I grew up in Minnesota and as a kid saw various Canadian cars on the road and was completely mixed-up as they were trimmed differently from the US versions.

A question that I hope you can answer with out too much trouble: 

What was the general reason Ford, GM and Chrysler of Canada had the different styling in the 1950s? As example, the "Plodges" and the Meteor and the Beaumonts? Was it to do with Canada being able to export cars to other parts of the world w/o tariffs or some other reason for Canadian content? I've never really read or heard the specific reason all three mfgs did the different styling. 

I appreciate your reply greatly. 

All the best,

James Maxwell

Welcome from Calgary....the land of the never ending winter.

While I'm sure your question will be answered by those with more back ground than I, my only idea as to Canadian Pontiac's, Meteors, Beaumonts.....was the market car manufacturers had to build for? Even recently, "The General" has built cars for US markets only. Right now I think there is another "Caprice"? It's Austrailian, but you won't see a new one in Canada for sale.  There's a Chevy SS now? Or how about the attempt to bring back the GTO? They had an excuse about bumpers. Really? Just not for us in Canada when they were new as far as I see. (You can import them in now)

Good old Chevy V-8's were put in a lot of GM cars back in the day, including Pontiacs. Maybe they thought the engine could handle winters better than the blue American engines?

Good question you have there. I'm going to watch for the answer as well.

Another warm (cool?) welcome from Cowtown (Calgary) Alberta...

So James,do you have a Canadian car or one made from Lego? 

A hardy welcome aboard James from Milton, Ontario, Canada. The main reason was economics, our population has always been small compared to the U.S.. Pontiac's for example were Chevrolet's in disguise because we were already building Chevrolet's in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada and building Chevrolet based Pontiac's was far more economical than importing "real" Pontiac's from the U.S. We could order American Pontiac's but the cost was prohibitive for many. Same goes for Dodge, an imported "real" American Dodge was far more expensive than a Canadian Plymouth based "Plodge". With Meteor it was a way of Mercury dealers to be able to sell a lower cost line of cars because after all the Meteor was based on a standard Ford car. Many other's can pipe in on the matter but in a nutshell, it was cost that drove Canadian car manufacturers to build their own versions of American cars. Of course the AUTO PACT of 1965 between the U.S. and Canada  changed all that. We could now get American cars with out having to give up our first born. James, hopefully that sheds some light on our Canadian versions of fine American automobiles. Cheers. George.

Here's a New York Times article with a bit of an explanation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/automobiles/collectibles/canadian-cousins-with-fleur-de-lis-and-mixed-genes.html?ref=automobiles&_r=0