Why no Canadian Automobiles?

How come there aren't any? I know that there are various cars and trucks built in Canadian factories from outside companies.

I mean a Canadian-started and owned company building Canadian-designed cars and trucks.

Where is the Bombardier Minivan? :D

Why not?

-J

Reply to
phaeton
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Not exactly meeting your criteria, I know, but Studebaker moved all automobile production to Hamilton in 1965 and 66 after they shut down the South Bend factory. Of course, they also used GM engines and Borg-Warner transmissions (since the excellent Studebaker V-8 no longer had a foundry to cast the parts) so it still wasn't all-Canadian.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

phaeton wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@m25g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:

In a ditch somewhere if they built cars like they build anything other than snowmobiles. The only reason the make the other stuff is they bought the companies with money from Ottawa.

Two reasons: the auto pact and you're wrong. There's an electric car company in Montreal - Zen. They can't sell in most Canadian provinces (including quebec) for pretty much reason #1. But Prius' are allowed to be along with the Tesla. Then there's the Bricklin. Before that it's all pre-autopact.

Reply to
fred

Nate Nagel wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news7.newsguy.com:

And it wasn't owned by a Canadian citizen. Same as GM and the rest really.

Reply to
fred

If Ireland could do it, so can Canada.Made in Ireland Tralee fiberglass body cars, built on Triump chassis.They quit making Tralee cars years and years ago.I am Scots Irish (a double whammy on me!) by Ancestry.I want an Irish Tralee car, for Saint Paddy's Day.Either that, or I will paint some big Shamrocks on my 1948 Willys Jeep. cuhulin ................................................ No way, can you catch a Leprechaun! ................................................

Reply to
cuhulin

phaeton wrote in news:da799c1a-65c8-477c-b9c9- snipped-for-privacy@m25g2000yqc.googlegroups.com:

Sam McLaughlin is the only one I know of.

There also was a guy in Quebec named Lavoie. In the 1920s he decided he would make a car that was ideally suited to Canadian conditions. But he was too much of a perfectionist and burned through his investors' money without actually bringing his prototype to production. The investors eventually lost interest, pulled out what was left of their cash, and Lavoie's venture collapsed.

In any case, there wasn't much point in making cars in Canada in the early

20th century. Cars back then were primarily an urban phenomenon, and were extremely expensive to build.

Canada had (still has) 1/10th of population of the US, and had then only two urban areas of any significance. That meant the concentration of investor cash was small, as was the potential market. So the smart money went into other things, like farm equipment, which had a much larger market.

And right across the border there was a cornucopia of cars that had already been designed and built using somebody elses' money. So rather than reinvent the wheel (ha ha), Canadians simply started buying those. It was the prudent thing to do, all around.

Cars have always been very costly to develop and build. That's even more true now, what with all the government legislation and regulations that must be complied with. Plus the market is now very mature, with little sign of much more than incremental growth over the years. It's therefore highly unlikely anybody truly new will ever enter the market. The smart money is going somewhere else.

Why not a Boeing or Cessna minivan? Bombardier, Boeing and Cessna like to do stuff other than cars.

Reply to
Tegger

fred wrote in news:Xns9CEAE231ABD62fred@127.0.0.1:

The ZENN (two n's) is based in Toronto, not Montreal.

And the reasons you can't drive a ZENN on Canadian roads are the same ones that also keep golf carts off the road. Nothing to do with the Auto Pact.

Those are classed as road-legal motor vehicles. They meet all federal safety regulations, which the ZENN (apparently) currently does not.

Then there's the Bricklin. Before that it's all pre-autopact.

The 1965 Auto Pact had to do with elimination of tariffs on cross-border trade in parts and vehicles. It had nothing to do with what was road-legal or was not.

The Bricklin was produced in the mid-'70s by an American, Malcolm Bricklin. The funding was supplied by you. The money came to Bricklin in the form of taxes that had been taken away from the Canadian people and given to Bricklin so he could blow it on a lousy, expensive, impractical and poorly-designed car. All the Bricklin car proved was that politicians love ass-kissers and have giant egos.

Reply to
Tegger

snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net wrote in news:29104-4B32F00E-11281@storefull-

3173.bay.webtv.net:

I once knew a guy who was half Irish and half Scottish. Half of him wanted to drink and the other half didn't want to pay for it.

(ba-dum-bum)

Reply to
Tegger

It was back in the 1950s (I think) when I first read about the Irish Tralee cars in either Popular Science magazine or Popular Mechanics magazine.

