The first Jeep factory in Canada was opened in 1959 (although Ford had previously built M38A1's in Canada, under contract to the U.S. Army). From the Windsor, Ontario Daily Star, 16 July 1959:
Windsor (right across the river from Detroit) was an automobile town, and when Kaiser/Willys announced they were going to expand their existing assembly/distribution plant and start building Jeeps here from scratch, it was big news -- bigger than Berlin, Khruschev, Scotland Yard or Canadian politics. The newspaper announced that the first vehicle was expected to come off the assembly line in August, with forty percent of its parts originating in Canada. Plans were for production of 1,000 vehicles per year, beginning with the "open-type jeep", which sold at the time in Canada for $2,200.
At the bottom of the front page was a photo of the already existing Willys facility, which was located between the two sites where the Chrysler mini-van and truck plants would later be established. According to Cars in Canada by
Hugh Durnford and Glenn Baechler (McClelland and Stewart, 1973) Willys moved their Canadian headquarters to Windsor in 1934, where they remained even after the entire Willys organization was taken over by Kaiser in 1953. Kaiser Jeep of Canada Limited, as it came to be called, started assembling Jeeps in Windsor in 1954.
Joe Donnelly of Windsor worked in assembling, welding and maintenance at the factory for the full ten years it was open, and was kind enough to send these recollections:
"Well, I have to really get my thinking cap on now because I am 74 years old and it was 1969 when the plant closed in Windsor. My Jeep career started when they opened the door and ended when they closed the door.
"The plant was already there before we decided to manufacture Jeeps and was a parts depot facility. All the employees were asked to join in on the assembly part of it but few did, so new hires were added in 1959. The plant mushroomed from 6 employees to about 60 when we officially ran the first Jeep off the line on August 21, 1959.
"I remember that day when all the Government Officials were there to officially open the plant. Paul Martin Sr. and a host of other local officials making for a gala official presentation. We were all answering questions and socializing, dressed up in white long shop coats, looking good. Ha Ha.
"My job was assembler and welder for the first few years then because of my background in the trades I applied for and received the Maintenance job looking after all the production facilities and the plant in general. This included all the maintenance, welding and whatever they needed within my qualification range. We made all our own paint dip tanks and hangers, and even built a series of jigs and fixtures that was required for a government contract to produce military vehicles in the 4-speed 4-wheel drive units.
"The history of production started with the CJ5 Jeep which we produced until we got really into it, and then a few other models were added. We added the CJ3B, CJ6, FC150 and the FC170, then came the Jeep Wagoneer. Under the supervision of Mr. Frank W. Freel we also began making a small, boxy-looking cap for the Jeeps, which was cut out, welded and installed by us there in our machine shop facility. Mind you the production was very low at the time and we were lucky to produce 5 CJ5's a day. The larger models took more time so they were balanced out in the day's load.
"We only had use of a few engines, one an overhead valve 4-cylinder and a flat head 4-cylinder used in the smaller series of CJ3 Jeeps. The later model Wagoneer Jeep line used a straight six engine made by General Motors for us. It used a single camshaft with common lobes for both intake and exhaust valves.
"All of the fixtures and jigs were also manufactured in Windsor with the plans that came from Willys in Toledo, Ohio. All the parts came from Willys in Toledo and other suppliers, and were trucked down via 18-wheelers. We also had a regular truck of our own to pick up missed shipments and shortages, etc.
"The production facilities were meager, with assembly stations on wheels located throughout the plant to coordinate the various assemblies. There was a frame assembly, front end assembly, engine assembly, body-in-white assembly and paint, and final assembly before it all went out the door. We had a small one-vehicle paint booth and a drying oven of heat lamps to bake the paint, which moved on a track past the body shells.
"We belonged to Local 195 UAW, and were covered by a contract for the full time of our production experience from day one. This was before the CAW was formed by breaking away from the UAW. Wages then were about $3.50 per hour average, and of course I made about 10% more due to the Maintenance classification.
"We had a 10-year stint in Windsor and the major reason we closed was because of the lack of environmental controls. We were being scanned by the EPA and our plant wasn't the cleanest. All of our cleaning solutions ran straight down the sewer and we had very little dust control from our paint booths. To update to the required scrubbers and filtration equipment would have been too costly, and the company as a whole wasn't doing that well so they folded and sold out to American Motors Corporation." -- Joe Donnelly
Alex Houle found the newspaper clippings on this page through the Windsor Public Library. There are news reports of an expansion in the work force from to about 80 employees in 1963, when the plant moved into the production of Wagoneers and Gladiator trucks using welded bodies imported from the U.S. According to the newspaper, the plant had been producing four "standard Jeeps" daily. Sixteen different models had been built, including some two-wheel-drive Dispatchers. About five percent of production was for export to other British Commonwealth countries.
Production was still going strong in 1969, when Kaiser announced that "due to the unfavorable economics of duplicating our U.S. production in Canada," it would discontinue Jeep production in Windsor almost exactly ten years after it had begun. The closure may also have been related to the impending sale of Jeep from Kaiser to American Motors.
A newspaper article (right) from the Windsor Daily Star of 26 July 1969 gives a capsule history of Jeep in Canada, including "one of the brightest chapters in the company's history here... in February, 1965, when Windsor was inundated by the worst blizzard in recent history. Four-wheel-drive Jeeps were about the only vehicles that could move through the deep snow and KJOC (Kaiser Jeep of Canada) set up an emergency centre in its plant, yanking Jeeps right off its assembly line and pressing them into emergency service."
See a full copy of this article (50K GIF), which describes the last 12 Jeeps to come off the Assembly line as "specially created Jeep 'Wheelies', wildly-painted fun machines that look more like oversize dune buggies." The photo of the "Mod" Jeep driven by business manager F.W. Freel shows a CJ-5 with a black stripe painted up the centre of the hood, similar to the Renegades of the early 1970's. (John Shows of Mississippi suspects his 1969 CJ-5 Made in Canada may be one of those last Jeeps off the line.)
Bob Morgan reported to The CJ3B Page in 2008 that, "A fellow in Quesnel, BC bought the last production Jeep CJ-5 made in Canada. The hood had all the production workers' signatures on the inside. His name is Tom Moore and he bought it from Cook Motors in Penticton BC in 1969. To my knowledge he still has the hood but the Jeep was totaled in an accident. I had driven the Jeep but was slow in purchasing it. The color was lime green, V6 with headers, 4 barrel carb, roll bar, bucket seats, and larger tires and wheels."
The Star also mentions a 1967 contract worth $2,789,000 from the Canadian government, to build 800 military Jeeps for the Canadian Forces. These were probably mainly M38A1 CDN models.
One of the details of the 1959-69 production we have yet to uncover is how many other Jeeps were built for the military, and what models they were. Alex Houle's CJ-3B was apparently built in Windsor for the Canadian Navy in 1964.
Thanks to Joe Donnelly, Alex Houle, and John Doherty of the Windsor Public Library. Further information is welcome. -- Derek Redmond
By the way, American Motors later built a large number of Jeep CJ-7's and YJ's, for sale in the U.S. and Canada, at its plant in Brampton, Ontario.
Also on The CJ3B Page, see a Canada Post Jeep and a Tonka Toy Jeep Repainted as a Canadian M38A1.
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