The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

he first Ford factory in I Canada was not your usual a branch plant owned and operated by a distant parent. It was the handiwork of a Walkerville, By GRAEME FLETCHER Special to the Beaver Ford has been building cars in Canada since 1904 F4 â€" Oakville Beaver Goodyear is a proud supplier of tires for the Ford Tempo and Mercury Topaz cars produced in Oakville and many other Ford models worldâ€"wide. on the occasion of the 40th Anniversary of production in Oakville A LOOK BACK ON FOUR DECADES OF AUTOMOTIVE PRODUCTION IN OAKVILLE, ONTARIO GOOD¢YEAR We Know What It Takes To Produce A GREAT "DRIVE"! Congratulations On Doing It For 40 Quality Years! éo Your Friends At The e==>., _ ROYALCANADIANGOLF ASSOCIATION *‘gg and CANADIAN OPEN B v‘°fs§ at the va GLEN ABBEY GOLF CLUB Congratulations to our Tfriends at GOODYEAR CANADA INC. 0 day, Juné *"1 in TIRES To achieve this, he decided to take a chance on an American named Henry Ford. In exchange for the right to build Ford Cars in Ontario, wagon maker named George M. McGregor, a man who wanted to get into the automobile business. OQOAKVILLE + 1953 ~ 1993 Canada and sell them throughout the British Empire (except Great Britain), McGregor agreed to assign 51% of the stock in his company to the Detroitâ€"based auto maker. On Aug. 17th, 1904, the Ford Motor Company of Canada was officially formed. The first car â€" a In 1925, Ford was looking for a dramatic and spectacular way of celebrating their 21st year in Canada and the introduction of the new and "improved" 1926 Model T. In the end, they decided to take one of their new touring cars from coast to coast, entirely under its own power. And so on Sept. 8th, 1925, the epic journey started. Forty days after dipping the rear wheels in the In 1909 the Model T, a car that became an instant and lasting sucâ€" cess, was introduced. The price then was $1,150. By 1912, the price had dropped to just $750 for the same car. There was a simple reason for the dramatic drop in price. Henry Ford believed that "a quality prodâ€" uct should be made in everâ€"increasâ€" ing volume and be sold more and more cheaply". This was honest marketing at its very best. In accorâ€" dance with Ford‘s philosophy, the price of a 1925 Model T roadster had dropped to $395. Not coinciâ€" dently, the number built that year, 100,611, was the best to date. 1905 Model C â€" was built in October of that year. The Model C was a two cylinder, lightweight vehicle that had the engine under the seat and a fake hood out front. A grand total of 107 Model C‘s were built in the first full year of production. That, by conâ€" trast, compares with a current proâ€" duction capacity of 225,600 vehiâ€" cles without overtime, and with overtime the number can rise to about 300,000 units per year. CONGRATULATIONS We Wish To Congratulate / e your S $ ,g,ji A TO A GREAT COMMUNITY PARTNER quality service at the Oakville Assembly Plant Ford of Canada for 40 years of jUNE 25 26, 27, 1993 Coronation Park * Downtown Oakville * 845â€"5585 #5900 Waterfront Hotline The A Three Day Celebration of Oakville‘s Harbours and Heritage Oakville Waterfront FESTIVAL The next milestone in Ford‘s evolution came in 1931, when the neutth :WIIMIM/JVWWW//WMIWWIWM ! M all, the two men fitted some special flanged wheels and went by rail. Even today, the task they undertook, is difficult and daunting. It is important to remember that when the driver, Dr. Doolittle and his passenger â€" company photograâ€" pher Ed Flickenger â€" accomplished the drive across Canada, there was no such thing as the Transâ€"Canada Highway. This meant they had to use some rather ingenious methods to navigate the distance. For the 835 miles where there was no road at Atlantic Ocean in Halifax, they arrived in Vancouver on Oct. 17th. Lakeside Park & Harbour Downtown Bronte & Harbour OAKVILLE HYDRO Henry Ford 6. \y\ t ffl’ Cw NK ) The icing on the cake came in May of 1992 when Ford opened their stateâ€"ofâ€"theâ€"art paint facility, The next step in the evolution of the Oakville assembly plant will be the startâ€"up of production of the soon toâ€"beâ€"released Ford Windstar â€" totally new frontâ€"wheelâ€"drive miniâ€" van. The rest is as they say... history. In 1961, Ford moved their corpoâ€" rate head office to the Oakville comâ€" plex. Then in March of 1966, they opened the Ontario Truck Plant. Prior to the addition of the truck plant, both cars and trucks were built in Oakville. Between 1953 and 1966, the Oakville assembly plant also built both Ford and Mercury trucks, rangâ€" ing from 100 to the 1100 series. 'lu'tfl item of interest here being that the Mercury trucks were only built in Canada. The other commercial vehiâ€" cle built in the plant was the{ Econoline. | In 1967, the Meteor, Monarch, and Frontenac models (cars built exclusively in Canada for the Canadian market) carried a Maple Leaf insignia on the front fenders and the steering wheel to commemâ€" orate Canada‘s centennial year. Today, interest in these commemoâ€" rative models among U.S. collectors is high, because they were built in fairly small numbers. Also, the signâ€" ing of the Auto Pact in 1965 gave rise to "North American" listings of cars, effectively killing the small number of Canadianâ€"only models that were being built. After such hype, it is difficult to see how the car could fail. But fail it did despite the fact that the car set an allâ€"time record for deliveries of a brand new midâ€"price car. The biggest problem that the car faced, aside from its looks, was that when the car made it to market, it was in a climate very different to the boomâ€" ing one in which it was conceived. After a brief 2 1/2 year run, the Edsel was replaced in the lineâ€"up by the very car it was supposed to replace, the Monarch. f "Drivers coming toward you spot that classic vertical grille a block away. And as you pass, they glance into their rearâ€"view mirrors for another look at this year‘s most exciting car. On the open road, your Edsel is watched eagerly for the alreadyâ€"famous performance of its big, new V8 Edsel engine." In a letter to the members of management, then president of Ford of Canada, Rhys M. Sale, touted the car because of the "years of creative thinking and of painstaking research, styling, engineering, and planning that have gone into the Edsel". Early advertisements also extolled the virtues of the car. Ford budgeted no less than a quarterâ€"billion dollars to bring that particular car to market. At the time, that amount of money had never been invested in any one car. Before finally naming the cars, Ford hired a poet â€" one Marrianne Moore â€" to come up with some possible names for the new range of cars they planned to produce. her suggestions included such dandies as Mongoose Civique, Turcotinga, and Utopian Turtletop. One can only breath a huge sigh of relief that none of her suggestions were picked. Instead, Ford decided to name the cars after one of Henry Ford‘s sons, (once head of the Canadian operation) Edsel Ford. The models that made up the Edsel lineâ€"up were the Ranger, Pacer, Corsair, and Citation. In November of 1951, with the need for more production capacity growing, ground was broken in Oakville, Ontario, to mark the start of construction on a totally new 32 1/2 acre assembly plant. On May 11th, 1953, the first rolled off the line. While this car was No. 1 at the Oakville plant, it was, in fact, the 2,794,525th car Ford had built in Canada. The list of cars and trucks proâ€" duced in Oakville since that first car includes many famous names, but none as famous as the Edsel proâ€" duced there in 1958 and 1959. one millionth Ford produced in Canada, a Model A. rolled off the line