Trivia

Did ya know?

• On September 8, 1925, Ford's chief photographer, Edward Flickenger and Dr. Perry Doolittle, founder of the CAA and the father of the Trans-Canada Highway, leave Halifax in a brand new 1926 Ford. They will drive the 4,794 miles across Canada and arrive in Vancouver on October 17. It is the first time that an automobile has travelled completely across the country. For 500 miles they had to fit the Model T with railroad wheels because there was no road!

  Gord Hazlett (L), Canada's best known automotive story teller, and James Mays swap stories at the Historical Automobile Society of Canada's York Regional Meeting in November 2003

  
  
  
• Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker officially opened the Trans-Canada Highway at Rogers Pass, British Columbia, on September 3, 1962. For the first time Canadians could drive the 7,700 kilometres from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Victoria, British Columbia, without having to drive through the USA.
  
  
• Automobile manufacturer Henry Ford and wagon maker Gordon McGregor signed a deal on August 17, 1904 that changed McGregor¹s Walkerville Wagon Works Limited into The Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited. The new company would build and sell cars in Canada and throughout the British Empire. The new company had 17 employees. Ford built a total of 117 cars in its first twelve months.
  

• In 1917 Nova Scotians owned 901 Fords and 287 McLaughlins (Buick).
  
  
• Datsun arrived in Canada in 1961. Seventeen of them were sold across the country.
  
  
• The nation's first fire trucks were a pair of 1911 Ramblers ordered by the Calgary Fire Department. Eventually one was sold to the Fire Department in Amherst, Nova Scotia where it served until 1937. It was sold to a scrap yard for the brass.
  
  
• The top five selling cars in Canada in 1991 were the Chevrolet Cavalier, Honda Civic, Honda Accord, Pontiac Sunbird and Ford Tempo.

• A single Kaiser passenger car was assembled in Canada in January of 1952. Then the company closed its doors. Kaisers were imported after that.
  
  
• Lada imported 277 of its Russian-made Niva 4x4s into Canada in 1984. Only 33 Nivas were imported in 1985.
  

• Nash offered two-tone colour combinations on its 1948 offerings. Newfoundland Gray and Guiana Green was popular.
  
  
• On January 1, 1904 the government reported that there were 182 automobiles in the province of Ontario.
  
  

• On November 2, 1930, an automobile tunnel linked Windsor, Ontario, with Detroit, Michigan. Before that date, people and cars had to ride the ferry.

• The Mercury Bobcat was made in St. Thomas, Ontario in 1974. Only Canadians could buy them that year.
  

• Only Canadians could buy the Plymouth Caravelle in 1979. It was not available anywhere else in the world. Surprisingly, the Canada-only car was manufactured in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

• A total of 179 Ford cars and trucks were imported into the Dominion of Newfoundland during 1930. That figure dropped to 115 in 1931.
  
  
• Chevrolet built 7,505 of its rear-engined Corvair compact cars in Oshawa, Ontario during 1962. In Brampton, Ontario workers built 17,343 Ramblers the same year.

  The ' Back-Seat Boys' James Mays (left) with brothers Gordon (centre) and Wayne (right) in their parents' 1960 Rambler.

• Though they were built during every month of the year, only 7,900 passenger cars were manufactured during the 1942 calendar year. Most were impounded by the Federal Government and released to civilians on an emergency basis only.
  
  
• In 1943, only 800 new cars were released by the Federal Government's Motor Vehicle Controller for civilian use.
  
  
• A total of 88 Packard were sold across Canada during the first six months of 1956. None were sold in Newfoundland or Quebec.
  
  
• There were 6,074,655 vehicles registered for the road in 1963.
  
  
• No DeSotos were built in Canada in 1957. Every one sold here was imported from the US.
  
  
• Newfoundlanders switched from the left side of the road to the right side in 1947 in preparation for entering Confederation with Canada in 1949.
  
  
• Vehicle sales for 2001

Company/Model	Units
Dodge Caravan	75,817
GM Pickups	71,813
Honda Civic	61,249
Ford F-Series Pickups	59,788
Chevrolet Cavalier	45,261
Mazda Protoge	43,190

• Canadians could order automobiles from the Eaton's catalogue in 1911, 1912 and 1913. Chalmers, Lozier and the Waverley Electric got Eaton's guarantee, 'goods satisfactory or money refunded.'
  
