GIVES REASONS FOR NEW MARK SET BY BUICK

The Bisbee Daily Review
December 31, 1922

Buick of 1923 Is Better Car Says President in Interview in 'Motor'

"Give me the aces and you keep the jacks," is the keynote declaration in an interesting interview with Henry H. Bassett, of the Buick Motor Company, appearing in the December number of Motor Magazine.

When Mr. Bassett was asked by the interviewer, W. A. P. John, to explain, the great achievement of Buick in breaking this Fall its own pace-making production records, Mr. Bassett shot this significant remark:

"We all work together in really close relation without politics and job pride. If a subordinate in some department has a nut to crack and his chief happens to be away, he comes right in here and we do our best to crack the nut. And his chief isn't piqued because someone has gone over his head. That's how we do it. It's the only way it could be done. A genius working along other lines could not succeed in managing the Buick plant, nor any or near as large."

Among the many complimentary observations made by Mr. John in his article is the following:

"It would be folly to write anything else than that Mr. Bassett stepped into the shoes of an exceedingly able man—one of the greatest "production getters' the industry has ever known. And it would be equal folly not to write that he not only filled the shoes but filled them overflowing, if I may be permitted to stretch a point in my metaphor. For during the past three and one-half years that have passed since Buick affairs were placed in Mr. Bassett's hands, the company's annual output has been jumped from 120,000 cars a year to about 185,00 a year—in the face of extraordinary bitter competition from strong "independents" manufacturing excellent cars of approximately the same price. And I believe that not even the most narrow-minded reader will disagree with me when I write that the quality and appearance of Buick models was appreciably heightened and refined during the same time. I do not imply that the Buick of three years ago was not a good car. I merely meant that the Buick of 1923 is a better car—built of better materials under more exacting conditions, given a more effective symetery—and sold for a lot less money. Even if Buick production remained at 120,000 a year, that with improvents of quality and appearance would be an achievement of considerable merit.