Canadian Pontiacs
 

I saw a Canadian Pontiac just down the road from me today. I couldn't ID it. If I were to guess it's between '61 and 65 or so.

I know they had the Beaumont and Acadia but did they have any other models? It's a 2dr with a bubble top kind of roof.

Did you shoot a picture?? Only way to be sure.....

No pic but I searched through Google but couldn't find one that was close.

Hard to tell without a pic, but looking like a bubble top,could it possibly be a 61 Parisienne (sp)? That is the one that comes to mind for me.

For model designations, the Strato-Chief, Laurentian and Parisienne counterparts in the U.S. were the Catalina, Star-Chief and Bonneville.

Was it one of these?

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...x-73_Astre.jpg

Haha. Just kidding. but I'm not sure if you guys got a 1973 Astre.

We did so. I forget whether the Astre started in 71 or 72 up here, but it was either just after the Vega or the same time.

Can you find it in this line-up?

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q...tiac&FORM=IGRE

Hey, I tried.

The Beaumont was the Canadian A Body (1964 and up), the Acadian (not Acadia) was the equivalent to the Nova (unibody) and the full size Canadian Pontiacs were Strato Chief, Laurentian, and Parisienne.(as mentioned )

The Acadian had 2 headlights, the others all had 4. (if you saw the front of it?)

Nope. I'll bring my camera today and take a couple of pics of the back end of it. It has almost rectangular tail lights.

GM in Canada back then had no agreements with GM in the USto use the same parts to make the same body style car we had, or the same engines They did as they saw fit and made some really strange, and named, GM cars. Pontiacs from up there were the strangest but in some ways more of a muscle car than what we had. A 427 or 396 in a Pontiac here in the US was never heard of, but up there they were the norm.

Not until the early 70s I believe did they make the same cars as down here because GM imported them to the US. I hauled many a car and truck from Canada to dealers here in the North East US.... all of New England out to Ohio and south to Virginia and W. Virginia.

The 70 Judge I had was built in Oshawa Canada but shipped to a dealer in Indiana. The two 71’s I have now were both built in Pontiac MI but shipped to dealers in Canada. Free trade 70’s style!

The Beaumont name was used before they attached it to the '64 and up A-body.

The 1962 Acadian line, based on the Chevy II, had three models. The Beaumont, Canso, and Invader.

In 64' the Acadian Beaumont name was attached to the A-body mashup of Chevelle/Tempest parts. The Canso and Invader stayed on based upon the Chevy II.

in '66, the Beaumont name stayed with the A-body as a stand alone model, with the Acadian Canso and Invader now based on the new Nova platform.

All models were of course sold at the Pontiac dealership.

Oshawa was where the change started. It spread to ST. Therese and other few Canadian GM parts plants. And that was before "Free Trade" which officially started in '94 by Bill Clinton. I think before 1994 was the build up to Free Trade.

Before that it was just an agreement with GM of Canada that so many vehicles went to Canada that were built in the US, and so many built in Canada to the US. And from what I saw in 1978 to 1993, it looked like zillions went both ways. It was a steady stream of cars and trucks both ways.

Cool.

Aside from the A-body Pontichev oddities that they built, there were full size models that were proprietary to Canada.

Here's a Laurentian , seemingly built to prove that "Wide Track" was not just a marketing name. I remember noticing them even as a kid. Something just didn't look right. I'm pretty sure that the location of the rear wheel in a side view looked messed up as well.

66sprint6, that photo could be the crossed over to US Catalina.

The Canadian Pontiacs always seem to get a reaction from Pontiac purists because of their Chevrolet engines, but I think the Canadian Pontiacs were an interesting piece of Pontiac history. Most of the big hp Chevy engines were available, including the dual quad 409.

Canadian Pontiacs - just a Pontiac body on a Chevy Drive train - give me a real Pontiac powered car from that era any day 421 etc. - this 421 Catalina out performed the Ferrari and handling wasn't to off either

Sure it did, just like the Pontiac GTO that out performed a Ferrari GTO in that her famous issue of Car and Driver. ;) C & D wasn't exactly the most reliable source for car performance data back in those days.