Page 9 - Newcom

delivering it to the south assembly plant. Next came Mackie Automo- tive. It was born after the carrier was chosen by GM to set up inter- national sub-assembly plants that spread across two continents. Eventually there would be 10 of these plants located in Canada, the U.S., England, and Germany, employing 2,000 people worldwide.
But Ross’s connection with GM is more intimate than that. The 1948 “Maple Leaf ” GMC single axle tractor in his antique truck collection used to belong to GM Canada founder Robert Sam (RS) McLaughlin. The truck was driven by McLaughlin’s personal chauffer, Clarence Lowry, who used it to haul his boss’s racing horses around Ontario and south to Kentucky.
According to Ross, Lowry always felt the unit was under-powered, even though a salesman had con- vinced them it was adequate enough to pull the horse wagon. McLaugh- lin cryptically replied, “What does a truck salesman know about driving truck anyway?”
“The truck was originally meant to go to Smith Transport, and there were six of them parked up at the Ritson Road facility where RS and Clarence went to pick it up,” said Ross. “Nothing too fancy, six-cyl- inder gas engine, vacuum-assisted hydraulic brakes.”
Ross Mackie owns this 1948 GMC tractor that once belonged to RS McLaughlin.
The little tractor had been through several incarnations before Ross tracked it down, working for a time at a ready-mix plant and even- tually becoming transformed and indentured as a tow truck to Char- lie Foote Towing.
“My father freaked out when I brought it home. ‘What are you going to do with that?’ I told him I was going to restore it. These days, I take it out a couple of times a year and drive it around the farm,” he said.
Ross recalls another occasion when he interacted closely with the McLaughlin family. Mackie Moving had been storing a 1908 McLaugh-
Dean (left) and Ross Mackie say GM will be missed, but the trucking company has diversified.
lin Buick at his facility when he got the call from General Motors that McLaughlin’s daughter, Isabel, was having a garden party in Toronto and would like to borrow the Buick for the afternoon.
Besides being a McLaughlin heir- ess, Isabel was also a highly-regarded modernist painter. Ross reckons that he delivered the sedan somewhere in Rosedale where she was hosting a bit of a wine and cheese party for some of her elderly friends.
“She was probably in her 80s at the time and quite frail. She was really nice to me and wished she could sit behind the wheel,” recalls Ross.
“I said that I would carry her and that’s what I did. I still get emotional thinking about it. Stew Low, man- ager of corporate communications, came over and told me I shouldn’t have done that, she might have been injured. But I told him I know how to handle valuable things.”
Ross says he was devastated when he heard GM was closing its doors, but understands that Oshawa is no longer as dependent as it once was on the auto giant. Production will cease after 2019 but the company is keeping its head office in the east end of Oshawa, where it currently resides beside Hwy. 401 and Lake Ontario. GM also announced it will be hiring 250 high-tech workers in the Greater Toronto Area to aug- ment its research into autonomous vehicles.
Dean Mackie thinks there is a bright side to the situation. “It may open up hiring of other drivers who were previously employed in some capacity working for GM,” he said. And that’s not to mention the laid- off auto workers who may be looking for a new career in trucking.
“Hopefully there will be other GM opportunities that exist in transpor- tation,” said Dean. “They have been a fantastic customer. We have to thank GM for all they have done for our family and company. They will be missed.” TN
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