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Enthusiast Souvenirs
For Canadian residents, 8% PST and 5% GST, or 13% HST and a small customs fee are payable upon delivery.
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New Carriages Encyclopedia
Order this beautiful 272 page hardcover encyclopedia, "Wheels Across America". Wm. Gray & Sons Carriages are beautifully outlined among 30,000 carriage manufacturers across the U.S. and Canada. For ordering information, please contact this website. Our NEW price of $59.99 plus $12.00 shipping, you can have this beautiful book. |
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Points of Gray-Dort Interest - Chatham Ontario
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GrayDortMotors.com To Undergo Facelift
Gray Dort Motors.com has been serving web pages for since 2001. We hope to have some changes made to our site which will offer even better content and interaction. This will mean a change in format and how the site looks and operates. Stay tuned.
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Posted by im_an_elf on Tuesday, November 24 @ 14:29:17 EST (98 reads)
(comments? | Score: 0) |
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Canuck Car Was Loved, But Didn't Survive
Nigel Matthews, The Province
Published: Friday, December 26, 2008
Reprinted with permission.
Canadian automobile manufacturers have come and gone with most of them long forgotten.
Canada's first car was a steam car, built by Henry Seth Taylor in 1867. The New Brunswick-built Bricklin was a $4.5-million provincial investment that most concerned wanted forgotten as quickly as possible.
The Gray-Dort was a Canadian success story that began in 1915 when Robert Gray formed a partnership with J. Dallas Dort of the Dort Motor Company from Flint, Mich.
Gray secured the rights to build Dort Automobiles out of the William Gray and Son's carriage works in Chatham, Ont., where they had built carriages and buggies.
Moving into car manufacturing was an expected move as they had been building some of the bodies for Henry Ford's Model T in Oakville, Ont. The Can-Am partnership between Gray and Dort resulted in car called the Gray-Dort.
The Gray family had established a large dealer network selling their buggies from coast to coast; they were especially popular on the west coast.
In 1916, loyal customers switched to automobiles. Many of those customers were affluent farmers on the Prairies who were prepared to pay $850 for a well built, four-cylinder Gray-Dort with a Lycoming engine.
For the next eight years production expanded at a steady pace. In 1923 an overhead-valve, six-cylinder model was launched. The future was looking very bright with plans to expand into a new facility in Windsor, and then the roof fell in on Robert Gray's world.
Dort announced that due to ill health he wanted out of the car business. Gray tried in vain to find another partner. New-car sales plummeted due to a lack of customer confidence and by 1924 it was all over; 1925 was spent trying to assemble a few remaining cars but it was futile and the company closed its door.
The car in the photo is a 1922 Gray-Dort. This recent arrival to the Lower Mainland was a 50th birthday present to Robyn MacKenzie, nee Gray, from her husband Cameron. She is the granddaughter of Robert Gray. Of the 23,000 built, approximately 40 have survived.
Nigel Matthews is the manager of specialty vehicles (vintage and collector cars) for the Insurance Corporation of B.C. ICBC's Collector car program assists enthusiasts in the licensing and insurance of antique and collector vehicles. Learn about the program by typing "collector car" in the search box at www.icbc.com, or call 604.661.2201
Robyn MacKenzie's 50th Birthday Present
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Posted by im_an_elf on Sunday, November 01 @ 11:41:41 EST (1337 reads)
(Read More... | 243 comments | Score: 0) |
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System Upgrade and Enhancements
After a long hiatus, GrayDortMotors.com is functioning again. We now can handle your user requests and send you forgotten user account passwords. This is a first major enhancement for GrayDortMotors.com since it's inception in 2004. This is so we can continue to bring you relevant and current topics regarding Gray Dort Motors and Wm. Gray & Sons Campbell Ltd. manufactured products and related items.
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Posted by im_an_elf on Friday, October 30 @ 14:03:03 EDT (1269 reads)
(Read More... | 236 comments | Score: 0) |
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Piece of Chatham-Kent History Visits Stateside
Posted By BOB BOUGHNER
Reprinted with permission
from Chatham-Kent Daily News
July 2009
The recent St. Clair, Mich., antique boat show revealed more than old boats and fire trucks.
Proudly displayed at the day-long event in the picturesque little community on the St. Clair River was a piece of Chatham-Kent history.
Dozens of people -- including me -- toured Ken and Lana Hindley's restored 1936 Curtiss-Aerocar travel trailer and custom-built 1938 International D15 tow car.
Better known as "The Big Land Yacht,'' the rig was originally owned by the late Bill Gray of William Street in Chatham.
Gray, a member of the Gray Dort automobile family, used the greycoloured land yacht for trips to Rondeau Park and Port Lambton.
Gray was a colourful character who did a great deal to promote Chatham- Kent including having it labeled as the "banana'' capital of Canada.
In fact, it was me that drove Gray and a large crate of bananas to McGuigan Orchards at Cedar Springs many decades ago and hung the bananas from apple trees by string in advance of a delegation of European businessmen touring the area.
