The first car inside the small collection is a 1908 Buick brought over from the Buick Gallery just across the cultural center campus.This separate Buick museum and research center houses a fascinating collection of historic vehicles. The red-and-white Buick truck Model 2A from 1910 looks quite primitive compared with the 1918 Model E-37 parked against the west window.That E-37, however, was one of those vehicles that likely looked great on the drawing board but turned out to be totally impractical. Its descriptive sign calls it 'an immediate failure' on the market. The reason? The single center-mounted door is located on the passenger side and required both driver and passenger to squeeze between the two front seats in order to sit down. Attractive with its big, curtained windows, the E-37 weighed 2,420 pounds and retailed for $1,185.The 1936 Buick Limited Model 91 in the collection is credited with pulling the GM division out of the sales doldrums of the Great Depression. Customers loved its 'modern' lines. Priced at $1,695, the Model 91 cost twice as much as the division's most popular car that year, the Special Sedan Model 41.Tom Pease of Davison was in the Buick museum on a Saturday afternoon, making his rounds dusting the vehicles and filling tires that had grown soft from sitting. Pease pointed out portraits of James H. Whiting of Flint Wagon Works and chief mechanical engineer Walter L. Marr on the wall.These men are largely unsung heroes whose work helped set Buick eventually on the road to success, he said. Marr was involved in the development of Buick's valve-in-head engine. Whiting actually got back out of the business in about a year's time (1903-04), handing the reins to William Crapo Durant, who quickly raised significant capital for Buick and multiplied orders for cars.As for David Dunbar Buick, auto historian Beverly Rae Kimes writes that he left the company bearing his name by the end of 1908 and died impoverished at the age of 74 in 1929.