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      Brooks Steam Motors, Ltd. was a Canadian manufacturer of steam cars established in March 1923, in Stratford, Ontario, a small industrial town of some 25,000 people located northwest of Toronto.  The cars closely resembled the Stanley Steamers in terms of engineering although the design of all the components were too Oland J. Brooks design team, with influence from many earlier steam cars, named after Oland J. Brooks, an American financier, who had moved from Buffalo, New York, to Toronto in 1920.

      Oland J. Brooks' main area of business was finance and second mortgages; he ran a business called the Banking Service Corporation, Ltd.  Its not known why but something changed Brooks' interest from finance to steam cars.  In early 1923 he became associated with the Detroit Steam Motors Corporation in Detroit, which in 1922 introduced its first cars, called Trask-Detroit.  There was a plan to make Trask-Detroit's in Canada by Windsor Steam Motors in Windsor, across the river from Detroit.  That would allow the cars to be sold in Canada with minimum tariffs, allowing favourable import treatment to other parts of the British Empire.

      In September 1923 a prototype car was shown at the Toronto Exhibition and the following month an agreement was reached with the city of Stratford, Ontario to purchase a former threshing machine factory for $55,000. At the same time an executive office was set up in suites 1305–7 of the Canadian Pacific Railway Building in Toronto.

      The engine, boiler and other parts of the Trask-Detroit were made by Schlieder Manufacturing Co., a Detroit valve manufacturer.  Because of the small production runs initally expected, and high cost due to nearly all the comonents being bought in, with the workforce coping with unfamiliar steam car engineering, conspired with the production runs to require each car to have a high retail price tag.  Amazingly the Task-Detroit's basic touring model was made to sell for $1,000

      In March 1923, the company Brooks Steam Motors, Ltd. was established in the vacant factory in Stratford, Oland Brooks having obtained the plant on very favourable terms, with the town assuming a $50,000 mortgage on a $55,000 building.

      Stratford was a wise choice. As it was located at the intersection of three railroads, the town had become a major the base for The National Railways of Canada overhaul and maintainance workshops for their fleet of railway locomotives.  At this time the railways were laying off some of their workforce, the town therefore had an excellent pool of skilled workers in the steam locomotive world.



      As the first Brooks steam car prototype appeared (possibly a disguised Stanley) the Trask-Detroit vanished.  At the same time a larger sedan bodied car was announced which was to have a price tag of $1,900, or as it was stated, a very similar vehicle was to be built in Canada, the bodies "will be made by the Packard Motor Car Co", was stated in a Wall Street Journal, a denial was quickly put out by Packard.





      The executive office was established in suites 1305 to 1307 at the Canadian Pacific Railroad Building in Toronto.  Key staff were assembled.  In September a car was shown at the Toronto Exhibition.  The following month, the agreement which had been reached with the city of Stratford to purchase the factory was completed.  $55,000 was a very good price (Canadian and American dollars had about equal value in the mid 1920s).




      The Brooks plan was to build three sizes of cars, to be known as Models 1, 2 and 3.  The smallest, Model 1, used a 112-inch wheelbase chassis, with an 18-inch boiler.  Prices were to start at $1,000.  The three models were to have a full range of body types, with a four-passenger touring car and a two-passenger roadster, plus three closed body styles: a coupe, a four-passenger brougham and a five-passenger sedan.  These specifications very closely match, both visually and technically the smallest Trask-Detroit model.



      Model 2 was set on a longer 122-inch wheelbase, with a 20-inch boiler. Two open models were proposed - a four-passenger sport model and a five-passenger touring car. There were to be three closed body styles available - a four-passenger brougham, a five-passenger sedan and a town car.  Wheels were Budd-Michelin steel discs. The chassis specifications of the larger Trask prototype were very similar to this Brooks Model 2.  The sedan version of of model 2 was to become the only style made, fitted with standard Stepney wooden spoked wheels, which had detachable rims.

      Model 3 was also to be mounted on a 122-inch wheelbase chassis, but with a larger 23-inch boiler.  Open body styles followed the Model 2's variety, with a seven-passenger hardtop touring car standing out.  All cars were to be fitted with the Budd-Michelin steel discs. Standard colour choices were limited, and identical to the Model 2: open cars in blue or maroon (one shade being called "Brooks Blue"); closed cars in two other shades of blue.  Special colours were available on six weeks' notice.

      When production finally got underway only a single Brooks model was produced; it could be described as a combination of the Model 2's engine and the Model 3's weight.   One touring car was shown, a prototype (which appears to have been a renamed Trask-Detroit); the rest were five-passenger sedans.  Despite the expectations of the towns workforce of hundreds of employees being taken on, by 1925, the factory still only had 90 personnel employed, with another two dozen employees working at the service stations and salemen trying very hard to sell cars in the salesrooms.

      Much of the work was said to consist of driving the cars throughout Canada, some accompanied by Mr. Brooks, promoting sale of the company's stock. There were factory showrooms in Montreal and Toronto.
      Branches announced to have been set up in other cities may have only existed as agencies evidenced by some sales brochures and rubber stamps on the desks of other businesses.  The factory branch in Hamilton, said to be located in the A. B. MacKay Building at 66 King Street East, was never in the City Directory.   One of the tenants at that address, the Canadian Automobile Protective Club, Ltd., appears to have been the entity that also included being a "factory branch.


      A second utilitarian product, the Brooks Oil Burner, was also being made under license.  Some 500 were said to be made during the summer of 1924, and had begun to place demonstrators in retail stores in the larger Ontario cities.

      The announced plan was to demonstrate these throughout the Dominion to create a winter demand that would allow Spring and Summer production as contra-seasonal to car manufacture.

      It was not long before the economic difficulties of building automobiles in such small numbers would have been revealed with a vengeance.  In this instance; however, that did not matter.


      Prototypes were built to raise money by selling stock as opposed to generating car sales revenue.  Some two to four million Canadian dollars which it was believed to have been raised, much of it said to have come from the country's western provinces.  Other Brooks companies, Brooks Securities, Ltd., located at the same Toronto address and an American affiliate located in Cleveland, Brooks Securities, Incorporated (a Delaware company previously named Banserco Underwriters), sold stock.

      High-profile demonstrations of the cars were promoted throughout 1924 and 1925 in Cities in Canada and America.  Taxi fleets were set up in Stratford and Toronto, it is believed there was an arrangement between Oland Brooks and the taxi companies which helped unload the stock of finished cars stored at the factory, and the factory sales branches gave the impression of a larger going concern.



      In the main factory store there were parts for 200 cars stacked on shelves - yet information reveals production was more modest.   A Brooks press release describes production had slowed because of delayed's to a shipment of boiler shells from Germany. Another report states only 39 cars were sold in 1925 and in 1926 only 18 cars found buyers, this being the first full year of production.



      Towards the end of 1926 legal action had been started by the stockholders to force Oland Brooks out of the company.  The following year (1927) the factory stopped building cars.  Stockholders were object to the lack of progress - one report revealed that the taxi fleets were sold subject to the cars paying for themselves from the income generated, and almost given away at a price of only $1,500, little more than one-third of the retail price of $3,850.

Fleet of Brooks Steamers
operated by
Steamer Cab Limited of Toronto