AHC: A Canadian Car Company

So, McLaughlin is to Canada what Holden is to Australia? That would be good indeed.

Exactly, so General Motors of Canada would really be the GM-McLaughlin Automobile Company, who just happens to be subcontracted for other vehicles sold throughout North America.
 

NothingNow

Banned
Exactly, so General Motors of Canada would really be the GM-McLaughlin Automobile Company, who just happens to be subcontracted for other vehicles sold throughout North America.
Sweet. I could see them being GM's AWD specialists for a long time too.
 
Sweet. I could see them being GM's AWD specialists for a long time too.

And in the process keeping more of the facilities at Scarborough, Oshawa, Ste. Therese and Windsor operating. Good news in all cases. Well, maybe not Scarborough so much, because Toronto doesn't need manufacturing jobs all that badly.
 
1910-1920 -Menard Motor Company has a massive period of expansion throughout the decade. In 1912 a 250,000 square foot plant is built in Leamington, Ontario just as the company hit sales of 100,000 units for the first time - an incredible achievement for a company barely three years old. MMC then aggressively expands overseas for the first time with a new 300,000 square foot plant built in Birmingham, England in 1914, and another in Manchester in 1916 and still another in Limerick Ireland in 1916. Dodge still makes the engines, but this relationship is getting tenuous due to the Dodge Brothers' demands for a larger stake in the profits, even at one point attempting to buy out E.C. Walker's share in the company after his death in 1915 - albeit unsuccessfully. Moise Menard buys a massive tract of land on Windsor's west side from Tom Yawkey (who would go on to own the Boston Red Sox) and begins the work of clearing it for his planned mega factory. Menard also takes over Walker's share of the company, now owning 75 percent of the company himself (the other 25 divided up between initial investors and Menard's son, John). By the end of the 20s, he will be one of the wealthiest men in North America.

In 1913 Menard travels to Germany to recruit engineers to construct a new, more powerful engine and a more efficient transmission and gear shifter for his prototype new model, tentatively titled the "Mark-II" or the "Corsair" but still years away from production readiness.

From 1914-1918, as war raged in Europe and Menard's own son sent to the front lines in France, MMC designed and built field ambulances for the British/Canadian war effort. Production of these ambulances was primarily in the old Windsor/Walkerville plant while the Leamington, then later Birmingham, Limerick and Manchester plants continued to build MMC Essex models at a much abbreviated pace due to the loss of manpower. Construction of the massive new plant complex is delayed due to lack of materials and manpower as well with the site already cleared and docks dredged, the local newspaper begins to call the site "Menard's Meadow".

1919-1920, construction begins in earnest of the Menard OJibway Complex which will take eight years to complete, but production will begin at the site in an abbreviated form just 9 months into construction. When completed it will be the largest factory in the British Commonwealth and the second largest in the world next to the Ford River Rouge Complex. The site will have 74 buildings, it's own steel mill, a foundry, glass works, tannery, chemical processing plant, a coal power plant that will also power half the city of Windsor as well as the factory itself, 68 miles of interior railroad track and 12 million square feet of floor space. Raw materials will go into the plant, and finished MMC Essex cars will come out on the other end. The only component of the Essex not made at the MOC will be the tires and wheels. As a result, the complex will also sever the business relationship with Dodge, who by 1920 have struck out on their own as an auto manufacturer and from this point on, Menard will design, cast and produce its own engines in-house.

By the end of the decade, Menard has assembled an elite team of designers from all over the world who are attracted to his generous pay scales and fair treatment of his employees. The design of the Corsair is going smoothly and insiders predict it will be ready for production by 1922 at the earliest. Menard also secretly works on a design for a light truck that will have a revolutionary all-wheel drive capability, but thus far it is nothing more than a drawing on vellum paper in his private workshop. He employs Albert Kahn - architect of all his new factories including Kahn's masterpiece - the Menard Ojibway Complex, to design Menard's massive home on the shores of Lake St. Clair. By 1920, half the automobiles on the road in Europe are MMCs and 80 percent in Canada. Menard's old rival, Henry Ford still holds a grip on the lucrative American market, and his Model T is getting more and more popular in Europe as well.

Sales by Year in units:

1911-98,092
1912-112,934
1913-148,002
1914-251,445
1915-134,544 (war)
1916-129,203 (war)
1917-89,012 (war)
1918-93,223 (war)
1919-334,490
1920-656,088

Total Sales in units = 2,047,033
 
Last edited:
And in the process keeping more of the facilities at Scarborough, Oshawa, Ste. Therese and Windsor operating. Good news in all cases. Well, maybe not Scarborough so much, because Toronto doesn't need manufacturing jobs all that badly.

True. :D Maybe even expand into new areas, such as the Saskatchewan plant remaining in operation.
 
1921-1930 - "Can it get any better than this?"

