[john a milne]

The following is the McLaughlin Motor Car sales brochure that has a wonderful story of how the auto had liberated and enriched the life of a prosperous family living in the city.

"The larger the city, the more contracted is the outlook and the more perverted is the perspective. The further you get from Nature, the nearer you get Perdition".

I'm as entranced as much with the "copy" as the photos and wonderful drawings that are found in these early Sales Brochures giving an insight into this remarkable period in human history.

The McLaughlin Carriage Company was founded around 1867 and in 1876 moved to the small City of Oshawa located about 30 miles east of Toronto Ontario. By the turn of the century they had become the largest builder of Horse Drawn Carriages in the British Commonwealth producing over 25,000 a year.

In 1903, Sam and his brother were excited about the future of the automobile but their Dad didn't agree. Early 1905 Sam test drove a number of cars and felt that the Buick was the best and finally convinced his father to build a car.
In 1907 Sam McLaughlin signed a 15 year agreement with his old friend William Durant, who was working for the Buick Car Company, to supply the power train from the Buick Model F. Durant then provided two engineers to McLaughlin and in 1908 they had build 154 cars. With poor sales, the car was renamed McLaughlin-Buick until 1915 when it reverted to just McLaughlin.

These were very high quality cars and boasted a 16 coat paint finish and the overhead valve engines from Buick.

In 1908 Durant had combined Buick and Oldsmobile into General Motors. In 1910 he was booted out of the Company and went to work for Chevrolet. In 1915 Durant had enough money to take control of GM and made a deal with McLaughlin to build the Chevrolets along side the Buicks and the McLaughlin Cars in Oshawa.

In 1918 McLaughlin merged with Chevrolet and became General Motors of Canada. In the late twenties Sam McLaughlin sold his General Motors Canada to General Motors U.S. and it has been a private subsidiary ever since. Sam continued to on the Board till 1945.

Today the G.M. plant in Oshawa is producing over 1,000.000 vehicles annually with 85% being shipped into the States and the Plant is ranked G.M.'s #1 plant in both North & South America for overall quality.

[karlosdeville]

Thanks John, for always taking these efforts. Its a great story. India got a fair number of the McLaughlin Buicks, one famous 1928 tourer survives in the Mallya collection in Bombay, apparently with some British royalty connection. A sister car from the family survives in the Czech Republic.

I guess we got more Canadian cars as they were right hand drive.

[john a milne]

Originally Posted by karlosdeville

Thanks John, for always taking these efforts. Its a great story. India got a fair number of the McLaughlin Buicks, one famous 1928 tourer survives in the Mallya collection in Bombay, apparently with some British royalty connection. A sister car from the family survives in the Czech Republic.

I guess we got more Canadian cars as they were right hand drive.

The McLaughlin Museum in Oshawa were delighted to receive my Brochure as they didn't have a copy of it. I'll be posting photos of some of the earlier models. It should be noted the the Chassis was shipped in from the U.S. at this period.

I've been doing more research and found that in Canada they marketed the "McLaughlin - Buick" up till 1940.

Canada followed the U.S. and quickly changed to left hand drive (will check on the year) and the U.S. larger car companies with factories in Canada would build their right hand cars here and ship them to the British Commonwealth to avoid the extra duties placed on U.S. cars.

[john a milne]

Canada followed the U.S. and quickly changed to left hand drive (will check on the year) and the U.S. larger car companies with factories in Canada would build their right hand cars here and ship them to the British Commonwealth to avoid the extra duties placed on U.S. cars.[/quote]

I discovered a 1916 Ford Sales Brochure, that I will post separately, which mentioned that at that time our west coast Province of British Columbia and our east coast Provinces were still driving on the Left Hand side.

Something that I didn't know and will check when they switched to the Right Hand side.