Quote:
Originally Posted by north
Btw, the underlying reason that GM Canada created these unique Pontiac, Beaumont and Acadian models is related to the Canadian dealership structure.
With its lower population, much lower population density and lower standard of living GM Canada needed a different distribution system than in the US. In order to get the main volume brands to as many cities as possible GM Canada had almost all dealers be chev-olds or Pontiac-Buick (either could also carry Cady if the market in a given area justified it.
The problem of this twinned dealer line system was the low end. A Pontiac-Buick dealer trying to sell American Pontiacs couldn’t compete with Chevy pricing so in areas were there wasn’t room for both types of dealers a Pontiac-Buick dealer had no chance against local Ford and Plymouth dealers.
So GM Canada produced a Chevy based Pontiac instead. Here is the math: using 69 as an example , the cheapest real Pontiac full-size (Catalina) cost about $400 more than the cheapest big Chevy (Biscayne). This was because the Pontiac had a bigger heavier chassis, big 400 versus a Chevy six. This price difference was almost 15%. The Canadian Pontiac (Laurentian) was only $50 more than the biscayne, less than a 2% premium.
This concept worked out great, ironically because of the justified higher market perception related to American Pontiacs buyers in Canada saw these Canadian Pontiacs as a great value. Unlike in America where Chevy outsold Pontiac about 2.5-3.5 times, in Canada those Pontiac models actually outsold full sized chevies!
The Beaumont and Acadian models didn’t match the success of the big Canadian Pontiacs (probably because they didn’t look different enough from their Chevy competitors) but still sold well.
This also worked out well since GM had to produce a certain number of cars in Canada anyhow to avoid stiff Canadian tariffs on the cars they imported to Canada from the US.
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Thanks for all this info North. I'm not sure how many "Pontiacs" made in Canada had a Pontiac emblem, but a lot of them did and sometimes in the steering wheel horn button (please correct me if I'm wrong). I always wondered why they would come up with a bastard Chevy, instead of just based on a Pontiac, like the cool spin on the Comanche 69 Firebird. Do you own one of those?
https://www.hotrod.com/features/hppp...ebird-comanche
