Reo was initial success for Olds

Reo was initial success for Olds
Photos by -Autonet.ca
Glen Woodcock
Published: 02 04 2008

If I say R.E.O. Speedwagon, chances are you’ll think of the rock band from the 1970s whose hits included Keep On Loving You, Can’t Fight This Feeling and Take It On The Run.

You may even know that the band took its name from a famous line of medium-duty trucks called Speed Wagons, built by the Reo Motor Car Co. of Lansing, Mich. in the 1920s and ’30s.

And because of the band, which emphasized each letter in R.E.O., many people who should know better think the automaker’s name was pronounced the same way. But it wasn’t. Even though company literature switched back and forth from Reo to REO, the pronunciation always rhymed with “Clio.”

The company took its name from the initials of founder Ransom E. Olds, who walked away from his first automotive venture – Oldsmobile – in 1904 and started up afresh the following year.

(Famously, he said that having given his name to his first enterprise, all he had left to give the second was his initials.) Although few people realize it today, Reo enjoyed a long history of building vehicles in Canada – first in St. Catharines, Ont. and later in Leaside (now part of Toronto).

Ironically, Reo’s St. Catharines operation was housed in the same plant where Oldsmobiles had been assembled from 1904-07. The Reo Motor Car Co. of Canada operated there until the factory was converted to war work in 1915.

Unlike many American automakers operating in Canada, Reo didn’t just bring in parts from the U.S. and assemble cars here. The St. Catharines factory produced many of its own major components, including engines and axles, and outsourced wheels and bodies to other Canadian firms.

In 1912, Reo scored a major public relations coup when a factory driven Special became the first car to travel across Canada from cost to coast.

But all of that goodwill was lost the following year when the St. Catharines plant switched to a lightweight body of pressed fibre produced by the Chatham (Ont.) Carriage Co. However, the bodies hadn’t been thoroughly tested in wet conditions and soon began to warp and swell. Despite quickly reverting to traditional steel bodies on wood frames, Reo’s reputation in Canada suffered badly from the debacle.

Reo’s second fling at building cars in Canada came in 1931 to avoid this country’s steep tariffs on imported automobiles. Originally housed in the old Dodge Brothers plant in Toronto, it shifted to the Dominion Motors factory in Leaside the next year, turning out the company’s legendary line of Flying Cloud coupes and sedans. When Dominion Motors failed in 1933, Reo took over the Leaside plant.

Although it ceased passenger car production in 1936, Reo continued building trucks and buses in both Leaside and Lansing. Eventually, the parent company was bought by White Motor Co. in 1957 and then was merged with Diamond T, becoming Diamond-Reo in 1967. It made trucks under that name until filing for bankruptcy in 1975.

During 1950, Kaiser-Frazer of Canada Ltd. arranged with Reo to use its Leaside facilities to assemble Kaiser sedans, eventually building more than 1,000 cars there until the Korean War created such a demand for Reo military vehicles in 1951 that the Kaiser operation had to be shut down.

But that’s another story, for another time.

Catch up on your automotive memories at http://blog.autonet.ca/time_machines

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