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The 1914 Galt storage-gas-electric.

These days, it seems everyone is jumping on the hybrid bandwagon. But for the Galt Motor Company, the bandwagon got rolling about 90 years too late.
Galt wasn’t the first automaker to try and market a hybrid vehicle, but it certainly was among the first and the only one to try it in Canada.
If you’ve looked at the accompanying photo, you might be wondering if part of the Galt’s hybrid system included clockwork drive. Yes, that does looks like a key sticking out of the car’s left side, but in fact it’s an aftermarket turn signal device added during the 1940s.
The Galt storage-gas-electric was the invention of Moffat St. Clare and Eddy Fleming, who had purchased the remnants of the failed Canadian Motors Ltd. in 1913. They finished about 10 of the cars named after the Ontario town where the factory was situated. (Galt’s name was changed to Cambridge in the province’s first amalgamation craze in 1973.)
But Moffat and Fleming weren’t really interested in making ordinary cars. They only wanted the bankrupt company’s facilities in order to build their baby, a revolutionary gasoline-electric hybrid.


The Galt's hybrid gas-electric engine.

The car’s internal combustion engine was a two-cylinder, two-cycle 10-hp unit that ran at a constant 800 rpm on a mixture of gas and kerosene and was coupled directly to a turbine that powered the wheels. A massive Westinghouse generator that produced 40 volts and 90 amperes diverted excess electricity to storage batteries under the floor. Like today’s hybrids, the Galt could use electricity from its batteries when peak power was demanded, or could run on the batteries alone for 15 or 20 miles.
The car, which is right hand drive in keeping with the era when it was built, had no transmission. The electric motor was connected directly to the differential, with a single lever giving five forward speeds and three in reverse. Top speed was 30 mph.
But perhaps it was too far ahead of its time. Consumers stayed away in droves and only two Galt storage-gas-electrics were ever built. According to Cars of Canada (McClelland & Stewart, 1973), “one was sold, badly misused by the owner, returned to the company and scrapped.” The other still exists today, and its story, as told to me by Jack Innes, president of the Canadian Automotive Museum, is a remarkable tale of automotive survival.
Used by St. Clare as a promotional/experimental vehicle, the hybrid originally had a touring car body left over from Canadian Motors days and was converted to a roadster in 1920. Despite expeditions to New York (twice) and Chicago in search of investors, no one was interested and the car was put into storage in a local barn in 1927.
There it sat until 1941 when a Galt engineer, Wallace Fairgrieve, heard about it. He had been recruited by the U.S. Navy to work on submarine propulsion systems (diesel power on the surface, battery power when beneath the waves) and the hybrid Galt was right up his alley. It was purchased for what the farmer was owed for storage.
Fairgrieve revised the car’s coachwork for the third and final time, using Studebaker fenders and wheels and a body by Everitt. He drove it for the rest of the war when its ability to deliver 70 mpg made it the perfect vehicle during those days of gas rationing.
After the war, it was discovered by a Canadian collector and eventually wound up in the Canadian Automotive Museum in Oshawa, where it can be seen to this day.
The museum is open every day of the year except Christmas.

Write to Glen at glenwoodcock@canoemail.com


The Galt's interior. Note embossed "G" on door panel.