the 1975 through 1980 model years. It was
based on the Chevrolet Vega, and shares its wheelbase and width. The Skyhawk was produced with H-body variants Chevrolet Monza, Oldsmobile Starfire, and Pontiac Sunbird. In North America, it competed with other small sporty cars, such as the Toyota Celica, Datsun 200SX, VW Scirocco, Mercury Capri, and the Ford Mustang II. The Buick Skyhawk was the smallest car to wear the Buick badge in more than 60 years.
In recent years, Buick has adopted a waterfall grille, as seen on the Buick Velite concept car from 2004 and first used in production with the Buick Lucerne introduced for the 2006 model year. This waterfall grille bears some resemblance to grilles of Buicks from the 1980s, such as the Grand National.
In 1911, Buick introduced its first closed-body car,[22] four years ahead of Ford, but five years after Cadillac, which was the first. The car was built at the all-new factory in Flint which later became to be known as Buick City.[23] Buick during the 1920s made various sized vehicles, with series designations for different years, sometimes using numbers, while later years using lettered designations. One of the larger vehicles, with straight-six, was the Buick Master Six.
In 1984, Buick was the official car of the XXIII Olympiad. A reorganization split manufacturing & engineering from sales and marketing. The first pilot Buick is produced at "Buick City", a state-of-the art assembly center built inside the walls of Buick's home plant at Flint. Buick had its best model year sales to date with 906,626 vehicles sold plus Buick worldwide sales topped one million for the first time. To close out 1984, Lloyd Reuss ended his tenure as general manager of the Buick Motor Division.
Buick named their six-cylinder cars "Buick 6" from 1916 through 1924, and in 1925, divided them into Standard 6 and Master 6. The Master 6 was renamed Series 121 and 129 in 1929 and Series 40 in 1930. All were powered by a Buick Straight-6 engine, with multiple body styles, and starting in 1926 used the newly established GM B platform, which it shared with Oldsmobile. Although Buick produced mostly four-cylinder cars in the teens and early '20s, as it had been doing, the new six=cylinder cars became more common. Buick first made six-cylinder cars in 1914, with a 331-cubic-inch engine, which was originally a racing engine, later used in limited production as the Series 50. The 331 engine was dropped in 1916 and replaced with the much smaller 40 series engine, starting with a 224-cubic-inch in 1916 and 1917, the 242 engine from 1918, increased to 255 in 1924, increased again to 274 for 1926 through 1928. The engine was increased again to 309 for the Series 121 and 129 in 1929 and Series 40 in 1930, after which all six-cylinder engines were suddenly dropped and all models of Buick were equipped with the legendary Straight 8, starting in 1931 and for decades thereafter.
The Buick Centurion is a full-size car built from the 1971 through 1973 model years. Replacing the Wildcat as the sporty iteration of Buick's three full-size car lines, it slotted between the LeSabre and Electra in the lineup. The Centurion name was inspired by a Buick concept car, the name coming from that of an officer in the Roman Army. The car's emblem was not the traditional Buick tri-shield, but a side profile of a centurion.
Walter Lorenzo Marr was an Automotive pioneer and talented engineer who worked with David Dunbar Buick perfecting the first Buick production automobiles. He worked with Mr. Buick a number of times around the turn of the century, building Buick's first two one-off vehicles. He was the Buick Motor Company's first Chief Engineer from 1904 through 1918 staying on as consulting engineer until 1923. He was also the founder of the Marr Auto Car Company in 1903 which produced the Marr Auto Car. The Marr Auto Car was one of the world's first automobiles with an overhead camshaft (OHC) engine.
1969 was the last year of production for the California GS. The car was for the first time featured in Buick's big brochure. A two-page color picture of the thin pillar coupe and pictures of the again standard bench seat interior were included along with equipment descriptions. Tom McCahill tested the car and recorded a 0–60 time of 9.5 seconds and a top speed of 110 mph. Again the car came with Buick's 280 hp 350-4 engine but now it was mated to the new Turbo 350 transmission. Custom California emblems again graced the rear fenders, and the rear marker lights were plain red without Buick's normal 350 or 400 script. Vinyl tops, as with previous years, were standard fare with the California's distinctive GS logo on the sail panel.
The Buick Y-Job was the auto industry's first concept car, produced by Buick in 1938. Designed by Harley J. Earl, the car had power-operated hidden headlamps, a "gunsight" hood ornament, electric windows, wraparound bumpers, flush door handles, and prefigured styling cues used by Buick until the 1950s and the vertical waterfall grille design still used by Buick today. It used a Buick Super chassis, indicated by the word "Super" located above the rear license plate.