were introduced by a long-established carriage builder in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1903 and remained in production until 1923, when Nash bought the factory. Like many early cars, Harry’s Mitchell was right-hand-drive so he could keep an eye on the ditch. It didn’t save him from the mishap seen here.
A CROSS BETWEEN A MOTORCYCLE AND a car was the so-called “cycle-car.” Reverend J.D. Morrow of Toronto owned this one, and swore to wear no hat till his Queen Street West church at Gore Vale had a roof on it. The church finally got its roof, and here is the Reverend Mr. Morrow finally wearing a hat. Note the chain drive. Some of these cycle-cars had a V-2 engine with the steering column through the V. A cycle-car known as the Imp was built in Toronto in 1913.
On His Majesty’s Service, circa 1915
THIS BRASS-RAD MODEL T Ford served as a commissary wagon for the 83rd Battalion with Major Wilson and Captain Barker around 1915. Although Henry Ford’s favourite colour for the Model T was black, this T was an exception. The year 1915 was automotively significant in Canada for two reasons: Tommy Russell of Toronto stopped building cars bearing his name, and William Gray of Chatham, Ontario, began his ten-year run of building Gray-Dorts.
Canadians Celebrate Armistice Day, 1918
THIS TRUCK WITH SOLID RUBBER tires rolled through Toronto as people celebrated the end of the Great War (as it was called until the outbreak of the Second World War). The conflict officially ended at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. Canadians now turned their attention to a future that held the promise of peace and prosperity.
Following a brief post-war depression, automobile production skyrocketed during the 1920s on a wave of prosperity unimagined by previous generations. By 1929, nearly everyone in Canada who wanted a car could buy one, even if it meant shelling out a dollar or two for an old jalopy that still ran.
In 1919, 90 percent of all cars produced in North America were open cars with a folding top and side curtains. By 1929, 90 percent of all new cars built in North America were closed cars. Motorists were demanding — and getting — cars that protected them and their families from the weather. This protection was especially important in Canada, where long, cold winters forced many motorists to put their cars up on blocks until the spring.
By the mid-1920s, motoring had become a national pastime, whether it was a Sunday afternoon drive or a motor trip of several hundred miles. Good paved roads and “filling stations” (as they were called back then) catered to the motorists’ growing demand for more roads, better roads, wider roads — and more powerful cars to reach their destination in half the time.
Hauling Telephone Poles, British Columbia, circa 1920
ED BROWN STARTED ONE OF the first trucking businesses in Burnaby, British Columbia, perhaps as early as 1910. His grandson, Jim Ervin, wrote:
The business was located at the family home at 3131 Royal Oak Ave. in South Burnaby. That was close to the top of one of the steepest hills in Burnaby and must have made for a real test of man and machine to drive it, especially in winter. The children loved it for sleigh riding but probably not their father.
Most of the area was forest at that time and one of Ed’s first jobs was to haul shingle bolts out of the forest with a team of horses. My mother used to have to grease the skids placed on the logging trails for the loaded sleds to be pulled out on. One time, as she told me, there was a huge forest fire and my grandfather barely escaped with his life and one last load.
Later, when the area had been cleared, he helped to build the Oakalla Prison Farm, now replaced by townhouses on Royal Oak Ave. This job led to him becoming the first contractor to haul the license plates made by the prisoners. Some of these plates would be worn by Ed’s own trucks.
His trucks included some pretty obscure makes such as Hufman, Garford, Stewart (which my mother often said was no good), Gotfredson and the more common names of Chevrolet and GMC. A Ford Model T would probably have been too light for the kind of hauling Ed was doing in the 1920s.
I always thought his main cargo was coal and coke, but I received quite a surprise with some recently discovered information. It started when I was removing boxes of general junk from the house to the garage to make more space. One of those boxes broke open and one item which came out wasn’t junk by any means. It was a copy of a business card for Brown’s Transfer, a company which hauled coal, coke, wood and did furniture moving as well. My mother often described my grandfather as a “go-getter” for business. I believe I see what she meant. Never was I so glad to have a cardboard box break open and to retrieve such an important item.
People such as my grandfather made a great contribution to Burnaby.5
JIM ERVIN CONTINUED: “MY GRANDFATHER’S business card was rather colourful with an orange border and oval logo. The lettering and cartoons are dark blue. On the back of the card was an ink blotter. Note the price of coal at $10.50 per ton.”
THESE EAGER PAPARAZZI HAD THEIR photo taken at Queen’s Park, Toronto, in 1919. The Ontario Legislature is just behind them. And the car they are sitting in is easy to identify. The “bow tie” logo on the radiator tells us it’s a Chevrolet.
Louis Chevrolet was a race car driver who gave his name to the car that’s been the mainstay of General Motors almost from the beginning. Flamboyant and high-spending Billy Durant was the irrepressible entrepreneur who formed GM in 1908 by bringing several car companies together. He decided the future of the auto industry lay in consolidation — and he was right.
But disagreements with the other directors led to his being ousted from the company. Determined to regain control, he started a new car company in 1911 to provide the leverage he needed to regain control of GM. The car was Chevrolet, and it put him back in power till he was ousted a second time — this time for good.
Meanwhile, GM introduced the “490” Chev in 1915 (named for its advertised list price) to compete against Henry Ford’s Model T. Some of the early Chevrolets had six-cylinder engines, and even a V-8 around 1917. But these larger engines were dropped when GM decided the best place for Chevrolet was the low-priced mass market.
Henry Ford for years had a virtual stranglehold on that market. It has been estimated that in 1920, half of all the cars on the road in the entire world were Model Ts.
When
