Buick was a success almost from the start, but the car that really put the company on the map was the 1908 Model 10.

When William C. Durant founded General Motors on September 16, 1908, the Buick Motor Company of Flint, Michigan was its cornerstone. The highly successful carriage maker had acquired Buick in the fall of 1904, and soon it was demonstrating to Durant  the tremendous potential in the automobile industry. Buick sales had grown from 750 cars in 1905 to more than 4,500 in 1907. And with the introduction of a new car in  November of that year, the volume quickly doubled again, firing Durant’s ambitions even further. That car was the Buick Model 10.

Comparisons are often drawn between the Model 10 and its contemporary, Henry Ford’s Model T, and indeed, there are a number of similarities. The Ford was priced at $850, while the Buick sold for a little more in four body styles. Both were on the light and small side for the market at the time, powered by four-cylinder engines coupled to two-speed planetary transmissions. And both were clearly the right car for the moment, as the Model T was soon the best selling car in the United States, while the Model 10 was number two.

Both the Buick and the Ford were rated at 22.5 horsepower, and they were of roughly similar displacement, 165 CID for the Buick versus 177 CID for the Ford. But here the similarities end, as the Buick featured overhead valves (“valve-in-head” was the Buick term) with an exposed valvetrain. The iron cylinders were cast in pairs that bolted to an aluminum crankcase, with a gear-driven pump for coolant circulation, while Ford relied on the thermo-siphon system. However, both engines earned a reputation for ruggedness and reliability.

While Buick offered an abundance of models in 1908 through 1910, from the two-cylinder models F and G to the big Model 41 limousine, the Model 10 accounted for the great bulk of Buick’s sales volume. It was so successful that when Durant brought the Olds Motor Works into General Motors in November of 1908, Oldsmobile offered a longer-wheelbase version called the Model 20. So that’s when GM’s familiar practice of platform-sharing began: from the very start.

Using Buick and the popular Model 10 as the foundation, Durant had expanded GM at a ferocious rate, gobbling up Olds, Cadillac, Oakland, and a host of smaller automakers. (He even tried to acquire Ford.) The rapid and disorderly expansion got Durant ousted from his own company in September of 1910, though he returned in 1916. The Model 10 was discontinued for 1911 as Buick steadily moved upmarket, offering its first six-cylinder car in 1914. Meanwhile, Henry Ford stayed the course. It’s interesting to reflect that Ford and GM became the industry giants in two remarkably different ways: Ford by offering a single make and model produced in great numbers, while GM offered multiple brands and models spread across the entire the entire price range.