Before I started Canadian Poncho I assumed there wasn't many of these great cars left. Now with the site established (20 months!) and more and more members joining I am truly amazed at the number of high quality Canadian Ponchos there are still around. It's reassuring to see the survival rate much higher than I expected. Hopefully some of the big vendors have seen the site and will perhaps start to produce more specific parts for our cars. Having the P.O.C.I chapter can't hurt either.
I always knew there had to be a pile of them still kicking around. They were everywhere in the 60's & 70's. Cheap and plentiful back then as used cars. As pointed out in the Collectible Automobile article they outsold Chev a few times in the 60's and were close most other years. I'm very happy Todd got this site going and it has benefited the cause greatly. I have had more Pontiac's than any other make starting when I was 16 with a 64 Parisienne. I'm 54 now with 3 Poncho's in the driveway and still looking for a decent '60's era Parisienne again.
In a way I'm not surprised. Have to remember that for a period in the 60s Pontiac was the top selling car in Canada. But you are right, that 66 sure speaks to the quality of what's out there.
I actually think its partly a testament to the way you set up this forum. Its well organized, easy to use and has enough variations in the topics to keep me and a lot of other people coming back to check it out. The kind of folk that show up here seem genuinely helpful and neighbourly without any attitude. And the word spreads.....
I have seen cars with options I've never seen before.
I've realized there's many other Canadian Pontiac fans, not just a couple of us!
With only two exceptions in 20 months, I've "met" the nicest group of car guys I've ever known.
I've learned tons of production numbers previously unknown to me.
I've seen that there actually is a group of people outside of Canada who truly appreciate our unique Canadian Pontiacs rather than look down their nose at them.
And I've learned that Beaumonts and Acadians "may" not be 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
Can't add much more to what's been said other than to note that you can be pretty certain that no matter where you attend a cruise in you are bound to find a Canadian Pontiac, Beaumont and Acadian or two.
Can't add much more to what's been said, other than to note that you can be pretty certain that no matter where you attend a cruise in you are bound to find a Canadian Pontiac, Beaumont and Acadian or two.
and the very rare Pontiac Ventura II the 'little Pontiac" with the heart of Canadian GM power...
I have seen cars with options I've never seen before.
I've realized there's many other Canadian Pontiac fans, not just a couple of us!
With only two exceptions in 20 months, I've "met" the nicest group of car guys I've ever known.
I've learned tons of production numbers previously unknown to me.
I've seen that there actually is a group of people outside of Canada who truly appreciate our unique Canadian Pontiacs rather than look down their nose at them.
And I've learned that Beaumonts and Acadians "may" not be Pontiacs.....
Nicely summarized. A great group and resource to be in contact with!
(On a personal side, one thing that surprises me somewhat is the lack of '66 327 SD convertibles that are out there in one piece. Not sure if it was a low production number, or if they were "over-enjoyed"?...)
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"So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think... The good outnumber you, and we always will." Patton Oswalt
I have to remind myself all the time that there's more of these cars out there. When I first got involved with Beaumonts and Chevelles in the 80's these cars were starting to drop off the radar then.
When I joined an organized club for these cars I started to ask the same questions you folks are but no one else seemed to care back then. That why I decided then and there to start documenting all the cars that I saw. No one was interested in doing what I did as I kept hearing "so many of these cars have already been crushed"
To quote Mao Tse Tung "a journey of a thousand miles starts with just one step" I dove into this project of documenting Canadian Beaumonts and Chevelles not knowing what I was going to find. I thought that after about ten years I'd have seen and found all there was. Well guess what I haven't.
Now almost twenty years later I'm still finding new cars that I've never seen. I'm documenting, more cars each year but not in the numbers like when I started. My days of going to a site and finding fifty to seventy cars to document hasn't happened in a long time.
That's one of the reasons why I asked for assistance from members of this site. We have a large number of people involved in many difference parts of the country. Members in areas of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba etc are going to see and find cars that I more than likely will never see.
I ask that you take the time to jot down the VIN number and cowl tag information so that these cars can live on logically instead of "going back to their basic elements" and taking their story with them. Then email me the information.
Once these cars are gone their gone... As a good number of you know there's not a lot written about these cars so we have to start somewhere. I've been doing the best I can as one person to document as much as I can.
While I don't have a lot of information on the other Pontiacs covered on this site I do "add to the discussion" if I have something to answer the question asked.
So here's my point to you all. Are we now interested in documenting all these cars that are still around both driveable and parts or salvage cars? If so what is our plan of attack? Whose documenting what? Do we have a standard as to how we're going to docuemtent these cars?
I look forward to hearing back from you all on this.
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Dave Weir
Member #1
Canadian Classic Chevelles & Beaumonts
http://cdnclassics.chevelles.net/
So here's my point to you all. Are we now interested in documenting all these cars that are still around both driveable and parts or salvage cars? If so what is our plan of attack? Whose documenting what? Do we have a standard as to how we're going to docuemtent these cars?
I look forward to hearing back from you all on this.
Hey numbers guy, good to see you back on board. 68sd is our man, check out the registry for each model type and year sets on the main page.
