McLachlan Gasoline Engine Co., Ltd. was apparently established from the ashes of the McLachlan Electric and Gasoline Motor Co., Ltd., which went out of business in 1901 following their failure to develop a workable automobile. The new company introduced a line of gasoline engines in variety of sizes. In late 1906 the company was insolvent due to an "inability to obtain orders by reason of the faulty construction of its engines."

From August 1906 Canadian Machinery

Information Sources

• Ad in 1904 Farmer's Advocate for a gasoline-powered threshing engine.
• September 1904 Canadian Electrical News.

  The exhibit of the McLachlan Gasoline Engine Company includes a gas engine of 8 h. p. operating a 4 h. p. steam engine from the waste heat of the gas engine, also a threshing engine of double cylinder type and six gasoline engines of various sizes.

• The 1905 edition of the Sessional Papers - Legislature of the Province of Ontario has a "list of companies whose capital has increased or decreased", including the McLachlan Gasoline Engine Company, Limited, whose capital increased from $39,000 to $100,000 on 1904-04-13.
• From a Model T Ford discussion forum.

  McLachlan was the only other automobile, apart from the products of W.J. Still, to be built commercially in Canada before the turn of the century. It was put together in 1898-99 by the McLachlan Electric and Gasoline Motor Co. Ltd., at 94 Adelaide Street West, Toronto. Their one and only model year offering was 1899 (some say only one car), finished in Summer 1899. Its trouble laying at the choice of a friction drive type transmission. After a 35 mile test drive, it was obvious the friction drive took up too much power for primitive engines of the day. Went out of business in 1901.

• Ad in 1906 issues of Canadian Machinery for single-cylinder gasoline engines.
• From the 1906 Directory of Directors in Canada.

  McLachlan Gasoline Engine Co., Limited, 1500 King St. West, Toronto, Ont.
  Directors—J. C. McLachlan, Pres.; Rev. John Potts, Vice-Pres.; Wm. Galbraith, W. Vandusen, W. P. Bull, W. P. Brereton.
  Officers—Mgr., Wm. Galbraith.
  Authorized capital, $100,000; capital paid up, $43,000.

• The 1906-12-27 Iron Trade Review.

  The "McLachlan Gasoline Engine Co., Ltd., of Toronto, has been declared insolvent and a winding up order issued against it on petition of Wm. P. Bull, a director and holder of $2,000 stock. The company had a nominal capital of $100,000 but the paid-up subscriptions are placed at only $42,000. The cause assigned for the failure is inability to obtain orders by reason of the faulty construction of its engines.