The "Roaring Twenties" were very kind to MMC despite a whole host of worthy competitors all jockeying for business from a world marketplace that seemed to have an inexhaustible income in the post-war years. Moise Menard would begin to have a smaller level of involvement in the day-to-day operations in the company as his son John Menard would emerge as the new C.E.O. whilst Moise still had final say on all major decisions that he would often make over the telephone or by courier from his massive compound on the lake and his massive country "cabin" that was downriver from his crown jewel, the Menard Ojibway Complex.

In order to oversee the completion of the MOC on a daily basis, Moise had a 25 room "cabin" built outside of nearby Amherstburg, Ontario on land that had been in his family for over a century. When he found the plumbing of his second house not to his liking, he had the sewer system of the entire town modernized out of his own pocket and as a result, Amherstburg, a town of just under 1000 residents had one of the most efficient and modern sewage systems in North America. He had also taken up the hobby of golf, and in 1928 commissioned famed golf course architect Donald J. Ross to design a new championship level course outside of Amherstburg. It would initially be Menard's private course that he would use when at his cabin but by 1932 he offered it as the new home of the Essex Golf and Country Club - a club he had belonged to since 1919.

In 1923, construction began on Menard's new World Headquarters in Windsor Ontario which had previously been in a rented office. He again commissioned famed architect Albert Kahn who, in turn, hired master sculptor Corrado Parducci for the detail work on what would become an art-deco masterpiece that used local limestone, granite and imported marble. It stood 49 stories, boasted a lobby with a 115 foot tall ceiling and was by far the tallest building in the city. Windsor's population jumped from just under 25,000 in 1910 to 310,000 by 1930 due to Ford, MMC and Chrysler all having massive factories there.

The Menard Corsair was finally unveiled to the world at the 1923 Detroit Auto Show to rave reviews. It had an all-steel body, and its 45 horsepower 210 cubic inch engine was called "a marvel of modern engineering". It topped out at a speed of 70 mph and was the first car in the world to incorporate an all wheel hydraulic brake system. It also had remarkable fuel economy for its time with a gas mileage of 30-35 miles per gallon achieved by the most efficient carburetter ever created. When it went into production on January 2nd, 1924 it was offered for a price ranging from $400 dollars for the base model to $1600 for the "Executive Class" model. The "Executive" boasted an oak or cherry dash, interior heating and fold away brass ash trays, had more interior space and was offered in 16 colours. The base model quickly became a favourite of hobbyists who would enter their modifications in a newly created contest by Moise Menard himself (who started his life as a tinkerer) called The Menard Custom Contest held in Toronto, Ontario every August 1st starting in 1925. Unlike his competitors Menard encouraged people to modify and tinker with his designs and would often offer employment to contest winners who really impressed him in his design department. He would remain an official judge in the contest until the year of his death.

Menard Motor Company expanded operations to Oakville, Ontario, and Laval, Quebec in 1922, Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1925, Sheffield, England in 1926, Melbourne, Australia in 1927, and another in Durban, South Africa in 1928. Throughout the decade, he watched as many of his friends made millions of dollars on the stock market, but Moise was still a man who preferred tangible things - despite the sometimes open ridicule he would face by his contemporaries for not investing on the stock market or having his company go public. After the crash in 1929, Menard's aversion to the stock market paid off as many of his friends lost all of their fortunes and many of his competitors went bankrupt. Seeing this happen, coupled with the failing health of his wife drove Moise further into seclusion. When the dust settled, all that was left out of the original dozens of auto manufacturers based in the Detroit/Windsor area were what local newspapers were now calling the "Big Four" - General Motors, Chrysler, Ford and Menard.


Menard Motor Company - Total Worldwide Sales by Year 1921-1930

1921 - 899,102
1922 - 1,110,322
1923 - 1,228,931
1924 - 2,544,554
1925 - 2,874,088
1926 - 2,982,224
1927 - 3,343,756
1928 - 3,778,335
1929 - 3,133,099

Total Worldwide Unit Sales (1921-1930) - 21,894,431
 
Last edited:
I know where this is going when all the american car compagnies decided to send their factories down south, MMC does the same but instead of arriving in Mexico end up down in the U.S, shortly after MMC has overtaken most of the revitalise most of the rust belt and now own half of Detroit!
 
1930-1939 A Changing of the Guard

The 1930s were not kind to MMC. The Depression took its toll on sales, but because of their worldwide scope and coverage, MMC fared slightly better than their counterparts. The Corsair became the best selling vehicle in the world starting in 1930 on into 1935 as the Menard Ojibway Complex and the other factories churned out millions of cars, providing a living to hundreds of thousands of people.

