The McLaughlins said that Young Sam had "wheels in the head" - and it was true of them all. One of Canada's most famous and well-loved business leaders here begins the richly intimate story of how his family fashioned a mighty industry by building a better horse's carriage and then replacing the horse.

PART ONE - THE BEGINNINGS

Grandfather John McLaughlin came to Canada from County Tyrone on a sailing ship in 1832. He and the 140 other Irish men, women and children on the ship were not "potato famine" immigrants but had been persuaded to come to Canada by an agent for a scheme to populate the Peterborough area.

PART TWO - HOW THE AUTO BEAT THE HORSE

When fire razed their factory the confident McLaughlins built it again and their horse carriages went full tilt with a gross of a million dollars a year. Then over the horizon in a cloud of dust came a strange new contraption called the automobile.

PART THREE - THE MEN CARS MADE FAMOUS

"Sold," said GM's top men, and McLaughlin's of Oshawa became part of a great growing industrial group. They almost bought Ford too and they produced the paint the author calls the biggest thing that happened to the automobile.