Actually, they were called Shamrock cars.There have been some other brand names of cars produced in Ireland too.Chambers and TMC cars, the Six Counties, (Derry is still Derry to me) and Nobel cars, Nobel cars, perhaps in the Republic of Ireland.

About ten Shamrock cars were built,, heavy fiberglass body panels mounted on the chassis,, I think they were hoisting too many pints of Guinness when they designed and built those Shamrock cars. cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

Tegger wrote in news:Xns9CEB6B32797B6tegger@208.90.168.18:

Oh it meets them - the ones that they can test themselves. Otherwise they can't get the testing done.

If you allow US Companies to buy Canadian ones without restrictions there will be no Canadian ones. There are no longer any canadian owned beer companies anymore for example - other than microbreweries. The difference between that and outlawing Canadian cars is and was non-existant in the outcome.

No, it proved that Malcom was one charismatic con artist.

Reply to
fred

fred wrote in news:Xns9CEC8265B37EDfred@127.0.0.1:

Because it's classed as a golf cart. Golf carts may not be driven on Canadian roads. Transport Canada won't allow it.

The Tesla is based on a Lotus automobile that is already certified and safetied by Transport Canada as an automobile. The Prius is likewise based on an already-certified automobile and is itself certified by Transport Canada for public-road use.

Who cares who owns what? Ownership is the most irrelevant criterion of any that exist.

This idiotic Canadian obsession with ownership is why we have such lousy and expensive book stores, airlines and television.

I'd rather have 100% foreign ownership and excellent products than Canadian ownership and lousy products.

I want my DirectTV back. :^(

Who conned politicians by kissing their asses and inflating their egos. None of what Bricklin did could have been done without politicians (with state power and tax money) to con.

Reply to
Tegger

Tegger wrote in news:Xns9CEE99BE9D08tegger@208.90.168.18:

What would you call Smart cars then? they're virtually identical.

Plus they weren't Canadian companies.

The US congress sure does. If we had the same laws and anti-foreign ownership stance north of the border, We'd be selling the US fighter planes and Hamilton would still be rivaling Pitsburg in Steel production.

Name one book store chain or airline that's Canadian owned - aside from Air Canada. The TV stations I'll ignore as it's hardly a major industry anymore.

Now who's being discriminatory?

I want *a* sat company that's allowed to carry whatever channels they want.

There's no one easier either. The only person who comes close in charisma IMHO was a guy from the 80's that made luggable "laptops". A bit before the Hyperion. Can't recall his name right now.

Reply to
fred

It's not about what the car looks like, how it acts or how it drives. It's about what kind of paperwork has been filed on it.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Kay and/or Sinclair?

Reply to
AMuzi

fred wrote in news:Xns9CEE9DECEFA06fred@127.0.0.1:

ALL the bookstores. Foreign ownership is prohibited by law unless it's minority ownership with no control.

ALL the airlines that are allowed to fly from one Canadian destination to the other. Foreign ownership is prohibited by law unless it's minority ownership with no control.

ALL the radio stations. Foreign ownership is prohibited by law unless it's minority ownership with no control.

ALL the TV stations. Foreign ownership is prohibited by law unless it's minority ownership with no control.

ALL the banks. Foreign ownership is prohibited by law unless it's minority ownership with no control.

ALL the utility companies. Foreign ownership is prohibited by law unless it's minority ownership with no control.

Me. Absolutely. I do not care one whit who owns what. I /do/ very much care about being forced to buy "Canadian" when I find better elsewhere.

You won't find exactly that on either side of the border, unfortunately. But DirecTV was WAY better than anythng regulated by the CRTC, and we had that for ten years. Until about March, actually.

Reply to
Tegger

fred wrote in news:Xns9CEE9DECEFA06fred@127.0.0.1:

You have an odd concept of the term "identical".

Transport Canada classes Smart cars as automobiles. Like the Tesla and the Prius, they comply with the federal government rules defining an "automobile", and with all automotive safety rules.

Reply to
Tegger

AMuzi wrote in news:hh8j6h$q34$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

No, A US computer company. About the same time as Kaypro were making the same things.

Reply to
fred

DirecTV, you say? I subscribe to DirecTV to the tune of about $62.00 each month, ever since December 2004.DirecTV likes me so much that twice within a year and a few months they gave me five months worth of nine free pay per view/whatever channels.Hardly ever though are there any tv programs on those free channels I care to watch, channels 537 through

549.

This afternoon, I was crawling around under my house and doing some electrical work.I know how to do that,, but check out that article at

formatting link
High tech vehicles pose trouble for some mechanics.

Hoot Mon, on those fancy vehicles nowadays, I wouldn't know where to start! cuhulin

Reply to
cuhulin

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