Great Pictures and ambitious (and expensive) plans.   All can be done if you have the dough.  As they say, "Speed costs money.  How fast do you want to go?"

To help us with advice giving and because we are generally curious, is there a chance you could post a clear closeup of the firewall tag?  Quite a bit of info can be taken from those and it would establsih if this was an original export car or has been brought over later.

It appears you have a later small block (maybe a 350) in place of the original but whoever put it in used the orginal exhaust manifolds.  With the 327 or 283 with the 2 speed auto (I assume) the orginal rear gear would have been in the neighbourhood of 3.08 to 3.36 so the car would never have been a real tire smoker, especially since it would have weighed about 3800 lbs.

It was called a sport sedan model 76439 by GM

 re the sizes, all the Canadian Pontiac models were smaller than the Bonneville as the bodies essentially had to fit on a Chevy chassis.  I'm not totally sure if the Catalina dimensions were exactly the same as Canadian Pontiacs

-- Edited by 66 Grande guy on Monday 9th of April 2012 03:23:35 PM

As far as I know the Grande was Canadian GM's attempt to compete with the Caprice by putting out a Grande Prix lookalike car.  To give it some extra panache they called it a whole new series and gave it a different grille and roofline like the Grande Prix.

Its the same size as any other Canadian Pontiac

 

I also believe that in the US the Grande Prix was strictly a two door whereas in Canada the Grande could be had as a sport sedan as well

Different country different markets

-- Edited by 66 Grande guy on Monday 9th of April 2012 04:42:05 PM

-- Edited by 66 Grande guy on Monday 9th of April 2012 04:43:14 PM

-- Edited by 66 Grande guy on Monday 9th of April 2012 04:46:44 PM

Hi everyone,

my name's Ralph and i live in Switzerland. Few weeks ago i bought a 66 Parisienne restoration project. It's a 4door sedan with 350 cui, automatic transmission and frontbenchseats. Here's a picture of it:

Technically my Parisienne seems to be in decent condition. The engine runs nice and the transmission shifts smooth. The biggest problem is the awfully rusty underfloor and run down interior.

I already found a local company that is specialized in classic car restorations and will meet them soon to discuss this project step by step.

Since i purchased this car, i read through as much info on Canadian Pontiacs and especially Parisiennes as i could find. It was interesting to learn that they are actually Chevys under the skin. However i still got some questions and hope you can help me out:

If i understand correct, this Parisienne is basically an American Bonneville, built on a Chevy chassis.

So the chassis, drivetrain, engine and transmission are all Chevy. Basically identical with all fullsize Chevys of the same year (Impala, Caprice, Bel Air). That means to fix or replace any of these parts, we can use anything that fits the above mentioned 66 fullsize Chevys.

The body panels and interior on the Parisienne are supposedly PONTIAC. That means to replace a fender, a door, a dashboard or a seat, i can use 66 Bonneville parts.

From the outside, the only obvious difference between the Bonneville and the Parisienne i could spot are the different taillights (different badging aside).

I'd highly appreciate if you can confirm that the above is true. If any info i got is incorrect or incomplete, please let me know. As you can imagine we have to order all parts for this car from overseas and have them shipped to Europe, so ordering wrong parts is the last thing i want to do.

Also i wonder how much is the estimated value of this car in excellent condition. I don't plan to resell it, but i don't want to invest more for the restoration, than it would cost me to get an already show condition car.

Wow guys, thanks for the warm welcome! I also registered at some other Pontiac / GM forums recently and in some cases i waited FOR DAYS without even one reply to my posts. So i really feel that now i finally came to the right place.

Here are some more pics of my Parisienne

I think you would be better off just maintaining your car to keep it running and safe to drive instead of doing a full restoration. It looks good enough and these cars drive so smoothly they are hard to beat. The cost of a resto will far outstrip the car. There are enough minty ones here in Canada to buy and ship if you so desire.

Lots of board members here will be able to find and sell you one when that time comes.

As you can see there's still a lot of time, work and money to invest before it is complete.

I'm not planning a numbers matching all original restoration here. But rather a "resto mod" project with some nice upgrades that bring back all the beauty of this car with a slightly more clean and sleek touch.

