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Canada's oldest Ford dealership still going strong (7 photos)

There are not many businesses in Subury that can claim they've been around for more than 100 years. Cambrian Ford is one of them. Scott McCulloch, Cambrian Ford's president, says the company is now Canada's longest running Ford dealership.
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Cambrian Ford President Scott McCulloch looks back at the company's long history in Sudbury with framed photos going back to the 1970s, when his father, Bruce McCulloch, purchased the business. Photo by Jonathan Migneault.
There are not many businesses in Subury that can claim they've been around for more than 100 years. Cambrian Ford is one of them.

Scott McCulloch, Cambrian Ford's president, says the company is now Canada's longest running Ford dealership.

The local company is the first in a new series NorthernLife.ca is launching to profile local businesses that have stood the test of time, and lasted 100 years or more.

Cambrian Ford's history dates back to 1910, when Alex McLeod, who operated a jitney service for Inco executives between Sudbury and Copper Cliff, visited his brothers in Detroit, Michigan.

While in the Motor City, McLeod got to meet Henry Ford, who only two years prior had started to produce the iconic Ford Model T, which became the world's first affordable car thanks to its efficient assembly line production.

Ford left a strong impression on McLeod, and the next year he opened McLeod Motors in downtown Sudbury – at the corner of Durham Street and Medina lane.

The business was a garage at first, but when McLeod noticed he did not have too many customers, he started to sell Ford's Model Ts.

The business boomed as the vehicles gave average people the freedom and independence that became synonymous with the automobile.

McLeod Motors expanded to a larger building on Larch Street, and eventually had four locations around downtown Sudbury.

The business remained in the McLeod family until 1968, when McLeod's son, Norman, who was company president at the time, retired and named Dough Heller the company's new president.

Heller renamed the company Cambrian Ford.

Heller retired in 1975 and sold the company to Bruce McCulloch, who brought Russ Boyle on board as his business partner.

In 1979, McCulloch and Boyle moved the business to a new facility at the corner of the Kingsway and Second Avenue. Cambrian Ford has remained at that location to this day.

In 2000, McCulloch's sons, Stephen and Scott McCulloch, took over the family business.

Stephen, the eldest son, was company president, but on Sept. 9, 2013, lost his battle with brain cancer. He was 48 years old.

Scott McCulloch said he had no interest in joining the family business after he graduated from high school.

“I still didn't think I wanted to be in the car business,” he said. “I didn't have a love for it.”

After graduating from the University of Western Ontario with an economics degree, he went to the University of Michigan, where he earned a second degree in automotive marketing.

“That's when I got the car business bug,” he said.

McCulloch worked at a Ford dealership in Toronto for two years, and in 1992 received a call from his father that there was an opening for him at Cambrian Ford.

He started as a fleet manager, then became the used car manager, was promoted to general sales manager, vice-president, and later became president.

McCulloch said the biggest challenge the business faced during his time there was the 2008 recession. He said Ford took big steps before the economic downturn to reduce its expenses and improve its research and development.

“We survived the recession, and unlike other manufacturers that went bankrupt, Ford kept plowing ahead ... and in two years our sales doubled,” McCulloch said.

The dealership has 84 full-time employees and around five part-time workers.

McCulloch said he goes to work every day thinking about how he can improve the business to ensure his employees can help provide for their families.

“You don't want to tell them you had to lay them off because you made a bad business decision,” he said.

As for the future, McCulloch is an optimist and sees Cambrian Ford continuing its long history in the community.

“When the mining business slows down, and we see that our business does not slow down, that tells me there are so many other economic factors that are keeping Sudbury going,” he said. “Sudbury is only going to get bigger.”

McCulloch has two teenage sons, and said he hopes they can take over the family business after he retires, in much the same way he and his brother took over for their father in 2000.

“As long I can guarantee I instill the work ethic and the desire to improve the business to my kids, and if they're going to come here and work with that attitude every day, I think it will be the beginning of believing I was successful in giving them this business,” he said.

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Jonathan Migneault

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