April 1, 1975 was the date Canada actually went metric.
Our driver training cars from Rumble Pontiac were LeMans and Centurys and even though I took training in fall of 1974 these were 1975 models and my recollection is they had MPH as the major scale and kph as a minor scale on the speedo. I feel that GM Canada led the way here and other makes were slower to follow usually being based on model changeovers. So not all cars switched over necessarily at the same time.
-- Edited by 73SC on Monday 16th of September 2019 11:55:50 PM
The next significant change (September 1977) was the introduction of road signs showing distances in kilometres and speed limits in kilometres per hour.
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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
When it filtered over to cars is not all that clear from the literature, but here are a couple of examples:
'76 full size Chevrolet speedometer is clearly in miles and looks like it has km on a minor scale:
Note from the '77 Dodge Charger brochure mentions a metric-predominent speedometer. '76 has no mention so I'm assuming it didn't happen till '77 with Chrysler. Not sure with GM, but it appears to be after '76.
I looked at a 59-60 Chevy dash a while back, the round 59 dial had an inner kph scale, likely a stick on, dont remember seeing anything like that on other cars let alone a 59.
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63 Parisienne sport coupe (The Big GTO), black, maroon interior, 409 4 speed; former owner of a 59 El Camino, 63 Corvette SWC, 62 Chev Bel Air SC. 1963- Pontiac top selling car in Canada
Mahone Bay, NS Still not old enough to need an automatic
Thanks Don, you reminded me of those stick-on numbers that were available from the aftermarket for awhile, for people to apply to their mph speedometers to 'convert' them to km/h. My friend's parents had purchased a '76 Volare new and I recall them putting those numbers on their mph speedometer...
I would not know about GM, but I know for a fact that Ford introduced the dual mph and kph display in 1977. I factory ordered my '76 Mercury Cougar XR7 in the fall of '75. I still own this beauty. The odometer is in mph. My brother in law bought a new '77 Cougar XR7 which displayed both. Therefore, I concur with the previous thoughts in that the changes came in 1977.
I believe that during the transition period, KPH decal overlays for MPH speedos were rather common place; The first year that Firebirds had a legitimate "Canadian" (read: KPH) speedo was 1979.
For 1975 through 1978 (at least) Firebirds used a speedometer with MPH predominant, and KPH smaller; For 1979 it was reversed - KPH was predominant, and MPH was smaller.
I was gifted a 1970 Firebird gauge cluster this past year which had a really nice looking KPH speedo overlay...
-- Edited by unruhjonny on Tuesday 17th of September 2019 03:41:31 PM
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1970 Formula 400 Carousel Red on black (std) interior "no drivetrain option" car (same base drivetrain as GTO) 1:411 1970 Firebird Formulas originally sold in Canada
Thanks Don, you reminded me of those stick-on numbers that were available from the aftermarket for awhile, for people to apply to their mph speedometers to 'convert' them to km/h. My friend's parents had purchased a '76 Volare new and I recall them putting those numbers on their mph speedometer...
The Canadian government handed those out also ... here's a set I found in an old car ... says copyrighted 1974. Metrics Canada symbol in the top left corner.
'64 Parisienne CS "barn find" - last on the road in '86 ... Owner Protection Plan booklet, original paint, original near-mint aqua interior, original aqua GM floor mats, original 283, factory posi, and original rust.
All of the above plus all 6 of my vehicles from a truck to 5 cars and a motorhome get so many miles per gallon! That is just the way it has been and always will be for me.
All of the above plus all 6 of my vehicles from a truck to 5 cars and a motorhome get so many miles per gallon! That is just the way it has been and always will be for me.
Yup. Our kids are 22 and 25. Both of them are quite comfortable with measurements of weight, size, volume etc in Imperial because that's all they ever saw and heard me use when they were growing up.
When's the last time you saw a metric sheet of plywood? Or heard farmers talk about their crop yields in other than bushels/acre?
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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
Looking at a 75 Formula Firebird today, it is MPH with kph minor scale in blue, same as 75 LeMans I mentioned earlier, in fact they use the same speedometer.
My first car "1975 Olds Cutlass S " was in MPH, I miss saying I went 100 MPH, lots faster than 100 KPH lol, I still calculate in so many miles per gallon, feet ... as well. When I go to the USA I don't have a hard time quickly converting in my little brain, miles to Kms.
Oh, I misinterpreted the conversation - I thought we were wondering when speedometers were first predominantly in km/h, with mph as the secondary units. We are actually discussing when km/h first appeared on mph predominant speedometers - I got it.
As mentioned above some folks would put those "KM" stickers on their speedo. In London they usually came from radio station CFPL. A great marketing gimmick as you'd also see those call letters on the sticker. What a PITA to get those stickers off! And yes, dad put them on the 69 Pontiac's speedometer...
