Paul L

My trivia questions are always too easy so I am going for bear tonight. Snow and freezing drizzle outside so what the heck.

In the early to mid-1960s there were very significant differences between the CDN and USA versions of the Pontiac automobile. What were they?

gdh

Beaumont in Canada, no Bonneville up here for a start, will have to think on the other differences in branding and cars that never made it up here. Can't remember if the Canso was a Pontiac or Chevy.

PatsLs1vette

Was it that they actually used chevy frames and chevy powerplants instead of pontiac engines.and accadians also.


[Modified by patsnitrovette, 5:50 PM 2/22/2003]

Binnie77

In Canada we had the Strato Chief (bottom of the line), Laurentian (middle) and Parisiene (top). The tail lights were different along with the grills I believe than the US Pontiacs. GM was using the chevrolet line of engines in the Pontiacs here in Canada.

Larry B.

I remember seeing a Pontiac LaParisian SS with Pontiac 396 one time in Lake Tahoe... Looked like a pontiac/buick/Chevy hybrid... It had Canadian plates. :cool:

Paul L

You got me again. I can't win on this trivia business ;) . I was thinking of the full-size Pontiac passenger cars but you are correct on the Chevy IIs and the Chevelles. The former was called an Acadian in Canada and the latter a Beaumont.

But on the full size, there were three Pontiac models: the StratoChief, Laurentian and the Parisienne. This basically equated to the Ventura, Catalina and Bonneville in the USA. But my major hint was in the header. The CDN Pontiac was really a Chevrolet. A "wide-track" Pontiac did not exist in Canada as the body was placed on a Chevrolet frame. It did look a little...strange. And unlike the 389cid in the US version, the base engine in the Canadian model was a 261cid straight-six right out of a pick-up truck. Options were the Chevy 283 and 327.

This started to change after the US/Canada Auto Pact was signed in 1965. Then cross-border engines began to be shared and in the late 1960s commonality was achieved. But Canada had its own Pontiacs at one time. Below is a Parisienne; a Bonneville equivalent but very different if you look closely. Thanks for the replies!
http://www.mts.net/~pb998706/sep99car.html

killain

The Name, Canadians cars had different names than domestic brand.