Canada’s longest-established automobile company, Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited, has played a significant role in the emergence of Ontario as Canada’s industrial heartland.

From its founding in 1904 by a group of Canadian entrepreneurs to its investments since 1980 totalling more than $3 billion, Ford of Canada has been a leader in providing a full range of high-quality cars and trucks to both the Canadian and U.S. markets.

The company’s strong Canadian heritage began with Gordon McGregor, the 31-year-old president of the Walkerville Wagon Works located in what is now Windsor, Ontario. McGregor persuaded a small group of associates that there was a future for the newfangled machine that a young fellow by the name of Henry Ford was building across the river in Detroit.

With subscribed capital of $125,000, Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited, was incorporated on August 17, 1904, to produce Ford cars for sale in Canada and all parts of the British Empire except the United Kingdom.
 

1.Gordon McGregor, Founder of Ford Canada. 2.Kenneth W. Harrigan, chairman and chief executive officer, Ford Motor Company of Canada.

Other companies had built cars in Canada before that time, but none continues in operation today.

With another young man as his assistant— 23-year-old Wallace Campbell—McGregor began operations in the former wagon works. There were 17 employees in the first year and the total payroll was $12,000. The first car was built in late September of 1904, and, by the end of the year, approximately 20 had been produced.

One of them, a 1904 Model C Ford, is still owned by the company and is displayed at the Ontario Science Centre.

The company struggled to survive in its early years. At one point, McGregor, who divided his time between running the plant, acting as sales manager and attracting new investors, heard of a Windsor businessman who had recently inherited $5,000.

With that sum, he said, the businessman could purchase four percent of the capital stock of the company. “I’m not going to put my money into a fly-by-night speculation,” the man reportedly told McGregor. Instead, he bought three houses.

Four percent of Ford of Canada stock today would be valued at $50 million or more, and dividends would have produced additional millions of dollars.
 

Probe V, Ford Motor Company's statement for the future.

Ford of Canada’s growth has paralleled that of Ontario and of Canada as a whole since those early years. As Canada was maturing as a nation on the battlefields of World War I, Ford was pioneering the development of motorized transportation and the most efficient means of production—the moving assembly line.

As World War II ended, the company embarked on the biggest expansion in its history. It built new plants and parts distribution centres in Oakville, St. Thomas, Niagara Falls and Brampton, in Ontario, and other cities across Canada as well.

By 1990 the 17 employees had grown to 15,000, the $12,000 payroll had expanded to more than $800 million, and annual production had increased from 20 to nearly 600,000.

But the real measure of the company’s success came from the marketplace. The decade of the 1980s was a time of renewal and resurgence for the company, born in the depths of the recession of the early ’80s.

Kenneth W. Harrigan, chairman and chief exec-utive officer and the sixth consecutive Canadian-born head of the company, described it this way: “With our backs to the wall, we forged a new, more participative relationship in the workplace; we championed the cause of quality; and we offered Canadians a new generation of cars and trucks.”

Consumers responded by giving Ford of Canada 20.1 percent of the car market, up from 15.2 percent in the early ’80s, and 28.4 percent of the truck mar-ket, up from 26.7 percent.

The quality of Ford cars and trucks improved by more than 65 percent during the decade of the ’80s. This gave the company leadership among domestic manufacturers for the 10th consecutive year. Public acclaim was demonstrated by three “Car of the Year” awards from the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada and four similar awards from Motor Trend magazine.

Ford of Canada’s cars and trucks became both safer and cleaner in the ’80s, with widespread use of air bag supplemental restraint systems and an average emission reduction of 90 percent. The company also demonstrated its commitment to alternative fuels by participating in a project with World of Wheels magazine in which four Ford Taurus sedans were driven 7,222 kilometres from Halifax to Vancouver using a variety of fuels.

The trip was a re-enactment of the first cross-Canada journey in an automobile, a feat accom-plished in 1925 by a Model T Ford.

Ford of Canada is a company with deep roots in Canada’s past and a commitment to Canada’s future. Reflecting on the company’s history, Mr. Harrigan says that investments of nearly $500 million at the Oakville Assembly Plant, $325 million at the St. Thomas Assembly Plant, and $70 million in Windsor demonstrate a high level of confidence in the ability of Canadian workers to compete in a globalized automobile market.

“Our people will make the difference as we approach the 21st century as they always have since the establishment of Ford of Canada in 1904,” he said. “We will meet successfully the many chal-lenges facing us by continuing to focus on the fundamentals of our business, by involving all of our employees in the decision-making process, and by offering high-quality products and service that satisfy our customers.”