Bryan Laprise
George Foote Foss, born in 1876 in Sherbrooke, was a blacksmith and bicycle repairman. He owned a shop in Sherbrooke that offered these services. But what really marked his name in history—even though not many people know about it—is that he was also a machinist and inventor.
While on a trip to Boston, Massachusetts, his inventor's mind was sparked when he rode an electric brougham, a type of car. The disadvantage with the ancestor of today's electric cars was that the battery could only last around twenty minutes, compared to the few hours it promised. Foss thought he could improve upon this design, and that this "car" could go further with a gas-powered engine, rather than an electric one.
During the winter of 1896, he worked on designing and building a "four-horsepower, single-cylinder automobile," which he completed in spring of the following year. It was the first vehicle of this type built in Canada, which was later named the Fossmobile. For the next four years, he drove his car around the streets of Sherbrooke without any engine problems. However, some people disliked the Fossmobile due to the fact that they'd never seen anything like it, being more used to carriages pulled by horses. One of the few issues with his automobile was that it could get stuck in the mud. Later, George Foss moved to Montreal, where he sold his invention in 1902 for the cost of 75 dollars, more than 2000$ in today's money.
Image sources: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/fossmobile, http://www.fossmobile.ca/fossmobile/
Henry Ford, who later went on to create the Ford Motor Company even proposed a partnership, which Foss declined as he deemed Ford's vehicle as inferior to his own. What's remarkable is that a local inventor created a gas-powered car before Ford started making the first Model A in 1903, and more than 10 years before the famous Model T.
On April 27th o f 2022, a replica of this legendary car, built by Ronald Foss, the inventor's grandson, was unveiled at the Hagerty Garage and Social auto club in Burlington, Ontario. It was built in the hopes of raising awareness about this car's invention and the legacy that George Foote Foss has left upon Canada, and more specifically, Sherbrooke.
Replica of Fossmobile, 2022
This type of event in history can make us wonder what else happened close to home that we may have not even heard of.
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