CP engines

[Guest Oracle]

For your information!

6,499 McLaughlin-Buick motors were imported from the Flint Buick Motor Plant in 1920. There was, however, no assembly of motors at Walkerville until the late summer of 1921 for ’22 M.Y. Even then, the assembly was purely of the 6-cylinder motors, and not the 4-cylinder units, prefixed with an ‘E’ in the sequence # E840,000 to # E861,340 in the case of known export motors. The 6-cylinder series ran # CP or CPX #1 to 1660 inclusive although there is still no evidence of domestic market 6-cylinder motors.

The earliest known export McLaughlin-Buick motor in the UK which was without question erected by Canadian Products was car serial # 50233, a Hearse with engine # [CP]X839 registered 22 August 1922, a 1922 Model 22-35 car chassis. This system carried-over into 1923 Model Year: the lowest-known 1923 Model with a ‘CP’ prefix is [CP]X3160, a 242 cu. in. displacement six-cylinder of 3 3/8 x 4 ½ in. Bore & Stroke [the Registration clerks wrote down in the ledgers details afforded by the owner, and that sometimes included for our benefit now, cylinder block and cylinder head casting numbers!] was a model 23-45 Tourer registered on 19 January 1923. # [CP]X6741 is the highest known, so far, Buick ‘CP’ motor serial on a UK-imported car, fitted to a 1923 Tourer. In addition it appears that at some stage in 1923 there was a different sequential system introduced which was purely numerical, which continued on into 1924, similar to, but different from, the Flint system. Two known Australian-imported cars have Engine # DX [CP]X 6631, a Model 23-45 Tourer converted to a Butcher’s Truck, and CPX6407, a Model 23-45 Tourer, now restored, converted to a general purpose farm truck when new. However, the evidence suggests that only the 6-cylinder 1923 Model motors were so stamped, and also the ‘CP’ prefix was sparsely used with most registrations showing just an ‘X’ prefix. The 1923 four-cylinder motors seem to have, generally, Flint-style sequential serials without a prefix, and must have as per the 1922 Models been railed from Flint Motor Plant to Walkerville in component form for ancillaries to be fitted, testing, and railing to Oshawa. Australian official statements submitted by G.M. Holden’s in 1957 show the 4-cylinder Buicks as using Engine # 826,497 and up, Models 23-41 and 23-45 as having six-cylinder Engine # 868,521 and up, and 23-48 # 881,721 and up which all seem to be Flint-style serials. A 1924 New Zealand import McLaughlin-Buick has a motor with Hiram Walker castings, and therefore 1922 to 1925 and perhaps beyond used Canadian castings.

1922:

ENGINE SERIALS # CPX1 TO # CPX1660

1923:

KNOWN ENGINE SERIALS # CPX3000 TO # CPX6750

After that it gets a bit messy as Flint engines were imported for a time and then Walkerville started their own assembly. If anyone wants to know further contact me!

Edited October 14, 2011 by Oracle (see edit history)