 What does an axe handle have to do with General Motors of
Canada?
General Motors of Canada build cars, don't they? They have
always built cars, haven't they?
General Motors Corporation, a US entity based in Detroit, traces its history
back to 1897 when Olds Motor
Company was set up by Ransom Olds and began to produce the
Oldsmobile. Since then they have grown, through acquisition and
partnership, to become the world's largest automobile company with over
362,000 employees and over $175 billion (US) in sales volume.
General Motors of Canada, a subsidiary of GMC, can trace its roots
back 1867 and a small farm at Tyrone, Ontario. The farmer there made
axe
handles!
Robert McLaughlin had his roots in Tyrone County, Ireland. By
the mid 1800's he had been "lured" to the Peterborough area of
Ontario with the promise of free farm land. To clear his farm,
McLaughlin built handles for his axes. To supplement his income he
sold some handles at the local market. The handles went over well
with the neighbours. In 1867 or so, McLaughlin built himself a
horse carriage. So good was his design and craftsmanship that the
neighbours, who liked his axe handles, asked him to build carriages for
them.
As knowledge of quality of McLaughlin's carriage spread, the more he
was called upon to build. Between
1867 and 1901, McLaughlin had moved from Tyrone to Oshawa, Ontario and
expanded his operation so much that he had to give it a name. By
1901 the McLaughlin Carriage Company was born. The company was
owned by McLaughlin and two of his three sons. Sons, Sam and
George were his partners.
1901 would prove a crucial turning point for Sam McLaughlin when he and
his brother were given a drive in the carriage company bookkeeper's new
automobile. Sam was enthusiastic over the technology and tried to
talk his father into investing in the production of these horseless
carriages. Robert
was not so forward thinking as his sons, saying that these contraptions
were noisy, smelly and dangerous and were a "passing fad".
Sam, not to be discouraged by his father, by 1907, had test driven a
number of these "passing fads" and decided that he wanted to
build the Buick in Canada. Robert reluctantly agreed. Sam
approached his friend
Bill Durant who was a partner in Buick Motor Company in the US.
Bill met with Sam in Oshawa and penned a three
page agreement (take note all you verbose lawyers!) which allowed Sam to
build the "McLaughlin" with Buick motors. Thus was the
birth of the McLaughlin Motor Car Company.
McLaughlin built 154 cars in his first year of production, 1908 and
they sold quickly. However sales dropped off in the second year
prompting the change of name to the McLaughlin Buick. (Durant
wanted to call it just Buick, but Sam refused.)
By 1908, Durant, was head of an amalgamation of Buick and Oldsmobile
under the banner of General Motors. In 1910, Durant was ousted from
GM only to return to control in 1915. One of his first actions,
upon his return, was
to plan for a new Chevrolet factory in Canada. Not one to forget his
friends, he asked McLaughlin to make his Chevrolets along side their
Buicks.
The GM Canada web site describes it this way:
| "One day while visiting New York, at lunch
with Durant and a Chevrolet stockholder, Sam casually asked how
the Canadian (Chevrolet) project was going. “Why
don’t you give it to the McLaughlin Boys, Billy?” piped in
the stockholder. “Well, Sam, do you want it?” asked
Durant. In two days Durant and the McLaughlin had reached
a deal." |
Reluctantly Robert gave in to the logic of time and closed his carriage facility
to allow the manufacture of the Sam McLaughlin-designed Chevrolets in
the Oshawa plant.
The McLaughlin Motor Car Company grew and prospered until it had
grown so complex that in 1918 it was
bought by the General Motors and renamed General Motors of Canada under the
direction of its first President Sam McLaughlin. Sam remained as
president until 1945.
Sam never forgot that the people made him a success. He made a
return to them through his Foundation and Trust funds.
Separate from both the Trust and the Foundation, there
were also significant gifts that came personally from Colonel Sam. Among
them:
- The McLaughlin Planetarium in Toronto
- The Intensive Care Unit of The Hospital for Sick
Children
- The Guelph University Library
- Part of the Group of Seven collection of the
McMichael Gallery
Born in 1871, Sam McLaughlin, the father of the Canadian automobile
industry, died at the age of 100 in Oshawa, Ontario, less than an hour
drive from the site of his father's farm, where, what would eventually
become know as General Motors of Canada, built axe handles.
|
