60 Years Behind the Wheel. Bill Sherk
1911
THIS IS THE FIRST CAR that the late Marjorie Morton of Toronto could remember riding in. Her future brother-in-law’s father, Roy Deitch, is standing in front of the car. He was a university student at the time and was hired as a chauffeur for the family that owned the car. The photo was taken “around 1911” on Roxborough Avenue at Chestnut Park in midtown Toronto. The houses in the background are still there, now with many beautiful shade trees. Marjorie (born in 1901) could not remember the name of the car when interviewed by the author in 1995.
The identity of the car was supplied by Glenn Baechler (coauthor of Cars of Canada):
The car in the picture is a 1912 Russell model ‘22’ Torpedo, built in West Toronto by the Russell Motor Car Co., Ltd., and with a price tag of $3100.00.
A close examination of the picture shows the passengers are wearing hats and overcoats and there are no buds or leaves on the trees, suggesting a late fall scene in 1911. A possible caption … “Local man takes delivery of the first of the new 1912 Russell models.”
Russell created a distinctive angular design for this model and the styling was considered very modern and racy, easily earning the title of Torpedo. The beauty of the stylist was further enhanced with wire wheels. This option was only shown on the model 22 in the 1912 catalogue.
Russell offered four basic chassis in 1912. The Russell 30 was a 4 cylinder regular valve engine while the sleeve valve Knight powered cars came in three sizes. The ‘38’ for its 38 horsepower, the 26 a mid-size model, and the model 22, our subject car with 22.4 horsepower.
The enclosed artists’ sketch of the model 22, four passenger touring is from the 1912 Russell catalogue and gives us a view of the other side of the car.2
The first Russell cars were known as the Model A. They were launched in 1905 and featured a flywheel with built-in fan blades and a gearshift lever on the steering column (which did not appear on most other cars till the late 1930s). The cars got bigger as time passed, and by 1912 the Russell was firmly established as Canada’s leading luxury car.
Unfortunately, production problems plagued two new models introduced in 1913. The following year, war broke out in Europe and the company began the switch to armaments. Then John North Willys of Toledo, Ohio, began building Willys-Overland cars in the Russell factory in West Toronto, and production of this fine Canadian car came to an end. How fortunate we are that someone took the time to snap a photo of the Russell Torpedo we see here.
Car and Trailer, Leamington, 1913
THIS POPE-TRIBUNE MODEL X runabout was photographed in 1913 in front of H.O. Daykin Insurance at 6 Erie Street South in Leamington, Ontario. William F. Sanford is at the wheel, with Jeff Foster beside him. The Deming Hotel in the background was replaced in 1922 by the Bank of Montreal, which still occupies that site today. The Pope-Tribune was manufactured by Colonel Pope in Toledo, Ohio, from 1904 to 1907, making the car in the photo at least six years old. It may have been shipped new by freighter across Lake Erie to the Leamington dock.
The year this photo was taken (1913) was also the first year Canadian motorists were able to join a national organization promoting the interests of the motoring public. The birth of the CAA is superbly chronicled in Cars of Canada:
At the second meeting of the old Toronto Automobile Club, Secretary T.A. Russell had read a letter from the Automobile Association of America inviting the Torontonians to become a division of the AAA. A lengthy debate followed, but finally on the urging of Dr. Doolittle, the idea was rejected. The Americans would be told that while co-operation was a constant goal, Canadian motorists wanted their own national organization.
This dream came true in 1913, with formation of the Canadian Automobile Association, to which almost all present-day clubs are affiliated. A preliminary meeting on September 3 that year met with such enthusiasm that when a permanent organization was set up on December 30 there were 22 clubs from Halifax to Vancouver involved … Permanent headquarters were set up in Ottawa in 1914.3
The town of Leamington began paving its streets that same year.
Cadillac with Horses and Chickens
ONE OF THE OLDEST CARS in Ron Metcalfe’s family album is this 1911 Cadillac Model Thirty Torpedo Touring photographed sometime before 1921 at the family farm in Weston (now part of Toronto).
The car was owned by Ron’s mother’s uncle, Bill Ashbee, and Ron’s mother (Dora Banner) is the young girl sitting next to Marion Ashbee, who is behind the wheel. Uncle Bill (standing with the horse) nicknamed his car the “Shadowlet” (rhymes with Chevrolet), perhaps because his Cadillac was big enough to overshadow any Chevy. Bill’s leather rear seat can be seen in the left of the photo, suggesting that the Ashbee Cadillac served as a part-time truck.
Before Traffic Lights, circa 1914
FOR MANY YEARS, TORONTO POLICE officers regulated the flow of traffic at major intersections by using a hand-turned “STOP-GO” semaphore like the one shown here at King and Yonge around 1914. They were rolled out (the base was circular) into the intersections at rush hour. These officers were in constant danger of being run over, and they no doubt welcomed the arrival of Toronto’s first electric traffic lights at Bloor and Yonge on Saturday, August 8, 1925.
McLaughlin Touring, Charlottetown, circa 1914
IAN MARR OF BAYFIELD, ONTARIO, wrote:
Photo is of my mother, Grace Marr (nee Messervy) taken about 1914 at Charlottetown, P.E.I. at the wheel of my grandfather’s 1912 McLaughlin-Buick Touring car. Note the size of the spare tire, coal oil cowl lamps, windshield braces and right hand drive. Buick went to left hand drive in 1914. As an interesting aside, Walter Lorenzo Marr, David Buick’s first chief engineer and a co-inventor of the overhead-valve engine, is a distant relative of mine. Also in the car are my grandmother, Carrie Messervy, cousin Edna Gordon (both in back seat) and Uncle Robert Messervy (with cap in front seat). The others are family friends. Mother survived to age 91 and passed away in 1987 at Kitchener, Ontario. She always thought P.E.I. to be the most beautiful place in Canada with its red soil, green trees, and blue-green ocean and she always referred to it as “The Island!” Her father, J.A. Messervy, the owner of the car, was an M.P. for Charlottetown and her great uncle, George Coles, was a Premier of P.E.I. in the 1850’s and a Father of Confederation.4
The first gasoline-powered automobile appeared on the Island in 1904 (although Father G.A. Belcourt had driven his steam vehicle there thirty-eight years earlier). But farmers and other rural folk disliked these new contraptions, and Prince Edward Island banned automobiles beginning in 1909, even though there were only nine automobiles on the Island at that time. Finally, in 1913, the ban was lifted.
The McLaughlin Touring owned