CALEB NICKERSON
MANSFIELD-ET-PONTEFRACT
May 5, 2018
On May 5, a couple in Mansfield celebrated the 50th anniversary of their business with employees, customers and neighbours.
Pontiac Tire was started by Ronald L. Soucie, his wife Carol and his brother Réjean, back in 1968, right in the heart of Mansfield. Neither Ronald nor Carol had experience in the tire industry, as both were working in banks at the time.
“He’s from here, I’m from down east. We met when he was working in one branch of the bank, and I was working in a different branch,” said Carol. “His brother knew tires, and he knew finances.”
“[Réjean]’s actually the one that talked me into it,” Ronald said. “He called me at the bank and said, ‘There’s money in tires.’ I was the bank inspector, [at the] main branch in Montreal. I gave them a months notice, and started with him.”

Though his brother only stayed with the company for a short while, Ronald worked hard to make the investment thrive, even working as a waiter on weekends to make his payments.
In 1972, they built and moved to their current location at 227 Rue Principale.
“Its a place where you had a lot of people working in forestry, a lot of truckers,” explained Carol. “So the call was sort of there. You had a lot garages, but not a specialty tire shop.”
She said that though the forestry industry has slowed, their business has adapted to the changes by diversifying. Ronald agreed.
“The forestry, that made a big difference,” he said. “That brought everything down, but not me. My numbers are nearly the same every year.”
Around 25 years ago they started a car wash nearby (and were offering free washes to those that turned up for the celebrations). They also offer snowplowing and backhoe services, among other things.
“I started the golf cart business in 1991. The way it started, I bought one for me and one for my accountant and then somebody wanted to buy mine, so I sold it to make a few bucks,” Ronald said. “Then I went and bought four more and that’s how it started. I sold, then I started with the rentals as a business.”
They currently service most of the courses in the region. Despite all these other revenue streams, tires still remain a vital part of the business.
“There’s always a big demand for tires, especially after the government mandated that you have to get winter tires,” Carol said.
“We fix a lot of tires, the farmers all come here, truckers, the municipality with all their heavy equipment come here,” Ronald added. “We get the odd timber tractor from out in the bush, not many anymore, but the odd one.”
They both said they were grateful for the support of their customers and neighbours over the years, but wanted to give a special thank you to their longest serving employee, Jacques Mignault, who has been with the company for 45 years.
“He’s been here since he was a teenager,” Carol said. “He’s the best employee that you could ever hope to have work for you.”
“There’s nobody like him,” Ronald added. “We lucked out.”