I was also with Gray the day he met with the president of the CPR in his private rail car at the old CPR station in downtown Chatham.
The meeting was supposed to last 10 minutes, to minimize traffic snarls caused by the special rail car stopped at William Street.
But it was more than a half-hour before Gray and I emerged from the train car and waved goodbye to Mr. Crump, who was standing on a covered platform at the rear of his car.
Amazingly, the Hindleys came across Gray's fifth wheel house trailer in sad shape in a barn that had collapsed on top of it near St. Thomas.
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Posted by im_an_elf on Tuesday, September 01 @ 15:16:25 EDT (1420 reads)
(Read More... | 249 comments | Score: 0) |
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Historical Gray-Dort Inn in Toronto
To begin this article I have to begin with an apology. A computer crash lost this picture deep in a folder and subsequently lost who the kind person was that sent it to me. So if you recognize this picture and you are the one who sent it to me, please contact me by phone or email so I can thank you properly. Nevertheless, "Ye Gray-Dort Inn" was in Weston, York which is now part of Toronto. Alfred V Devins is listed in the 1921 Toronto Directory as owner of 370 Main N.
Telephone Office sign just to right of pole.
The sign in bottom left " To The Weston Golf and Country Club " If you have any other information regarding this establishment, please contact me and I can add it to this story and provide the proper credit. Thanks.
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Posted by im_an_elf on Monday, April 13 @ 09:43:04 EDT (407 reads)
(Read More... | 1 comment | Score: 0) |
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1917 Newspaper Advertisment ''The Double Guarantee''
The article from the Weekly Albertan, Calgary Wednesday November 17, 1917 sent to us from our friend Ted Warnell reads as follows,
"The Quality Goes Clear Through"
Two reputations guard your investment when your purchase a Gray-Dort.
Two liabilities are your assurance of double satisfactory use and service.
Two institutions striving in united effort to maintian the foundation on which they been built - full value to you, the purchaser.
In Chatham, Ontario, the Wm. Gray & Sons Company and Gray-Dort Motors Limited - the one hale and strong at sixty-two, the other strong and lusty in two years.
In Flint, Michigan, since 1885, the Durant-Dort Carriage Company; since 1915, the Dort Car Company.
Gray - the Industry and its Builder
Our fathers and grandfathers rode in Gray Carriages - and found them built on honor and character.
In 1855, William Gray built the first of them - built them so well that Gray quality became proverbial.
Under his guiding hand the Gray institution has been builded solidly on its original foundation - value and service to the purchaser.
When others rushed into the motor car industry , Robert Gray bided his time.
Others experiment - on the motorist.
Others gained the reputaion of the day - and lost it.
Robert Gray knew that the car bearing his name must have the same underlying qualifications as the Gray carriage - so he waited.
Dort - at the Same Time, in Flint
Paralleling the growth of Gray in Canada was a similar institution in the United States.
Blue Ribbon Buggies were to Americans what Gray Buggies were to Canadians.
J.D. Dort, too, was building in Flint, as Robert Gray was building in Chatham.
J.D. Dort, too, was analyzing the motor car industry.
In 1915, Robert Gray, decided that a good motor car could be built and sold at a reasonable price.
In 1915, J.D. Dort, studying the situation from the same angle came to the same conclusion.
The two men met. Their identical views and aspirations inevitably attracted them to one another.
They chose as the engineering groundwork for their organization, Etienne Planche, designer of the world-famed Peugeot motor. They surrounded him with men of equal calibre, who round out an institution unique in man-power.
After Such Preparation -
With two institutions so solidly founded the first Gray-Dort was built.
Is it any wonder that in three days the entire 1916 output was sold.
It was expected that a doubled output for 1917 was heavily oversold.
The output for 1918 is doubled again - and may be inadequate.
Note the Car for 1918
PRICES - TOURING CAR $945; ROADSTER $945; f.o.b. CHATHAM. PRICES SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE
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Posted by im_an_elf on Friday, March 13 @ 10:07:24 EDT (1671 reads)
(Read More... | 232 comments | Score: 0) |
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Postcard Donated To Archive
A great supporter of the Gray family and Gray-Dort Enthusiasts is Janice Fountain of Peterborough. She has donated a response card from the Wm. Gray & Sons factory to M.B. Cosby in Smithville, Ont. (which is near Hamilton) The order is for 3 Brace rods for a delivery cart. The response card is dated June 28, 1916 and the order was placed June 26 with only a 2 day turn around time. The card indicates that not only was the company great at making delivery wagons for dairies, bakeries, grocers, laundry, butchers, hardware, and parcel post but they were great at customer service marketing.
