[David_Hayward (RIP)]

David, you have it in one! It was Ford of Canada that had a 101" frame, in their COE truck, and in the end when the idea of mixing and matching components between companies failed, each company supplied their own frames. Now, that said, we believe that GM did not produce frames in-house, rather they were bought-in as in the States from frame suppliers. I don't know about Fords..they may have produced their own. I know they had an axle plant in Windsor, that could produce transfer cases whereas GM had McKinnon Industries as a subsidiary to produce theirs. In a nutshell, whomever produced GM's frames used the standard 2-ton COE components and adapated them to the 101" w.b. required.

It was established back in 1938 by Oshawa that 2-ton components were required simply because of the strength required: so that meant Maple Leaf or GMC (as ML was the GMC clone with Chevrolet engines or GMC) and of course COE not Normal Control.