Toronto shows trace their roots to earliest cars

Back in 1898, most of Toronto’s transportation depended on horses. The world’s first viable gasoline cars had appeared just a little more than 10 years prior, and Henry Ford’s famous Model T wouldn’t arrive for another decade. But in 1898, a Toronto company called the Canadian Motor Syndicate displayed three of its electric vehicles at the Canadian National Exhibition. For many fairgoers, they were the first cars they’d ever seen.

A Transportation Building was added to the CNE by 1905. It included streetcars, horse- drawn carriages, and railway exhibits alongside displays of automobiles. While the U. S. had a larger ( but still fledgling) auto industry, of which Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Rambler were the top sellers that year, there were also a few made-in- Canada models for buyers to consider, including the LeRoy, Russell and Redpath.

Numerous other Canadian automakers, including McLaughlin-Buick, Tudhope, and McKay, would open in the following years.

At least one other auto show was held during this time, in the Toronto Armoury that once stood on University Avenue near Queen Street. It ran in the fall, after the CNE closed. It’s possible dealers saw it as a last chance to clear out inventory.

The 1912 Armoury show included a display by the T. Eaton department store, which briefly sold cars through its stores and catalogues. It seems they were dropped because the retailer’s “Goods Satisfactory or Money Refunded” guarantee didn’t mesh well with the spotty reliability of early automobiles.

In 1916, the CNE’s auto exhibit was renamed the National Motor Show. Cars eventually became so popular that a pavilion devoted to them, the Automotive Building, was opened in 1929, at a cost of more than $1 million ( it’s now the Allstream Centre).

The “Ex” became the place to see the manufacturers’ new offerings each year, but the final car exhibit was held in 1967, and then Toronto had no auto show until 1974. That year, the Toronto Automobile Dealers Association created a new one, held in Mississauga’s International Centre, which had opened two years before. In 1986, the show moved to its current location at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

The Toronto show was where many Canadians first saw Volkswagen and Porsche enter the Canadian market. And in 1989, Canadians watched as Mazda pulled the covers off its new MX- 5 Miata, as the car was being simultaneously debuted at a similar show in Chicago.

The 2017 show, running from February 17 to 26, includes a special exhibit, The Canadian Story, which will mark the country’s 150th birthday with a few “homegrown” vehicles. They include a Nova Scotia- built 1910 McKay, 1914 Russell, 1927 McLaughlin-Buick, and 1916 Monarch Richelieu, all of which might well have had their introductions at one of Toronto’s very own shows.