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The 2004 Buick Rainier is the vehicle the famed golfer touts in
television commercials
Early in the company’s history, the success that Buick experienced was almost entirely due to a revolutionary concept introduced by David Buick and his talented engineers. They created the overhead valve engine, and in so doing, made an engine that would dominate the competition and gain a world-wide recognition for Buick. At the time this innovation was termed the ‘valve-in-head’ design, and was touted as such in company literature. So equipped, Buick cars were hard to beat in competition. And their reputation for winning spread quickly. With its more efficient and powerful engine, Buick pulled up hills and through mud like few automobiles could.
In 1904 Buick was winning competitive hill climb events. In 1906, Buicks won a pair of 100-mile races in New York. The same year a Model F Buick was the only car to complete a 1,000-mile relay run from Chicago to New York. By 1908 there was a Buick racing team, with star drivers, Louis Chevrolet and Wild Bob
Burman. From 1908 to 1910 the team won 500 racing trophies including major victories at the new Indianapolis Motor Speedway in its inaugural 1909 season. Sales were directly affected by this record of success in competition. By 1908, Buick was the American automotive industry leader in sales.
In 1914, a Buick dealer in Argentina claimed to be the first person to drive a car across South America, taking a 1912 Model 28 Buick from Buenos Aires over the Andes to Santiago, Chile. Writer/traveler Lowell Thomas took his own personal 1923 Buick on a widely reported trip to Afghanistan. Thomas claimed his entourage comprised the first outsiders to penetrate that country in automobiles. And in a bizarre publicity stunt, a corporate publication, the Buick Bulletin, once reported a Buick victory in a tug-of-war with an elephant.
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