avid Dunbar Buick (1854-1929) was a competent engineer but a poor businessman. His automobile enterprises never quite succeeded and the Buick Motor Co. was first sold to the Briscoe brothers (who later also built cars under their own name) and then to James H. Whiting.

D.D. Buick continued to be employed by the company and together with Walter Marr designed a car which entered production in 1904. This enterprise might have collapsed also if it hadn't been for the buy-out of the majority of stock by William Crapo Durant (1860-1947) who went on to create the General Motors concern.