Great Canadian puts patriotism on display

It's not every coach company that can take a bit of credit for unifying a nation. Larry Hundt's can.

When Larry Hundt, owner of Great Canadian Tours, started painting his coaches with beautiful coast-to-coast scenes of Canada, he was mostly looking for a way of differentiating his vehicles in a crowded marketplace. That was before the province of Quebec came within a pinstripe of seceding from the country. And that was before his colorful "unity coach," emblazoned with the Canadian flag and the country's confederation date of 1867, was tapped to play a prominent part in two key unification rallies. The rallies, held in Quebec City and Toronto in the final days before Quebec citizens were to vote, drew more than half a million people to the streets. Hundt was behind the wheel that day and found it to be an emotional experience.

The night of the vote, Larry Hundt and his wife, Lorna, watched anxiously. The vote came down to the wire, with Canadian unity winning by the narrowest of margins. Experts quickly credited the rallies with influencing public support enough to keep the country whole. "It was a very much a turning point for us," says Hundt. "From then on, we decided all of our coaches would feature Canadian themes."

Today, all 38 coaches in the fleet, including the company's three new MCI® J4500s, serve as rolling testimonials to Canada's greatness. Each coach also bears the image of the Canadian flag and Great Canadian’s mascot, a towering beaver Mountie named Corporal MacKenzie. Corporal MacKenzie tends to hide, a la "Where's Waldo," on the coaches.

The lavish paint jobs have turned out to be a smart marketing decision as well. When photographers take tourism pictures for brochures and the like, Great Canadian coaches often get included in the picture. Not to mention that the coaches tend to draw crowds wherever they go.

"I've never seen a colored stripe on a motor coach that has sold anything," says Hundt, who has traditionally turned to airbrush artist extraordinaire Dave Sopha for his coach art, though Turbo Images is handling the photo-montage work on the J4500s. The Hundts consider their colorful coaches to be branding statements and perhaps their most effective means of advertising.

The Hundts put just as much thought into marketing their tours. They're known for their mystery reunion tours, which attract groups of veteran Great Canadian passengers willing to take a vacation to a destination that is not revealed until the moment of arrival. The popular January tours are a great way to boost business during a typically slow month, and the Hundts work hard to find good partner hotels and entertainment venues.

Great Canadian also arranges what it terms "Fabric of Life" trips, in which passengers get to know the farmers, fishermen and other people who inhabit the places they visit.

It's all part of the Great Canadian's plan to attract what Larry Hundt terms the "new-age senior" who is looking for experiences not available to the typical independent traveler, not even to those with the Internet at their fingertips. Says Hundt, "We have to drag them kicking and screaming onto the motor coach, but we make sure they enjoy it."

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