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Posted by im_an_elf on Tuesday, January 20 @ 08:31:38 EST (526 reads)
(comments? | Score: 0) |
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Chatham Cultural Centre Offers Gray-Dort Ornament
Our Enthusiast friend, Laurie Langford, from the Chatham Cultural Centre has been kind enough to forward us this press release. For 2008, The Chatham-Kent Museum has commissioned a limited-edition, Canadian made pewter ornament of the 1919 Gray-Dort Touring. An example of the 1919 Gray-Dort Touring is part of the Museum's permanent collection.
The Ornament can be purchased through the Chatham-Kent Museum for a cost of $9.99 plus tax plus $3.00 for shipping (total $14.29). The Gray-Dort Ornament is a beautifully-made keepsake that would make an excellent gift for any occasion. Quantities are limited! Cheques are payable to the Municipality of Chatham-Kent. You can order by credit card through the Cultural Centre Box Office at 1-866-807-7770 or 519-354-8338.
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Posted by im_an_elf on Monday, December 01 @ 17:24:16 EST (550 reads)
(comments? | Score: 0) |
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Gray-Dort Family Saddened By Loss
It is with great sadness that the Enthusiasts have lost a dear family member in Marlene Stewart Fallon. Marlene was a very special and ardent supporter of both the Gray-Dort Enthusiasts and the Gray family. She will be greatly missed.
FALLON, Marlene Stewart - Peacefully on Monday November 10, 2008, Marlene Stewart Fallon of Burlington left us. Loving life partner, soul mate and best friend of Casey. Dear sister of Suzanne (Sue) Stewart of London. Predeceased by her beloved parents, Bob and Edna Stewart. Dear sister in law of Darcy Fallon of Delaware and Sandra Fallon of London. Also predeceased by mother in law, Ellen and brother in law, Chris. Special cousin of Lorraine Stade, her daughters Jennifer and Tracey and a treasured friend to countless. Her compassion and commitment to her health promotion programs with the Canadian Cancer Society, the Ontario Breast Screening Program and Hamilton Public Health's Healthy Workplace Program prevented or led to the early detection of more serious diseases for so many of us. Her enthusiasm was as infectious as her laugh and her smile. Marlene was also instrumental in her work with Zonta in helping women around the world. But it was Marlene's true friendship that enriched so many of our lives. Friends were received at BAY GARDENS FUNERAL HOME, Burlington (905-527-0405) on Monday November 17, 2008. Friends will be received at WESTVIEW FUNERAL HOME, 709 Wonderland Road N. London on Thursday November 20 from 2-4 and 6-8 p.m. A Celebration of Marlene's life will be held at Westview Funeral Chapel on Friday November 21, 2008 at 12 noon. To honour Marlene's great love of animals in need, a donation to the your local humane society would be greatly appreciated. Please send condolence messages to condolences@westviewfuneralchapel.com
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Posted by im_an_elf on Monday, December 01 @ 17:02:01 EST (1674 reads)
(Read More... | 240 comments | Score: 5) |
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Anne of Green Gables Raspberry Cordial Luncheon in Chatham Ontario
Laurie Langford was kind enough to include me in her mailing about the Anne of Green Gables Raspberry Cordial Luncheon being celebrated by both the province of Prince Edward Island and the Milner Heritage House and the Chatham-Kent Public Library in Tecumseh Park. The Luncheon is being held on Saturday August 2, 2008. If you need further information you can contact Laurie at 519.354.8346 ext 40. Further information regarding the celebration of the century anniversary of Anne of Green Gables in Prince Edward Island go to Anne2008.com
Now I am sure you are wondering why Laurie would include GrayDortMotors.com and all the Enthusiasts in the celebration of Anne of Green Gables being published 100 years ago this year. What has the author Lucy Maud Montgomery and Gray-Dort Motors got to do with each other?
It just so happens that "Maud" and her family of MacDonalds would go on cross country driving trips together in their 1921 Gray-Dort. As a matter of fact she called her beloved automobile "Lady Jane Gray-Dort". So there is a lot more to this story and Laurie was kind enough to bring this story to my attention. She is a native Islander and directed me to some books about L.M. Montgomery. The story expands from here but I have to get some permissions to reprint and publish some pictures. So everyone has to stay tuned to hear more about one of Canada's most famous authors and how she enjoyed touring the Canadian countryside in her "Lady Jane Gray-Dort".
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Posted by im_an_elf on Thursday, July 17 @ 11:59:17 EDT (1909 reads)
(Read More... | 256 comments | Score: 0) |
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Help Support Gray-Dort Motors.com
Help to support this website and continue to provide relevant and interesting stories and images regarding this company that helped to forge Canadian history and its landscape.
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Gray-Dort Newsletter
When you become an enthusiast we will send you our quarterly newsletter complete with colour photos and engaging stories. Our Newsletter Editor is vehicle restorer Stan Uher of Classic Coachworks. If you would like to become a member or submit a story please contact us at
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Enthusiast Contact Info
To contact us telephone (613)547-5786 between 9 am and 4 pm EST or mail Gray-Dort Motors and Wm Gray & Sons Carriage Enthusiasts, 182 Helen Street, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7L 4P4.
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