Buick, David Dunbar (1854-1929)

Scottish-born US inventor and manufacturer who moved to Detroit in 1856. He later made petrol engines and formed the Buick Manufacturing Company in 1902; its cars were the first to have windscreens and a valve-in-head engine. The company failed and in 1903 merged with another to form the Buick Motor Car Company, which again made no profit.

He was born in Arbroth, Scotland. In 1884 he formed Buick and Sherwood, manufacturers of plumbing equipment. When his subsequent car companies failed, Buick pursued oil and gold mining interests, dying an impoverished clerk at a Detroit trade school. The Buick Motor Car Company became part of the General Motors Company that William Durant organized in 1908.