100 years for Canada’s oldest GM dealer
Former owner an employee
Rudolph Laroque has spent 83 of his 98 years at Canada’s oldest General Motors dealership.
Transportation options back then were still largely horse-drawn wagons and trains until local businessman Joseph Ovila Montplaisir inked a deal in 1914 with Ontario-based General Motors to sell Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillac cars, along with GMC trucks, after opening Garage Montplaisir Ltee. in Drummondville, Que.
At least two days a week, a courtesy car from the 100-year-old dealership arrives at the seniors’ residence to transport Laroque to Garage Montplaisir, where he started work at age 16. The year was 1932 and he remembers a new six-cylinder Chevrolet sport roadster displayed in the showroom with a sticker price of $820.
Laroque quickly moved from the parts department to sales in the midst of the Great Depression. Ironically, his first car was a 1930 Ford Model A roadster, which had been traded in at the GM dealership where he worked. He was 19 years old and paid $150 for it.
“I didn’t have enough money for the licence, so I had to wait a couple of weeks to be able to afford to drive it,” he says.
Back then, Drummondville, now a city of 75,000, was a village midway between Montreal and Quebec City with a thriving textile industry. Garage Montplaisir soon expanded its line of cars to sell Pontiac and Oldsmobile cars as well.
Laroque has fond memories of picking up a 16-cylinder Cadillac convertible at the local hotel to park inside the dealership overnight for the wealthy owner. He would drive it back to the hotel the next morning and charge the owner 50 cents.
In 1941, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force as a truck driver. From 1942 to 1946, General Motors stopped producing vehicles for domestic sale while it concentrated on the war effort. To keep the doors open, the dealership switched to selling furnaces, stoves and furniture. Joseph Montplaisir later sold the dealership to four of his employees, with Leslie Miller as president.
When Laroque returned to the dealership after the war, he discovered that the owners had put money aside for him as if he had continued working there.
Laroque used the money to buy a share in the dealership in 1946. He became the third owner of Garage Montplaisir in 1960.
“I worked from eight in the morning until 10 at night, six days a week,” he says. “Then I would get calls on Sundays from people wanting to buy cars. I never refused them.”
During this time, another General Motors dealership opened with a new building in Drummondville and Montplaisir lost the Chevrolet and Buick line of cars, keeping only Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Cadillac and GMC trucks. But that dealership went bankrupt and Laroque was able to move Garage Montplaisir to the more modern building where it remains today. Over the years, Garage Montplaisir has been part of the community, sponsoring a hockey team with Laroque as president. He also served as an elected councillor for the City of Drummondville.
His two sons would work alongside him, with his oldest son Pierre eventually buying the dealership. In 2010, the dealership was purchased by Alain Ginchereau and Therese Marcotte. The partners set aside a small office for Laroque, who is into his ninth decade of involvement with the now centuryold General Motors dealership. “They treat me very well and I always feel welcome. I come in to have coffee with the boys,” Laroque says of the two to four days a week he spends time at the dealership he once owned. “At the time I first got the franchise, we were selling 150 new cars and trucks a year. Now we are selling 500 new vehicles a year and 300 used.”
He still greets longtime customers of the dealership, some who bought vehicles from him.
Laroque drove a Cadillac but found it to be too big to park at his seniors’ residence. He later switched to a smaller Chevrolet, in keeping with the cars he has been associated with for most of his life. He gave up driving last year at the age of 97.
Ginchereau, who began working at the dealership on Sept. 11, 2001 — the notorious day known as 9-11 — says more than 100,000 vehicles have been sold over the past century. During that time, 6,500 people have worked for the dealership.
He says the frequent visits from Laroque continue to be very important for those who work there.
“All the employees know the history of who they work for,” he says, “and everybody is proud because he is right here. He is like an oak. He is our legacy and we are so proud of that.”