37 Let's Go for a Drive 1903

It is an almost completely unknown fact. The first Canadian automobile was invented in 1867 by Henry Taylor of Quebec. Historians agree that the first ever automobiles were those that ran on steam, not gas. Even though Henry was the first in Canada to put a steam engine on his horse buggy, almost no one knows about Henry's automobile. Perhaps it is because Henry's car broke the first time he drove it in public and crashed the second time. Henry put it in his barn and never drove it again.

Steam run buggies soon lost popularity to electric cars. Today, electric cars are considered quite modern, however, they have been around for more than 100 years. The first Canadian car to run on electricity was built in 1893 in Toronto, Ontario. It was a small car with just two seats. It could travel fast-up to 25 km/h. Nova Scotia was so worried about the speed of those cars that the government set a speed limit. Drivers could not legally go faster than 12 km/hr. The Ontario government's idea to keep the public safe from these fast moving cars was to make licenses. The government said everyone who drove a car had to have one.

The first car licenses were made of leather and had numbers on them. The government gave out 713 of these. Drivers put them on their cars to show they were legally able to drive. However, the leather did not last a long time in the Canadian weather, so rubber licenses were made a few years later. By 1970, all car license plates were made of metal, were rectangular, and were the same size across all of Canada. Everywhere that is, but the Northwest Territories. There, in the far north, license plates are shaped like a polar bear.

Although some Canadians learned how to drive using an electric car, there was one thing about them that people did not like. The battery ran out of energy very quickly. Electric cars stopped moving after about 30 minutes, so they did not sell well.

It wasn't until Karl Benz of Germany made the first car to run on gasoline in 1885, that car making became popular. In 1896, George Foss from Quebec built a gas-powered car that worked very well. George did not start a business to sell his car, though, so Canadians had to wait another seven years to buy a Canadian made automobile. The Le Roy, built in 1903, was the first, Canadian, gas-powered car that was sold to the public in large numbers. That year in Canada car making took off, largely because of Gordon McGregor.

Gordon McGregor was a man with a vision. His family had a business making horsedrawn wagons and buggies in Ontario. Gordon could see that the automobile was going to become popular in the future. He thought his wagon business could make cars as well. He met with Henry Ford and made an agreement with him to start the Ford Motor Company in Canada. Gordon got the rights to sell the Ford cars he made in Canada and Britain.

Soon, gasoline-powered cars were everywhere. In Ontario, there were 182 licensed cars on the first day of 1904. To fill their cars with fuel, drivers would put a small pail into a large wooden barrel of gasoline and pour the gas from the pail into the car. One day, while James Matthews was at work at the Imperial Oil Company, he got a telephone call. Gasoline was needed at a factory to run the truck used there. James sold a four gallon can to the manager of the factory. Not long afterwards, James had a better idea. He got a huge metal tank that could hold 59 litres of gas. He put a rubber, garden hose into it. He pumped the gas out of the tank and into the car. He had started a gas station.

THE FIRST CAR EVER INVENTED RAN ON STEAM

That first, Canadian, gas station was opened in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1907. The Imperial Oil Company's night guard was the clerk. He sat inside a small building, made of metal, on a chair that came from a tavern. As many as three cars would stop to buy gas in one morning! Two bicycle stores started to buy gasoline from Imperial Oil for 20 cents a gallon, and sell it at their shop for 40 cents. Gas stations were growing. Soon, cars could travel long distances because they could stop and fill up with gas at these stations along the way.

When the first car drove all the way across Canada on its own power in 1926, the government could see that other cars would soon follow. It was thought that all cars in Canada should drive on one side of the road. English speaking provinces like British Columbia drove on the left. French speaking provinces like Quebec drove on the right. In the 1920's, every Canadian agreed to drive on the right side of the road, except for those living in Newfoundland. That province did not stop driving on the left until 1947.

Between 1918 and 1923, Canada made more cars than any country other than the USA. There were many small and large car manufacturing companies that started up. Quite a lot of them failed. For example, one man, called Malcolm Bricklin, started a car making business in New Brunswick. He called his automobile the Bricklin. Canadians worked at his factory making nearly 3,000 cars in the 1970's. Malcolm only sold his cars in the USA though. Although Canadians built Bricklins in Canada, they could not buy them. Perhaps that is why his business was not successful.

Today, China makes more cars than any other country in the world. Canada has fallen from second, in the 1900's, to the tenth largest maker of cars now. However, car manufacturing is still the largest industry in Canada. And Canadians love to own cars. There are close to 33 million cars licensed in Canada. That is almost one car per Canadian.

In 1960, Henry Taylor's steam buggy was found in the barn where he had stored it in 1904. It was made new again and sent to a museum in Ottawa, Ontario. It is proof that Canadians were amongst the first to fall in love with making automobiles.