{"id":281617,"date":"2025-10-05T10:58:35","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T15:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=281617"},"modified":"2025-10-17T16:38:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T21:38:16","slug":"ever-wondered-where-the-name-purolator-came-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2025\/10\/05\/ever-wondered-where-the-name-purolator-came-from\/","title":{"rendered":"Ever wondered where the name Purolator came from?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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If you are Canadian, the name Purolator is probably a familiar one \u2014 and possibly even if you are American, but for a different reason. For those who don’t know, it’s the name of a Canadian courier company, which is now majority owned by Canada Post. For some reason I started wondering where the name came from, since it’s kind of an odd word, so I looked it up, and it was originally the name of an American company that made oil filters (apparently it was supposed to be a contraction of the phrase “pure oil later” or something like that). The founders of the company invented the first commercially available oil filter in the 1920s. It still exists but it is a subsidiary of a German industrial supply company now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some reason, Purolator decided to buy a Canadian package delivery company called Trans Canada Couriers in 1967 (maybe it seemed like an extension of the oil filter business because they use a lot of trucks?) and they renamed it Purolator, even though it had nothing to do with the oil filter business. In 1987 the package company was bought by Canadian investors \u2014 and eventually wound up being acquired by Canada Post \u2014 but they decided to keep the name. Pretty glad I looked it up, because I love weird corporate stories like that! Like Nokia, for example, which started out running pulp mills and making rubber, and Nintendo which was founded as a maker of playing cards in the late 1800s.<\/p>\n

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If you are Canadian, the name Purolator is probably a familiar one \u2014 and possibly even if you are American, but for a different reason. For those who don’t know, it’s the name of a Canadian courier company, which is now majority owned by Canada Post. For some reason I started wondering where the name … <\/p>\n

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