As a young boy I used to travel around with my siblings & parents. In 1971 I went to Williamsburg, Virginia. On that trip I saw a lot of Tempest / Lemans / GTO cars that were different from the 1969 models I was familiar with. That was because I was looking at 1968 models, models that apparently were not imported into Canada on any sort of regular basis. I was totally unaccustomed to seeing those. They had a different rear bumper, for starters. Also the 1968 Grand Prix that I saw with the different roofline, sculpted trunk lid & funny tail lights were like nothing back home (except that the Grande Parisienne had hidden headlights & ventless side glass on the coupes.) Back home in Ontario there were 1969 GTOs around. I have an original 1969 ad for the GTO & Firebird, taken from a Canadian Readers Digest. In town a doctor had a Verdoro Green 1969 GTO coupe (redlines & Rally II wheels), but he died in 1971 & I never saw that car again. His wife lived on until late 1982 with her immaculate Silver Blue 1964 Parisienne Custom Sport convertible (I always loved her car).

A family friend bought a 1969 GTO convertible new out of Douglas Pontiac Buick Cadillac GMC in Hamilton in 1969. He kept it nice over the years. I took a friend out to look at it in late 2002 when the original owner, a Doctor in Hamilton, put it up for sale for the first time ever. At 18G we felt he was dreaming as rust was getting well underway.

The guy in Scarborough who welded the trunk floor sides into my 1967 Chevelle back in 1992 did a frame-off restoration of his 1967 GTO convertible that was imported into Canada as a new car. I think he said it was sold new out of Gus Brown Pontiac in Oshawa.

Ive heard of 2 1965 GTOs and a couple of 1967 GTOs sold new in Canada. I have never heard of a 1968 GTO sold new in Canada. I was born in 1961 and was a car spotter as a little kid back in the 1960s. I remember Beaumonts as new cars, but I didnt set foot into the Pontiac showrooms back then. Dad felt the Pontiacs were "more about flash than value". He bought Biscaynes but I wonder if he ever price checked a Strato Chief. From what I found, in 1969 the equivalent Beaumont was $37 more than the Chevelle.

I know of 2 1962 Oldsmobile F85s that were imported as new cars into Canada. One is a Cutlass coupe that was sold to the wife of the Seagrams family and now belongs to my friend. The only other F85 was a basic 4-door that Im sure was scrapped decades ago. Even back in the late 1960s it had major rust.