These are some of the things i have in mind:

BODY

Of course it needs to be stripped down completely, have all rust removed and get a new paintjob. It will become a high gloss black (like piano lacquer) and eventually with a slight touch of dark purple. I just hope all body panels are still in usable condition and not rotten away underneath the paint.

I'm considering to convert the rear doors to suicide doors. That means exchanging the door handles left-right and mounting them near the front of each backdoor, then mount the doors at the back with custom hinges. I really like the look of such doors on the 60 Lincolns and believe it would also look amazing on the Parisienne. Especially with the hardtop.

 

CHASSIS

The underfloor is completely rusty right now, to the point where you can stick a screwdriver through the floorpan in some areas. That means we will remove the complete floorpan and get a new one (for Chevy Impala or other 65-70 Chevy fullsize). The frame is rusty as well, but i hope it can be welded and repaired. Right now the car leans a bit on one side, so new shocks and springs will be necessary too (also from Chevy).

 

ENGINE / TRANS

During a short testdrive the engine did its job to move the car, but failed to impress with any sensation of power or "muscle" under the hood. I know a Parisienne is no drag racer, but i believe at least a little burnout should be possible with a 6 liter V8 (especially with tires still from stoneage). Also the exhaust sounds REALLY tame.

So first we will remove the engine, check for compression and if everything works. During this we might add headers a complete exhaust system (thinking bout Flowmaster 40s), eventually a new intake and carb. A stroker kit would also be cool, but probably too much power for the stock transmission as i'm planning to keep this original.

 

INTERIOR

Right now the carpet looks quite nasty, the seats are bleached and partially torn, the dashboard is broken, the steering wheel doesn't fit at all imo.

I already talked to an upholstery specialist in my area about a custom interior. They can produce a complete interior of real black leather which would sure look awesome (of course at a price). That means they renew the benchseats and door panels. Also i got an original Parisienne steering wheel, which is broken but they can repair it.

The front benchseats certainly need new springs and padding. It would be great if i can order this somewhere, instead of having one custom made for a fortune.

The dashboard could be repaired but it might also be better to get a new one. Also i will need a new carpet, floor sound deadener and ceiling upholstery.

Any suggestion where i can order these parts at a good price is more than welcome.

A powerful sound system should be installed in a way that it is almost invisible. Easy with the tons of space in the trunk. On the dashboard i might install a radio that looks classic and almost original, but has all modern functions like MP3 etc.

 

Basically i see this Parisienne as beautiful triple black street cruiser. Classic but with a few modern touches and mean sound. Hope you get the picture.

On Wikipedia i read that the LAURENTIAN is the Canadian version of the US CATALINA, while the PARISIENNE is the equivalent to the BONNEVILLE. But they are all four classified ass fullsize Pontiacs.

Can anyone please confirm the exact dimensions of these four cars and how they differ from each other? Is the Parisienne really smaller than the Bonneville and if yes, how much?

Welcome to the site Ralph, you've come to the right place where all your questions will actually get a honest response, parts are available and we harbour no I'll will towards the more door!

One thing I did find out is that the wheelbase of the Canadian Sport Sedan is 119 inches and total car length is 215.8 inches while the Catalina has a wheelbase of 121 inches (total length 214 inches) and the Bonneville whelbase is 124 inches and total length is 221 inches.

So none of these are really the same.

66 Grande guy wrote:

---

One thing I did find out is that the wheelbase of the Canadian Sport Sedan is 119 inches and total car length is 215.8 inches while the Catalina has a wheelbase of 121 inches (total length 214 inches) and the Bonneville whelbase is 124 inches and total length is 221 inches.

So none of these are really the same.

---

 So does this "Canadian Sport Sedan" mean the Laurentian or Parisienne - or are they both the same?

No, all the same size. 235-55 Firestone Firehawk Indy 500's on Chrome 17x8's Ralph. 

You'll never fit a 275 on a 10" wheel with skirts, unless perhaps if they were custom backspace. I had 265mm on a 8" Rally and they rubbed. But 66 might be different?