...by US standards these cars are not that heavily optioned, when you ignore the non options (extra fuel etc) and group the double counted options (deluxe belts, deluxe shoulder straps etc) these cars only have about 20 options, heavily loaded US cars are often over 30
...the tires on both cars mention double stripe, which was 70-71 only in the US. Were those tires available in Canada in 69 or more likely is the GMoC label for the option code inaccurate?
...funny that these two expensive cars still came through with puny 825 tires? That size tire only put 4 and a half inches of tread on the road for a heavy bigblock, AC fullsized car!! The J78's that my Bonnevilles were built with had 6" of tread
Yup, the big American Pontiacs are a step up the food chain in equipment, but ours are peers of Chevrolet cars (due to the market and the way dealerships were set up at the time). I tend to think of the Canadian B-Bodies as big sporty A-Bodies and the American Pontiacs as Junior Cadillacs. That's not at all accurate, it's an exaggeration, but it's my general sense.
Oddly, though, the track on a US Wide Track Pontiac isn't any wider (in practical terms) than an Impala, so that part still holds!
If time travel was possible I'd gladly give up my Double black big Cadillac for that triple black Grande Parisienne.
Aside story: Went to school with a buddy who ended up working in central Office GM Canada with authority to order his own cars as company cars. He always loaded them up and even could over-ride for non recommended colour combos. He was always ordering cars because they had to be delivered to dealers for him to pick up and once they landed the salesmen would sell them from right under him they were that nice, customers would see them coming off the transporter and want them. Remember this was the 80's but three that come to mind are a Regal T Type, Delta 88 two door and an Eldorado. Looks like the office boys did the same thing in 1969.
The 69 I mentioned above was the Winnipeg GM Zone Manager's car for about 2 months, then the dealer in Morris bought it. The owner drove it for a little bit, then the local jeweller bought it and he drove it until I think about 77-78. At that point my farm neighbour bought it, drove it for a short time but then parked it in his shed because he said it was too hard on gas. At that time he bought an odd-fire V6 Ventura. (What a change in vehicles that was!) It sat in the shed, being used as a mouse hotel until I bought it a few years later. I bet it would still be sitting there if I hadn't been a bit firm in getting him to sell me the car. He's never in a hurry to sell things. Sitting in his shed to this day is the 61 Parisienne 4 door hardtop he parked when he bought the 427 Grande Parisienne, so that would be about 35 years ago. He certainly likes his Pontiacs!
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
I noticed that the late 60's canadian ponchos had a wider track than the earlier cars. In 69 the Canadian ponchos had about 63.4" track versus 62.4" on a fullsize chevy (in 70 the Chevies matched the Canadian Poncho number). My 2+2 shows how they did this in 69 with the same chassis; the standard 14x6" wheels on the 2+2 have an extra inch of offset per side increasing the track by an inch (half an inch per wheel). The wheel looks like a 14x7" from the outside. Not sure what they did with the Rally wheels,
What is a P01 wheelcover, both the cars at the beginning of the thread have them listed? Given that the tires are 15" I'm imagining this was the wheelcover that looked like the American deluxe cap with the concentric rings? In 69 the 2+2 came standard with the Tempest Firebird type deluxe 14" cap. What did other model cars like Laurentians, Grande Parisiennes etc come with, dogdish, if so they were probably different than the American version which said Pontiac Motor Division? Also I wonder if you ordered a 2+2 with 15" wheels but didn't order extra cost wheelcovers which cover would you get? The standard 2+2 covers wouldn't fit a 15" rim so did you get the full 15" version or did you get bumped back down to dogdish?
Here is the American 69 dogdish
The 14" wheel American Deluxe (which was the standard 2+2 cap with a different center medallion)
And here is the Deluxe 15" wheel American wheelcover which seems to have been used on canadian ponchos, again with a different center
Here is the US custom hubcap used on 14" wheels, unlike the deluxe version in my previous post it actually covers the lip of the rim. I don't believe this cap was used on Canadian pontiacs?
This is the 15" Custom, used on the American big cars (which all had 15" rims), like the 14" custom above it covers the whole rim while the delux left a 1/2" or so of the rim showing
Here are my parents stylin' on Apr 1, 1970, so the car still would have had its factory tires (whitewalls) and hubcaps. Does anyone know what the centercap says? I still have them somewhere, but they're deep in a box hidden... (the hubcaps, that is).
Probably the biggest difference would be the use of 14" wheels in Canada.
These "radial slotted" hubcaps are a smaller version of the US 15" Deluxe cap (second photo). Once when I was little we had been driving in a dirty area, and the caps were completely covered in fine silt/dust and only the little slots were visible. Never having seen the slots before, it looked like someone stole all four hubcaps and replaced them with something completely different, but we eventually figured it out!
And a 15" version installed 40+ years later:
-- Edited by davepl on Wednesday 30th of November 2016 01:27:04 PM
Yep, the current ones are, same as Corvette and Camaros (my rears are the wider Corvette units, obviously not correct). I'd imagine all cars with rally wheels will have argent wheels (and I just stuck a hubcap on the rally wheel for the photo).
Here's a picture of original rally wheel caps and rings, but no wheels.
"North" mentioned the double strip tires being used in 70-71 only, which as a rule is correct. They were a feature of the new fiberglass bias-belted ply tires that were introduced as an improvement in bias ply tire design and were adopted by all the Big 4 manufactures at that time. However you asked about dual stripe tires in 1969; they were exclusive in 1969 to the Chevrolet Caprice only, plus the Grande Parisienne only.
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67 Chevelle Malibu Sport Coupe, Oshawa-built 250 PG never disturbed.
In garage, 296 cid inline six & TH350...
Cam, Toronto.
I don't judge a man by how far he's fallen, but by how far back he bounces - Patton
Thanks CdnGMfan, wasn't aware that certain 69's had them. Funny thing is some GM promo photos of stock cars show them back in 65 but they were never factory offered back then.
Were redlines offered on 69 Canadian Ponchos (big cars I mean)? They show them in some factory photos on big 69's in the US but they never were actually available.
Here is a pic of the 69 US wire wheel cover, this one is the 14" version from A, G and F cars but the 15" version used on US B cars is identical looking. I gather the wire cover offered on the Canadian big cars was not this one but the Chevy Impala style cover which has a more pronounced center section that sticks outward IIRC?
Not sure. They may have been dealer installed. The car was a demonstrator when dad bought it. I have the VIN stashed somewhere. I should get the GM docs for it some day.
Here's a pic of my long-gone winter beater - I think the hubcaps are the same as the US ones pictured above, but wouldn't say "PMD"... what they DO say I have no idea.
Winter beater lol... We called it a winter car in Montreal. The guy I knew had a '67 Biscayne, I'll never forget that huuuuuuuuuge front seat and those big dials... Had a weak 327...
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1967 Parisienne 2+2 283 3-2's TH350 3.36 12 bolt Posi tilt wood wheel AM-FM reverb. 50k miles long gone but not forgotten, and I'm sure it's living a charmed restored life somewhere
Those wire hubcaps look more like the late 70's through 80's Pontiac hubcaps. They had a red arrowhead center crest. Very popular on the downsized 78-86 LeMans and GP etc.
I found several of these listed as 69-70 chevy wirecaps (there were both 15 and 14" versions) but they are not the ones I'm thinking of either. Anyone ever see something like this on a 69-70 Canadian Poncho?
