Posts from ‘Canada’
Consumer Guide Car Stuff Podcast
Whether you drive a car, need a car, or just occasionally bum a ride with friends, you’ve come to the right place. Join the editors of Consumer Guide Automotive as they break down everything that’s going on in the auto world. New-car reviews, shopping tips, driving green, electric cars, classic cars, and plenty of great guests. This is the Consumer Guide Car Stuff Podcast.
1972 Fargo
Fun fact: 90 percent of Canada’s population lives with 100 miles of the U.S. border. That said, it’s an awfully long border—about 5500 miles long, actually. Looked at another way, Canada’s population density is only about 10 percent that of America’s, meaning there’s a lot of Canadian land with very few people living on it.
1955 Monarch Richelieu Convertible
Note: The following story was excerpted from the October 2018 issue of Collectible Automobile magazine
The population of Canada in the Fifties was less than 10 percent than that of the United States, yet Ford Motor Company sold up to six brands of cars in Canada. For as odd of an idea as that sounds, there was a reason for it.
1989 Eagle Premier ES Limited
There were Eagle cars because the folks at Chrysler didn’t think the Jeep brand could stand on its own. Of course, this decision was made in the late Eighties. No one today would question Jeep’s viability as a stand-alone brand today.
What was the GMC Cannonball?
1960 GMC DFRW 860 “Cannonball”
I’m not really into old commercial trucks. Not because old trucks aren’t cool, it’s just that the whole car thing fills my time pretty completely. I get the truck thing though, and certainly appreciate a vintage big rig whenever I come across one.
1949 Mexican-market Studebaker chassis-cab truck
Have you ever attended a party at a good friend’s house only to be stunned by all the people in attendance that you don’t know?
These Canada-only General Motors franchises lasted only a few short years.
For American car guys, Canada can seem like a very foreign place. Not only do our neighbors up north refer to American cheese as processed cheese, or more charitably as “mild cheddar,” they have a history of buying and selling cars that many of us Yankees have never heard of.
Volvo was the first foreign carmaker to produce automobiles in North America. The company’s Halifax assembly facility built Volvos between 1963 and 1998.
This past June, Volvo gave the public a peek at its redesigned S60 compact sedan. Long one of the Swedish maker’s volume products, the S60 introduction alone would have been news enough to merit media attention. It was the venue for the S60 reveal that stole the show, however.
What Was The Pontiac Firefly?
Most Americans have never heard of the Firefly, but Canadian consumers might well have considered purchasing one of these subcompact Pontiacs. A 1987 “Base” is shown.
Pontiac of Canada was well known for selling gently tweaked variations of Chevy products for exclusive distribution north of the border. The 1976-1987 Pontiac Acadian for example, was actually a retrimmed Chevrolet Chevette.
2011 Lancia Thema
Chrysler’s rear-wheel-drive “LX” car platform has served the company well. Introduced in 2004 for the 2005 model year, the basic architecture was inherited from Mercedes-Benz during the DaimlerChrysler days.
