The oldest surviving vehicle manufactured in Canada was the Redpath Messenger built in 1903. It had a wooden carriage body using a one-cylinder engine with shaft drive and two speed transmission. It was the first vehicle in automotive history with a tilt steering wheel. It weighed approximately 650 pounds and sold for between $600 and $700 with a top speed of 10 miles per hour. There is only one model known to exist, currently on display at the
Canadian Automotive Museum. The first large-scale production of automobiles in Canada took place in
Walkerville, Ontario, near
Windsor, in 1904. In the first year of operations, Gordon McGregor and Wallace Campbell, along with a handful of workmen, produced 117
Ford Model Cs at the Walkerville Wagon Works factory. plant in Toronto in 1917 Through
marques such as
Brooks,
Redpath,
Tudhope,
McKay (Nova Scotia Carriage and Motor Car Company),
Gray-Dort,
Chatham,
Anhunt,
Russell (CCM),
Hyslop and Ronald, and
McLaughlin, Canada had many domestic auto brands. In 1918, McLaughlin was bought by an American firm,
General Motors, and was rebranded
General Motors of Canada. In the 1930s,
Studebaker built its
Rockne in Canada. Driven by the demands of
World War I, Canada's automotive industry had grown, by 1923, into the second-largest in the world, although it was still made up of relatively inefficient plants producing many models behind a high tariff wall. High consumer prices and production inefficiencies characterized the Canadian auto industry prior to the signing of the
Canada–United States Automotive Products Agreement. The 1965 Automotive Products Trade Agreement or "Auto Pact" represents the single most important factor in making the Canadian automotive industry what it is today. Key features of the Auto Pact were the 1:1 production-to-sales ratio and Canadian Value Added requirements. As of 2015, major car companies that operate are Fiat-Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, and Toyota. Among the 17 vehicles assembled in Canada, excluding assembly costs, the amount of Canadian parts content in the average vehicle assembled in Canada was $4,105 in 2016 or 17.2% of the overall parts content, according to a study by DesRosiers. The number has fluctuated between 25.6% and as low as 13% in recent years. Another estimated that the overall Canadian content figure is between 20% and 24%. Canadian content at plants run by Honda and Toyota, would likely be higher because they do more in-house manufacturing of parts, such as plastic-injection-molded components, than the Canadian plants operated by the Detroit Three. == Electric vehicles ==