MOTORS
Durant Motors of Canada was incorporated September 3, 1921, the American “parent” being Durant Motors Inc. When Billy Durant, the American entrepreneur, lost control of General Motors in 1920, he decided to create a new empire for himself7 At this time, there were four other vehicle manufacturers in the Toronto area. They were: Willys Overland at Weston, Dodge Bros. of Canada making 40 cars a day on Dupont Avenue, the Ford Motor and assembly plant also on Dupont, and an obscure truck manufacturer Harmer-Knowles, located on Concord Avenue. After signing a 20-year contract with the American Durant firm granting Canadian rights, he was set to build and sell the low-priced Star and the medium-priced Durant motor car elsewhere. Accordingly, the factory site of the now defunct Leaside Munitions Company Ltd. was purchased from CWC and enlarged. The plant was built in three months. Temporary towers were built at each end of the site to monitor the construction and photographs were taken and rushed to New York to keep them apprised of the progress. Built to Durant specifications, the plant had the first depressed assembly line, that is, it was flush to the floor versus one foot above ground. When the Durant Motors of Canada Ltd. was established at Leaside in 1921, the company owned one building which covered a space of two acres. By 1931, they had purchased an additional eighteen acres and increased their plant size to eleven buildings. While retaining half the Canadian company’s shares, Billy Durant was also to receive nearly half the profits.
The first Durant car manufactured in Canada was built March 1, 1922. “It is a Canadian automobile company, controlled by Canadian capital, directed and managed by a Canadian executive, which builds and merchandizes an outstanding line of passenger cars and commercial vehicles.”8 An interesting statement, with the American Billy Durant controlling half of the Canadian shares. Initially, mechanical parts were bought in the States, but soon the Leaside plant made its own car bodies. During the first two years of operation, the company manufactured 13,000 Stars and Durants, which were sold from coast to coast in Canada by 445 dealers.9 The Flint car, however, although from an American Durant company car, was not built in Leaside.
Durant Motors. A partial view of the chassis line which had a capacity of up to 175 cars per day. Originally in The Story of Leaside by John Scott.
Building Durant motorcars and Rugby trucks in Leaside. Originally in The Story of Leaside by John Scott.
The Durant Car made in Leaside. Date: 1930. City of Toronto Archives, William James Collection.
By 1924, Durant had become Canada’s third largest domestic producer of automobiles. Both the production methods and models were being improved continuously and, by 1925, a Star Six and Road King speed truck were introduced to the public.
The Leaside plant was responsible for all of Durant’s business in Britain. By the end of 1926, 5000 cars had been exported to the UK and Durant’s profit was a quarter of a million dollars for the year.10 While the US firm was beginning a gradual decline, Leaside was booming, with all previous deficits wiped out.
In 1926, Roy D. Kerby became President. Born in 1888 on a farm near Petrolia, Ontario, Kerby was a staunch Canadian who refused to let his wife buy anything on their trips to the United States. He had joined McLaughlin Motors in 1913 but left after the takeover by General Motors. Soon after joining Durant, Kerby became its first Canadian board member. His reputation for integrity gave him the name “Golden Rule Kerby,” a strength he brought to Leaside. Under his leadership profits mounted the following year. Kerby kept his plant so busy with a new line of four and six-cylinder Durant and Rugby trucks that office space was turned into manufacturing space. Accordingly, a new administration building was begun as profits topped half a million.
Meanwhile the parent firm in Lansing, Michigan was experiencing increasing difficulties as competition had increased in their domestic marketplace. Their response was to create a new lineup in 1930, in the form of a low, racy, wire-wheeled Durant. This was the last major attempt to save the much-shrunken US empire. To finance the venture, the US firm borrowed $1,250,00.00 from the York Acceptance Corporation, a firm set up to finance sales from the Leaside factory, only to default on their loan, setting the stage for control to pass to the Canadian Company in Leaside. Full-page newspaper ads announced that Durant Motors was an all-Canadian company to meet Canadian needs.
By 1931, the Canadian Durant Motor Company had grown from one building (covering two acres) to 18 acres and 11 buildings with a floor space of 600,000 square feet. On March 14, 1931, Dominion Motors Ltd. of Leaside came into being with Roy D. Kerby as President and, on June 1, the new company took over Durant. A sales company continued under the name of “Durant” and the commercial vehicles under the name of “Rugby.” These products were distributed throughout Canada by a Durant organization consisting of some six hundred dealers.
The men at Dominion Motors started to work on a new car similar to the 1928 four-cylinder Durant. The Star was phased out and an elegant vehicle, the “Frontenac Sedan,” named after Count Frontenac, a governor of New France, appeared. It had a short wheelbase, a big engine that was noticably peppy and fast, a stylish V-shaped radiator grille, sloping windshield and a deep sun visor. The Special cost $898.00 and the DeLuxe $1,018.00. The best year for production was in 1928 (22,000–23,000 cars).
At the Canadian National Exhibition, the Frontenac was called “The Absolute Sensation of Motor Car Values.”11 Over 100,000 people saw it over a 14 day period. One hundred new cars were sold to dealers across Ontario.
Kerby made a deal in 1931 to build Nash cars in Leaside. But this was not accomplished and in February, 1932, Dominion announced that it had the Canadian rights to build the Reo. For two years the “Reo Flying Clouds” were manufactured in Leaside, but Reo had its own sales and service organization.
Both the Frontenac and Durant were continued into 1932, but the economic hardships of the Depression had taken their toll. The Reo Company proved to be of little help, and Dominion Motors lost a quarter of a million dollars in 1931. As well, the sales of the Frontenac luxury car were poor. President Kerby decided to launch another line, the Frontenac 6–85, which resembled an updated Frontenac but with a cost of $300.00 more than the old 6–70, a decision that did not prove to be successful. At the end of 1932, Kerby dropped this line.
Later, in 1933, an even bigger, deluxe six cylinder car called the “Ace” became available. This luxury vehicle was built in the United States and imported on order to Leaside. The last Durant car was built in 1933. There were 50 cars manufactured that year, with a major Durant display featured at the Toronto Motor Show. The Canadian operation lasted one and a half years longer than the American plant.
The Depression and reliance on American builders for the Frontenac were the causes of its decline. By December 1933, the Leaside production stopped and Roy Kerby rejoined General Motors. The company sold what it could and wound up their operation by 1935, though an offshoot lingered on for years, selling parts at discount prices to its many “friends.” “When Dominion disappeared so did the last bit of Canada’s own automobile industry.”12
THE WAR EFFORT: WORLD WAR I AND WORLD WAR II
LEASIDE, LIKE most communities across Canada, contributed much to the war effort. Many young men and women gave the ultimate, their lives.
War
