Hayes Manufacturing Company

The Hayes Manufacturing Company, also known as Hayes, was a Canadian manufacturer specializing in heavy equipment vehicles. Founded in 1928 as Hayes-Anderson, Hayes developed custom trucks and off-road vehicles to expanded with the local forestry industry in Vancouver. Before World War II, Hayes had diversified into streamliner buses, while afterwards they expanded into on-highway semi-trailer trucks. In 1969, Mack Trucks acquired a majority stake in Hayes before ultimately being sold off to Paccar five years later. Hayes ceased operations in 1975.

The Hayes Manufacturing Company was established in Vancouver in 1920 by Douglas Hayes, an owner of a parts dealer,^[1] and entrepreneur W. E. Anderson from Quadra Island,^[1] as Hayes-Anderson Motor Company Ltd.^[2] The company sold American-built trucks and truck parts for the first two years, then built their own trucks, because the trucks weren’t strong enough for the heavy loads of the logging industry.^[3] The company was renamed Hayes Manufacturing Company Ltd. after Anderson left the company in 1928.^[4] In 1933, Hayes added diesel engines to their trucks; the first logging truck manufacturing company to do so.^[2] Despite Anderson leaving the company, the trucks kept the Hayes-Anderson badging until 1934.^[4] Throughout the late 1930s, Hayes was a distributor of British-made Leyland trucks, and the Leyland trucks supplemented Hayes' range of trucks.^[5] The company also used Leyland's components for the trucks.^[5]

Hayes merged with Lawrence Manufacturing, a logging equipment manufacturer, in 1946.^[2] Three employees – Vic Barclay, Mac Billingsley and Claude Thick – left the management division of Hayes to start Pacific Truck & Trailer Co. in 1947.^[5] In the early 1950s, the company started manufacturing a range of on-road trucks.^[6] The Signal Company, the parent firm of Mack Trucks, acquired a two-thirds share in Hayes Manufacturing in 1969,^[7] and Hayes began a mass expansion.^[1] The company was renamed Hayes Trucks in 1971.^[7] The company at its peak had 600 employees and three plants.^[1] In 1975, Signal sold the company to Gearmatic Co., a subsidiary of Paccar, which closed the Hayes plants and stopped production.^[3]

Hayes manufactured cab-over and conventional trucks.^[8] The company used Detroit Diesel, Cummins, Rolls Royce and Caterpillar engines.^[9] Hayes also manufactured buses, moving vans, tractors and trailers.^[4] The company's few bus models included the Hayes Teardrop, a streamlined bus introduced in 1936. Several Teardrop buses were purchased by Pacific Stage Lines,^[10] one of which has been preserved by the Transit Museum Society.^[11]

• Pacific Trucks — Company founded by three former employees.
• Challenger trucks — A company founded in 1987 that rebuilt Hayes trucks.

• Carroll, John; Davies, Peter (July 8, 2005). The Illustrated Encyclopedia Of Tractors & Trucks (1st ed.). London, United Kingdom: Lorenz Books. ISBN 978-0-7548-1524-2.
• Holtzman, Stan (1995). American Semi Trucks. Osceola, Wisconsin: Motorbooks International. p. 46. ISBN 978-1610605731.
• Francis, Daniel (September 1, 2012). Robertson, Pam (ed.). Trucking in British Columbia: An Illustrated History. Madeira Park, British Columbia, Canada: Harbour Publishing. ISBN 978-1-55017-561-5.
• The Financial Post Survey of Industrials, Vol. 47. Maclean-Hunter. 1973. ISBN 978-0888961068.
• Adams, Ronald G. (2004). Bodensteiner, Peter (ed.). Big Rigs of the 1960s. St. Paul, Minnesota: Motorbooks International. ISBN 978-0-760-31618-4.
• Kelly, Brian; Francis, Daniel (1990). Transit in British Columbia: The First Hundred Years. Madeira Park, British Columbia, Canada: Harbour Publishing. ISBN 1-55017-021-X.
• "1937 Hayes PCT-32 "Teardrop" – Pacific Stage Lines #63". Transit Museum Society . June 6, 2024. Retrieved November 1, 2024.

• Defunct truck manufacturers
• Defunct bus manufacturers
• Manufacturing companies based in Vancouver
• Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1920
• Vehicle manufacturing companies disestablished in 1975
• 1920 establishments in British Columbia
• 1975 disestablishments in British Columbia
• Bus manufacturers of Canada
• Truck manufacturers of Canada
• Canadian companies disestablished in 1975
• Canadian companies established in 1920
• Heavy haulage

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Good articles