Buick Century is the model name used by the Buick

Buick

Buick is a premium brand of General Motors . Buick models are sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, and Israel, with China being its largest market. Buick holds the distinction as the oldest active American make...

 division of General Motors

General Motors

General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...

 for a line of full-size performance vehicles from 1936 to 1942 and 1954 to 1958, and from 1973 to 2005 for a mid-size car

Mid-size car

A mid-size car is the North American/Australian standard for an automobile with a size equal to or greater than that of a compact...

.

The model name Century came about when Buick was designing its first production automobile capable of reaching a speed of 100 mph. The division needed to come up with a name. One of the Buick executives had returned from a recent trip to the British isles and told the other executives that the British referred to going 100 mph as "doing the century".