In 1932, Moise Menard officially "retired" as Chairman and handed over the reigns to his son, John. Menard the younger was a much different man than his father. He was shrewd, calculating and he preferred spending time in London and Paris rather than Windsor, and only went to that city, what he called "that old smelly backwater" when he had to. Despite his often chilly personality he was a born businessman with an uncanny sense of what the public wanted and he inherited his father's love of innovation.

In the depths of the Depression, John Menard actually lowered the price of the Corsair - a move that caused other executives in the company to question his sanity. John loved motion pictures, and MMC Corsair roadsters were the preferred car used in that era's gangster films. John knew the power of cinema as a tool in setting the style of the time, and he paid movie production houses, namely MGM (which was ran by a fellow Canadian Louis B Mayer) handsomely and often provided them with free cars.

In order to save money on materials the company did not expand and actually closed the old Leamington plant, converting it into a warehouse and later selling it to Heinz, putting 2,400 men out of work. In 1934 The company laid off 45,000 workers company wide which caused several strikes and demonstrations, but these demonstrations were brutally broken up by local police and by gangs of hired men workers called "Johnny's Boys".

After these incidents and seeing the success of their contemporaries in the United States, many workers started openly talking about establishing a union - something unheard of in the days when Moise ran the company. From the company's inception in 1909, Menard offered workers profit sharing cheques and Christmas bonuses, but John Menard abolished these benefits as soon as he took office in 1932 in an effort to save money. In his mind, his father was running a ship with "a million leaks", and John had no generous bone in his body. When asked about this by a local newspaper, Menard was quoted as saying "If the workers don't like their jobs, they can seek work elsewhere". This quote only further infuriated the workers, but because this was at the height of the Depression, many felt they had no other choice, so work continued.

Moise Menard was troubled by his son's behaviour, but at the same time overjoyed with the profits. In a six year period from 1932 to 1938 the company made more money than it had in Moise's entire tenure as Chairman. Often in secret, Moise would visit homes of laid off workers and give them turkeys from one of the farms that he owned, and occasionally he would pay some of their late mortgages for them. Menard was raised in very humble circumstances so he empathized with many of his downtrodden workers. Menard was on the way to another laid off worker's home when on the evening of November 21st, 1938 he began to feel chest pains. His long time chauffeur was the last person to see him alive when Moise told him to go home early, as he felt like "driving over to the cottage" for a day of fishing. Approximately four hours later, his Corsair was found idling in the driveway of the home of a laid off MMC electrician who was away from home at the time. He was 67.

Moise Menard's funeral was attended by 20,000 people. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King spoke, saying Menard was "a Canadian institution, and a man only his environment could create." Sitting in the gallery was his eldest son John, who then rose to speak. He called his father his "greatest inspiration" and then used the occasion to announce that the company would reinstate some of the benefits that his father had offered. Moise Menard was interred at the family plot, a simple farmer's cemetery just three miles from his massive 77 room mansion by the lake. His beloved cottage in Amherstburg would be donated to the Essex Golf and Country Club and serve as their new clubhouse.

Then, in September of 1939 everyone's world changed. John won several military contracts and he went about re hiring the now 25,000 laid off workers, along with over 150,000 additional people to replace the men who were drafted into the war effort. Menard Ojibway Complex, now totally completed was the heart of the British war arsenal. Far from German bombing runs it would produce Merlin engines, and eventually Lancaster bombers by the thousands. Other MMC factories would produce machine guns, Spitfires, Hurricanes and countless other weapons of war.

Menard Motor Company - Total Worldwide Sales by Year 1930-1939

1930 - 2,122,433
1931 - 2,210,394
1932 - 1,890,546
1933 - 1,794,008
1934 - 2,009,789
1935 - 2,199,657
1936 - 1,933,112
1937 - 2,390,855
1938 - 3,223,945
1939 - 3,534,320

Total Worldwide Unit Sales (1930-1939) -23,309,059
 
Last edited:
1940-1949 From Darkness to Light

On a cold January day in 1941, as John Menard was sitting in his father's old design office in his massive lakeside mansion that John had named "Edgewater", he received a strange guest. To look at this man you'd think that he was a blacksmith. His large hands framed by stubby scarred fingers; his face pock-marked and wearing a permanent scowl, Don Harrison, head Engineer for MMC was not much to look at, but what he had in his hands would change the fate of MMC forever. Harrison had just been in England, had two ships shot out from underneath him by U-Boat torpedoes, and had drifted in an open lifeboat off the coast of Newfoundland just six weeks before this meeting. While in England he had the opportunity to examine the downed wreckage of an ME-109 full of bullet holes but the engine was still largely intact. What interested Harrison the most was the engine's advanced fuel-injection system which allowed the Messerschmidts that plagued the English countryside to fly upside-down without stalling. Don had been to Germany before the War on a head hunting mission for Moise Menard who himself was always an enthusiast of German engineering. He had seen some of the plans for these fuel injected aircraft engines, but he never thought they could be built.

