The Canadian Automotive Museum is a public not-for-profit charity that maintain's the world's most significant collection of Canadian automobiles. Located in Oshawa, Ontario, just east of Toronto, it is a must-see for international car enthusiasts.
In the early '50's we had three families from Sidney who would form a convoy to go over the "hat" and camp at Rathtrevor beach each year. The convoy was so that if one car broke down there were others to help.
Off-roading was basically universal, since there usually wasn't much by the way of paved or even gravel roads even by the 1920s, and driving cars on rails was a common industrial activity; most railways maintained a pool of cars converted to ride the rails for inspections and messenger duties.
In the few days since we recorded this talk, we've learned a lot more about its context, and the people in it! Huge thanks to Mark Richardson for the detailed information; Perry Doolittle was indeed not present for the majority of the drive; he designed the route, however. Doolittle joined the journey in Quebec, where he drove over the bridge and then returned to Toronto. It's worth noting that he claimed someone else had crossed the Pont de Quebec by car, illegally, a few years earlier- so he was not the first to cross the bridge. He then got back on a train to travel by rail to a CAA conference in Vancouver, but got off around Dryden to join the car on its drive to Winnipeg, where he spoke again and then left by rail for Vancouver. The pilot of the car, for 100% of the drive, was Ed Flickenger, who was a film maker and photographer employed by Ford. The people who did the actual driving were a succession of Ford executives from each of Ford’s local regions as the car travelled through. Doolittle never claimed to have made the drive. That story was started by Ford’s PR department in 1973 when they recreated the drive to publicize their new Mustang and Cougar. Auto journalists just went along with the statement and nobody ever checked it.
Very interesting, thanks for taking the time to share; very curious how much info about this journey has been lost to time or just never was. Would be interesting to find where either the car, or even it's grille ended up.
Thanks for tuning in! Since recording this, we've learned a few more details about at least some of the people involved- I'm preparing a post on it as we speak.
I owned car number 134 which I bought from C & C Motors here in Oshawa when they were located on Grenfell St. I put over 97,000 miles on it before taking it off the road. I kept it in my garage for some years hoping to retore it but finally gave it to a man who at the time had seven others. He was going to restore mine as it was in the best shape of all of the ones he had.
This footage is from a documentary filmed in 1974- you'd have to ask the production crew about their music choices. A factory making plastic cars was pretty sci-fi stuff for the time.
@CanadianAutomotiveMuseum Yes, a very 70's corporate film soundtrack. I'm a fan of the Bricklin. It dared to be different in the middle of the malaise era. People who complain on the build quality never drove a mid to late 70's Corvette.
It makes me Very sad Canada lost its auto industry. Canadian Government sold us out. The USA big 3 bought our Government . Just like the Areo industry . Sad Truth Canada had the most advanced Fighter Jet in the late 1950s The Avroarrow And Canada was told to shut it down. Thanks Diefenbaker.
By our count there have been somewhere in the area of 115 different makes of car produced in Canada since 1899. Some are classics, some weren't, but they were all made here!
These guys worked hard BACK THEN. Then the union came to be and became candy land. Over paid, lazy, spoiled. GM, ford and Chrysler (Daimler, Fiat, whatever it is now) are still in business by incorporating more and more foreign made parts into it's cars and trucks. Built in USA? At best, assembled in USA. Also, salaried employees have had it made as well. Labor cost and horrible quality has sunk GM, ford and Chrysler (FIAT).
That was fantastic! Really appreciated that in-depth presentation ! I am a former Can-Am owner of a 1979 MX5 250 in my youth, so this brand is near and dear to my heart. Can’t wait to see the Can - Am motorcycles back out on the street later this year and I hope they’re going to also make a gas powered version as well as the EV. 😎
It probably did! Most Canadian towns and cities established during the horse and carriage era are usually just far enough apart that you could cover the distance between them in 8-12 hours by horse. Nobody planned things this way, it was just sort of an unconscious unit of measurement that settlements developed around.
My goodness, maybe I shouldn't complain so much about having to drive this route. Sometimes I forget people come from all over the world to see the capital.
@@CanadianAutomotiveMuseum what a factoid! I worked at Fisher Body in the late 1970’s. It was an old plant, a 1920’s industrial complex, building bodies for various automobile manufacturers back in the day, until acquired by General Motors. It was an awesome plant to work at and will be always my favorite place to work at! But I never made it to the silver screen, but had a God encounter during a Bible study during lunchtime!
I was excited when the Bricklin came out (I was 9). I thought it looked awesome (still do although many say they hate its looks). I didn't know St Bruno was almost the factory location (I lived there in the late 70s and had no idea).
The original St. Bruno deal wasn't very widely publicized. As far as we've been able to tell the plan never really got out of the boardroom, as it were. Certainly nothing was finalized.
Absolutely! The mid-1970s were a tough time to build sports cars, what with the rapidly-changing engine and emissions regulations that were going on at the time.
