Tributes
Roy Morrison: 50 years of Automotive Experience
The Post, May 15, 1991
The elder statesman of the automobile business in West Quebec can be none other than Roy Morrison of Hamilton Chev Olds in Wakefield. He has just celebrated the occasion of being involved in this GM dealership for 50 years. This is a distinction shared by only a handful of people in Canada. The business itself, under the Hamilton name, has been at the same location in the village of Wakefield for fifty-eight years.
One of Morrison's long-time customers recently wrote to General Motors. He told the company in no uncertain terms, "I don't buy a GM car. I buy a Hamilton Motors car."
In the fashion of the true gentleman that he is, Morrison credits his wife Maisie with much of his success.
Prior to their marriage, her father, Fred Hamilton, founder of the firm and its only employee, asked the then 22-year-old Roy to come in with him, and help out in the busy garage.
"Fred, who ran the place alone, couldn't operate any more. It was just too busy," Morrison noted. "Maisie worked in the office, and when we worked late she would go home and prepare supper. Then she would come back and spell me off while I would go home to eat. Fred Hamilton was like a father to me. I always called him Dad.' It was a wonderful relationship." In 1944, at the age of 25, Morrison bought 50 per cent of the shares of Fred E. Hamilton Motors, as the company was then called.
Morrison has a pretty good philosophy of business that he feels has been very important to him over the years. He put it simply, "one of the things that helped me out here at the business and helped me out personally, was that I never took any of my troubles home. They stayed at the garage. It helped us stay the way we are today."
Operating a rural garage in the lean wartime years was quite an experience, with the rationing of gas and tires and a shortage of just about everything else needed to fix cars. Cars themselves were almost unobtainable and tubes and tires were just like gold. It should be remembered that back before the advent of tubeless tires, a rubber inner-tube was part and parcel of the tire. The poor road conditions in those days took a toll on rubber.
"Back then we repaired a lot of tires. Frequently they would come in filled with sawdust in place of the tube. Of course, this worked if you drove slowly enough. Sometimes the tires were split on the side and sewed together with haywire, or even beltlacing, which was really used to join the big belts that they used to run machinery in the mills."
He recalled that in 1944 cars were available to those who had a high priority profile, such as members of the medical profession, or government officials. At the time, the small supply of cars was held in Woodstock, Ontario, and each dealer had to go there to drive them back. This prevailed after the war too, when the factory was located in Oshawa.
But then again, this was not new for rural dealers. There was no delivery of cars to the Gatineau Valley until McCallum Transport started the service around 1946. Nor for that matter, was there a showroom for the new cars in Wakefield back in those days. This didn't matter too much as only one or two cars were actually ever kept in stock at any given time.
"There were only a few different models, with perhaps two or three colours. At least 90 percent of them were either black or blue."
Morrison said that it wasn't until after the war that there was a dramatic change in the purchasing of automobiles. Although for a few years after 1945 Hamilton Motors had a quota of ten cars per year; later more cars were kept in stock to satisfy the needs of the customers who did not like to wait six or eight weeks for delivery of their new car.
Before the war most cars were purchased by men, and for cash. Although the GM financing arm, General Motors Acceptance Corporation, was in existence in those days it wasn't used much by country folk. They believed in paying cash - or perhaps a little barter.
Matter of fact, Hamilton Motors was also a major pulpwood broker for E.B. Eddy and the Bronson lumber companies. They would take pulpwood as down payment for cars or trucks. The company ran this side of the business from the mid-1930s until the early 1970s.
"After the war people started to change their ideas," said Roy. "It was no longer men only who bought cars. And there were more colours and options to choose from, too. It was wonderful to see the wives coming with their husbands to purchase the new car. After all, they had to live with it too," Morrison said in his shy manner.
The Hamilton Chev Olds modern showroom, a Wakefield landmark, is a far cry from the early 1930s when there were three separate structures on the site in the south end of Wakefield. Joyce Brothers' small garage was next to the LB. York General Store, and beside it was the Maxwell's house. A fire levelled this block and, in 1933, Fred Hamilton, who had previously bought the Joyce's garage, rebuilt it. The modern showroom dates to 1975. Fred Hamilton passed away in 1979 and is still missed by Morrison.
It is not surprising that, with a half a century in the auto business under his belt, Morrison has a few tales to tell about changes in the products that he has handled since he started in 1941. But, true to his gentle, understanding manner, he couldn't even tell this scribe, off the record, of any clunkers that came his way from GM. He did, however, mention the competition, and their notorious cold-weather starting problems. But even then, he asked that the company concerned not be mentioned!
"I'm reluctant to talk about other makes of cars. I never did run down somebody else's cars," he said.
However, Morrison was glad to tell about the early years when all cars had mechanical braking systems. The modern hydraulic brakes were first introduced by GM in 1936. He claimed that it was virtually impossible to adjust a set of mechanical brakes so that they would not pull in one direction or the other when they got wet. Brakes were controlled by rods that were later replaced with brake cables. Cables were an improvement, at least until they seized up from rust.
"We didn't have the same equipment back then either. There were no wheel balancers or lathes to turn the brake drums smooth. The advent of hydraulic brakes made a difference, like night and day," he said. Improvements in transmissions were also noted as being important advancement in automotive technology.
The first automatic transmission, the GM Powerglide, was introduced in 1946, and Morrison said that it was slow to shift, "but it was fairly troublefree. The four-speed automatics with overdrive of today are a real advance," he noted.Morrison believes in keeping up with the times and when we went back to the garage he explained, in great detail, how the computer in a Chev engine controls the whole car. But then, he has high praise for the training that GM provides for up-grading the staff. "We send mechanics down to the GM school for refresher courses and up-grading," he said proudly.
Another great contrast with the early 1940s is the cost of operating a vehicle. Morrison recalls that gas was 25 cents a gallon or about 11 cents a litre. Bulk oil was 13 cents and oil in cans was 26 cents. A tune-up was only $5, with spark plugs at 35 cents and a fan belt cost $1.35; it's about $5 today.
Incidentally, Morrison remembers buying his first new Chev in 1937 for $975. His second new car, a 1941 model, cost $1,017.
One of the other significant events that Morrison credits as a major improvement in the garage business was the introduction of the six-day week and mandatory 6 p.m. closing. These changes came in 1942, hand-in-hand with the introduction of gas rationing. "We had to close on Sunday and we couldn't sell gas or fix a tire after 6 p.m. during the week. In those days farmers weren't supposed to be on the road after 7 p.m., either."
Clarence Hamilton, son of the founder of the company and Morrison's partner for the last 45 years, joined the discussion and reminded him about the days when they maintained Dr. Harold Geggie's various snowmobiles. "There was a coupe chassis that we put tracks on the rear and skis on the front for steering over the snow."
Although he sold his majority interest in the business to his son Richard, Roy Morrison is far from retirement, in spite of his 72 years. He is active in the back, or the garage, where he proudly showed me his tool box. "Snap-on Tools estimated that I have about $16,000 worth of tools in that box," he said.
He is also an active salesman and is frequently asked to come up front to the showroom when one of his old customers asks for him. Morrison was reluctant to name any of the customers who have bought vehicles from him over the years. "I might hurt someone's feelings if I miss one. There are just so many. Generally, once they buy a car from us they keep coming back. They know that they will get good service. We never cheat them and often give the customer a price break, even if GM has raised its price after we've made the sale."
To my question whether he would name his most important customer, he responded: "Well maybe the Drs. Geggie, because they looked after everyone around here. But then," he added after some reflection, "everybody is important as far as we're concerned."
Perhaps this is the attitude that has kept this delightful man in a successful business for fifty years.