  
• Petro Canada was created by Parliament on July 30, 1975. Its job was to protect our national interest in the oil industry. The retail chain stretches across the country, made up from the purchase of PetroFina in the eastern provinces, and Pacific 66 in the west.
  
  
• The first Canadian to get behind the wheel of a car was Father Georges-Antoine Belcourt of Prince Edward Island. He imported a steam car from Philadelphia in 1866. Superstitious parishioners thought the vehicle was demon possessed.
  
  
• Vancouver was the site of the nation's first gasoline station. A little company by the grand name of Imperial Oil Limited sold motorists gasoline from a pump rather than dipping it from an oak barrel in 1902.
  
  
• Henry Seth Taylor built Canada's first automobile in 1867. It crashed on its first drive because Mr. Taylor forgot to put brakes on the car. The self-propelled steam buggy survives and is in on exhibit in Ottawa.
  
  
• On May 10, 1980, Ottawa gave Chrysler Canada a $200 million loan guarantee to keep the troubled automaker in business. Chrysler survived the crisis.
  
  
• In 1907, Nova Scotia became the first province to adopt speed limits. Drivers almost needed a slide rule to keep the law; the maximum rate of travel was one mile per eight minutes.
  
  
• A Canadian inventor patented a rotary engine in 1914. Twenty years later, a European named Wankel would do the same.
  
  
• Toyota and Isuzu began assembling cars in a Pt. Edward, Nova Scotia plant in 1968.
  
  
• Exactly 681 passenger cars were imported from the UK in 1939. Canadians just didn't care for tiny, under powered Britmobiles.
  
  
• Wagons built in Canada used a 56.5-inch front track. Luxury automaker Russell followed suit, ensuring that passengers rode comfortably on long-established wagon ruts.
  
  
• Toronto and Montreal hosted their first automobile shows in 1906. Admission to the Montreal show was 25 cents.
  
  
• On October 8, 1939, the 1940 National Automobile Show opened in Toronto. It was too late to cancel even though Canada went to war on September 10. However, the event had to be advanced by a week because the 200,000-square foot building was requisitioned by the Royal Canadian Army to billet troops.
  
  
• In September 1940, tens of thousands flocked to Toronto to see the 1941 cars at the National Automobile Show, held on the grounds of the CNE. Most of Ford's exhibit was made up of army vehicles it was building for the war effort.
  
  
• 1934 automobile sales in Canada by %
  • 37% General Motors
  • 30% Ford 23% Chrysler
  • 8% Nash
  • 4% Hudson
  • 1.3% Studebaker
    
    
• In 1909, Canada exported more cars than it imported.
  
  
• Canadian automobile production was 17,968 units in 1914.
  
  
• In 1929, Canada was second only to the United States as an automobile-producing nation.

• In 1910, the top three selling brands in Ontario were McLaughlin, Ford and Russell.
  
  
• Early drivers were advised by Motoring magazine to lick their car's battery. If it shocked, the battery was good.
  
  
• The Queen Elizabeth Way (better known as the QEW) between Hamilton and Toronto was the first limited access, high-speed freeway in North America. It opened in 1939, just before the outbreak of World War Two.
  
  
• Nova Scotia drivers switched to the right side of the road in 1922. For months after the change, road signs warned motorists to stay to the right.
  
  
• The last Studebaker was built in Hamilton, Ontario, on March 17, 1966. It was the end of a 117 years of the Studebaker Corporation in the transportation business. The car was Timberline Green.
  
  
• Luxury automakers Packard and Pierce-Arrow began assembling vehicles in Canada in 1931.
  
  
• The first Vauxhall was imported by GM Canada in 1950. The first British Ford Model Y arrived in 1933.
  
  
• Volvo opened its Dartmouth, Nova Scotia assembly plant in 1963. It was closed in 1999.
  
  
• Hudson, Packard and Studebaker owned 12.98% of the Canadian market in 1939 (compared to 9.6% in the US).
  
  
• Automobiles were banned from Prince Edward Island from 1908 until 1913 because they disrupted the Islanders' way of life.