It absolutely is, and it absolutely is! The Bricklin team were passionate, enthusiastic, but, for better or for worse, not very good at running a car production line, especially one involving what was then pretty cutting-edge plastics technology in a factory where they didn't have time to work any of the kinks out. Money was always tight, so there was no wiggle room to fix major problems (like how one-third of the acrylic bodies they built fell apart during the curing process), and the failure to sell the car in Canada seriously hurt their bottom line. Hatfield's decision to can the factories and pull funding was harsh, but it was a decision that absolutely made financial sense at the time.
There's a good chance they are, though we don't know for certain, and you're definitely not the first person to suggest as much. We know for a fact some of the footage was taken at Port Alberni, and given that Cameron was and is the next big stop on the highway between Alberni and Victoria... again, can't say for sure but probably.
This is a wild take. The goals and structure of the economy must be set by oversight, or we're back in robber baron territory (which is creeping up as is). Pretty much every large, successful company has massive government involvement; to say nothing of the vast amount of subsidies that companies like boeing tesla etc snarfle down. I'd much rather the government spend money on trying to get work to a disadvantaged town then send it to line some billionaire's pockets or build another overpriced missile.
Canadian Model Ts also had a door on the left side - which were not offered on US vehicles. This enabled Canadian-built cars to be completed as left (as in the US) or right-hand drive variants for the UK and other British Empire markets.
Absolutely correct! The export of Canadian-made Fords and Ford parts around the British Empire was a massive undertaking, one that's probably deserving of its own video or seminar some day.
@@CanadianAutomotiveMuseum I hope the museum will continue its work of educating the public about the fine Canadian automobiles shipped throughout the Empire as well as the stylish Canada only models (especially the 1956 Meteor).
Interesting history. Checked my VIN and my 1996 Volvo 850 GLT 5 spd manual was assembled in NS! 11th position in the VIN is a 3 which is the factory code for Halifax I believe.
There are pretty good reasons, at least originally, why the Malahat didn't have many tunnels- these were the very early days of driving, and even modern road-building in Canada, so the funding and demand weren't there for full-scale road tunnels. Also, the first Canadian highways were often expected to pay for themselves through auto and cycle tourism, mostly from the United States- so the more scenic and windy the route, the better the investment. That was the thinking in 1912, at least.
WOW the scenes of them driven along cliffs on roads that were basically off-road by today's standards, with no seat-belts, no roof and no windows !!!! 😱😱😱😱😱🤕💀 On vehicles that never should have been convertibles. or off-road. And then one, I assume, youngish woman/girl stands up to wave frantically... like someone in a speeding boat on a choppy sea, with corners!!!!! 🤢🤮 I was posted/stationed/lived in Esquimalt/Victoria, for 3 and a half years, I guess I need to Sub' I love this type of "Time Travel"... ( {A.J.L.} footage, especially when it has a more personal connection. And I'm tired of just city footage or foreign footage. I was born on 1957 , my father was born in 1901 and his father in1868 in bilingual Ontario ! I could see what they had lived before civilization got much more serious. And decades before I was born. I always look for my father in antique film footage of WW2 (his parents forbid him to go to WW1 until he turned 18, It was over before he was 18.
Thanks for tuning in! Driving in the early 20th century was indeed a heckuva lot more dangerous than it is now- the only reason accident rates weren't incredibly high is that so few people were actually driving.
Not at all! Canada's first steam car was around in the 1860s, and there were electric cars and gas cars by the late 1890s. Plus, bicycles started being really popular in the late 1880s- when this film was made, the country was on the tail-end of a huge cycling boom.
The location in Alberni, BC on May 4,1912 would be the confluence of the Somass River and Kitsuksis Creek. The lake footage starting at 7:42 is the eastern shore of Cameron Lake.
The mile zero mark was installed at Victoria Quay and Johnson Road. There are pictures online. Cameron Lake part of the video I know those mountains around the for sure as I have driven past them for the last 60 years. You can check Cameron Lake photos online and see the same mountains. 1912 was the same year the rail line was brought into the Alberni Valley.
Oh, we hadn't realized there was a mile marker! Fascinating stuff. We're really uncovering up this proto-Trans Canada Highway story as we go. Thank you!
Mile Zero: In 1912, hundreds gathered at Victoria Quay for the installation of a post recognizing the terminus of the Trans-Canada Highway. In the spirit of rivalry between the two towns, pranksters from Port Alberni stole the sign in the middle of the night and replanted it at Argyle and Kingsway; Port Alberni's mayor, Arthur Waterhouse, made sure that the sign was returned. In 1950, the terminus, or Mile Zero, was moved to Victoria
Pretty hard to figure out just where these films were taken. The caption says the Malahat, but I cannot place the shots with respect to the current road.
Absolutely. Our only reference for where some of this footage might have been taken is a single newspaper article from 1912- the rest is guesswork, not helped by it clearly incorporating footage from multiple different trips.
