A 1946 trade advertisement illustrates a Fleetwood Model 201 Portable Phonograph, with a compartment for 12 records, capable of playing 10- or 12-inch records and equipped with a Fleetwood three-tube amplifier. The manufacturer is identified as Electrical Products Manufacturing Co. Ltd., 3570 Louis Veuillot St., Montreal 5, P.Q.
Renamed Fleetwood Corporation in 1960, the company manufactured popular mid-century consumer electronics, including wooden console cabinets, television sets, and radio-phonograph combinations. The firm was eventually acquired by GTE Sylvania Canada Ltd. in 1975.
Thus, there is a well-established Canadian company manufacturing Fleetwood-branded products as early as 1946.
A hand-crank, Fleetwood-branded portable gramophone from the mid-1920s was sold by McSherry Auction Service in Stonewall, Manitoba, in 2023. A second Fleetwood portable was auctioned in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in 2019.
The fact that both examples surfaced and were sold in Canada does not, by itself, establish Canadian manufacture. A Canadian dealer could have sold an imported portable under the Fleetwood name. However, the Fleetwood name on these 1920s portables appears in the same distinctive script/logo used on the Canadian Fleetwood products of the 1940s. This raises the possibility of continuity between the earlier Fleetwood brand and the later Montreal company.
At present, I have not found any newspaper advertisements—Canadian or foreign—for a 1920s Fleetwood-branded portable phonograph. Consequently, the origin and manufacturer of the earlier Fleetwood portable remain uncertain.
A mid-1920s Fleetwood-branded portable phonograph for sale through Facebook Marketplace in Tache, Manitoba in 2026. It is interesting that all three documented, identical Fleetwood-branded portables were sold in western Canada.
A 1960s Fleetwood-branded portable phonograph manufactured by Fleetwood Corporation, Montreal, Quebec. Note the similarity of the Fleetwood logo/script to the 1920s Fleetwood phonograph.
Fleetwood Corporation letterhead.