Harrison had a plan to incorporate fuel injection into the next MMC engine, titled "H-1". On paper it was the most powerful engine ever put into a conventional automobile, but it would not see production for a very long time - if at all. Menard was afraid that it would fall apart after running for less than an hour. Both men, sitting in the dark, the paper yellowed and stained by the North Atlantic both fascinated and frustrated them both.

During the War, as MOC and the other plants hummed along making weapons of war and putting car production on hold for the duration, John went ahead with the business of making MMC his company. He set about looking for new designers with a sense of futurism and style, not just functionality. Countless models were drawn up and proposed, but none seemed to stick with John. Finally, as he was walking on a catwalk above the massive floor of MOC one evening something came to him. He quickly ran back to his office and asked his private secretary to randomly round up ten women from the factory floor. As soon as the ten were brought into his office they were greeted with ten different concept designs. They were asked to pick their favorite design, based on looks alone and seven out of ten picked the third design, code named the "R-7". It was the smallest of the concept cars, and the lowest to the ground, but John already knew that this small car was one of the three new cars he would introduce after the War was over. In a moment of bliss he paid each of them 500 dollars cash on the spot. The "R-7" would become the "Heritage", and would be the first car ever marketed solely towards women. It would debut at the 1947 Detroit Auto Show along with its very different cousin, the "Colt".

Legend has it that as John Menard was cleaning out his father's design studio the day after he died, he found a concept drawing of a sleek, convertible/hard top car with a V8 180 horsepower engine with a four-barrel carburetor. He quickly pocketed the drawing and then immediately ordered his engineering and design department to begin work on development of a new, very fast car. John was rumoured to have given Don Harrison the drawing and said "Make it as fast as you can, without it falling apart." Tests went on throughout 1939, 40, and 41 until a prototype was finally made in 1942. It was called the F-5 and it reached an astounding 139 miles per hour on its first run, going 0-60 in 9,4 seconds. John personally tested it and Don Harrison and two assistants were the only witnesses. Later developments to this new engine, dubbed the "Victory 8" or more popularly, the "Bullet 8" gave it a top speed of 154 miles per hour. The body was designed by members of the new design department, many of whom had previously worked in Hollywood and on Broadway, giving the car a sleek, romantic look. The Colt won top prize at every major Auto show in 1947 and would go into production in 1948, making it the first "Muscle Car" of the era, and bringing MMC into the new post-war era of affluence and conspicuous consumption. Before long, MOC would be churning out thousands upon thousands of Colts every day.

In 1946, sales reached over 4 million for the first time, and only went up as the decade wound to a close.

Menard Motor Company - Total Sales by Year 1940-1949

1940 - 1944 - (War/Military Contracts) n/a classified
1945 - 3,366,755
1946 - 4,232,433
1947 - 4.854,099
1948 - 5,543,332
1949 - 6,211,605

Total Worldwide Unit Sales (1940-1949) - 24,208,244
 

The Dude

Banned
Dude, if you're really this dedicated to it, you should make your own thread. Looks like it has potential as a TL.
 
I'd say lets wait until I finish this out with the stunning conclusion in the early 2000s. I still have some more tinkering to do :)
 
In the 1880's Canada had the first car company in the Americas, building Electric Milk Wagons. I used this in ME 6, to give my Isoted Canada a large Auto Company.
 
Yeah - if you looked at the old ads for GM Canada (and by old I mean at least 1950s/1960s and earlier), they mentioned a branch plant out in Regina (IIRC).

Yep. The 1940 Chevrolet Club Coupe my father built a hot rod out of was built in Regina, Saskatchewan. Not sure when the plant closed, truthfully.
 
Yep. The 1940 Chevrolet Club Coupe my father built a hot rod out of was built in Regina, Saskatchewan. Not sure when the plant closed, truthfully.
OK, with those hints, I found
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~canrbsgs/pages/tour.html said:
General Motors Ltd. Regina Plant (corner of 8th Ave. and Winnipeg St.)
To meet the heavy demand for new cars in Saskatchewan General Motors built this plant in 1928. It was 370,000 square feet in area and the site was 38 acres. The plant was completed in six months and the first new all Canadian made Chevrolet boasting a six cylinder engine rolled off the assembly line in December 1928. The plant produced a new car every four minutes, a 150 cars per day. The plant closed in 1930 following the stock market crash and the start of the great depression.
It was reopened in 1931 adding Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs and Maple Leaf trucks to the line. In 1941 the government took over the plant and renamed it Regina Industries Ltd. where it produced war materials and employed 1000 people. After the war automobile production was not resumed but national defense used part of the property to the mid-1960s. The province took over the property in 1967. It is presently used by several tenants and some parts have been sold.

So, it looks like that 1940 model year might have been the last.
 
Top