Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) an automobile.

1901		‘Hugh McHugh’ Down the Line 80: When it came to benzine buggies I felt that my education was complete.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 290: The sudden buckling up of a benzine buggy on the sandbox.
1905		L.A. Herald 2 Nov. 9/1: The residents along the route assert that Scotty’s benzine wagon was surely making between fifty and one hundred miles an hour.
1904		Goodwin’s Wkly (Salt Lake City, UT) 7 May 9/2: She has sold her automobile [...] She is one of the sort who can be popular without a gasoline buggy.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 127: First comes me and Pinckney, in running gear; then Rajah, hoofing along at our heels, [...] and after him Goggles, with the benzine wagon. [Ibid.] 132: We didn’t find any horses inside, anyway, only seven different kinds of gasoline carts. [Ibid.] 159: I sees a goggle-capped tiger throw open the door of one of them plate-glass benzine broughams.
1907		W.M. Raine Wyoming (1908) 28: The mistress of the ‘gasolene bronc’ neatly clad in a simple white lawn.
1908		N.Y. Times 24 Apr. in Fleming Unforgettable Season (1981) 51: A hot cigarette dropped into it [i.e. a large hat] would have called for four alarms and the Chief’s gasoline go-cart.
1912		T.A. Dorgan Daffydils 14 Apr. [synd. cartoon strip] Otto the chauffeur [...] vainly tries to start petroleum buggy.
1914		‘Hugh McHugh’ You Should Worry cap. 2: As the Benzine Buggy was about to fall upon the quarreling man and wife Uncle Gilbert squeezed a couple of hoarse ‘Toot toots’ from the horn.
1919		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 24 Mar. [synd. col.] Mr. Faulkner on his way to Boston in a gasoline buggy.
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 104: Mr. Babbitt has just adorned his thirty-fourth birthday by buying his first benzine buggy.
1935		R.L. Bellem ‘Death’s Bright Halo’ in Spicy Detective Oct. 🌐 Something just set fire to my go-buggy.
1972		(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 155: I hate to waste her looking for a couple of gasoline buggies in Mexico.