WW 1 Canadian MVs

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

I know that US-supplied Ford T ambulances arrived in France by 1915, but I have never seen any evidence of any Canadian ambulances. However I am sure that there were shipped over Canadian Fords sourced from the Windsor plant.

The McLaughlin Motor Co in Oshawa produced the 1915-on McLaughlin (-Buick) model C4 and then 1916-on D4 vans which were very similar to the US Buicks vans. A reference in The Toronto Daily Star of 8th September 1915 mentions that the McLaughlin company exhibited at the CNE various cars as well as a Red Cross ambulance similar to those at the Front dealing with ‘our injured boys’. They may have continued on into 1917 with the D4, but by then Flint were offering the dedicated model 16AA Ambulance which was based on the D4, and I know that a large number came over and were then demobbed in England. I have details of a McL-Buick ambulance that was demobbed in 1919 in England and then used by the Canadian Red Cross in London for a short time. I suspect that it was used in France previously by the CRC.

I would be very interested to know who had the contract to purchase all the ex-Canadian vehicles in Europe. The US stocks were bought by Percival Perry but were then found to be water damaged. Perry was then involved with the "White Elephant" namely the Slough Depot that the WD built in Buckinghamshire that then became the Slough Trading Estate. For instance the Four Wheel Drive company acquired and rebuilt all FWD 4x4 and their license-built copies until they started building their own around 1925 under the Hardy name.....then AEC of course.