I made a request post over on PY Forums asking if someone would measure the beltline trim on their 2 door Catalina. I actually got a response.
Turns out the trim is the same size. I suspected this was true as the trim part numbers are the same cross border.
I suppose with the 119" fitted to the 121" body, the difference could be split between the front and back arches, but they do look to fit pretty centered as the designers might have intended.
What do you think? With your eye, do the wheels look pushed out of place? Maybe with this bodystyle they could easily get away with it unlike pre 65's?
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
Don, I'm assuming the quarter, and fenders are close at least in skin, owing that the trim is the same between the two. This is true of the Catalina, but not so the Bonneville to the CDN cars, we know that. The hood...no idea, but it's bound to be different underneath in all cases, and the Bonny is longer.
If not mistaken, all the 2 and 4 door sedans in the B body 65-66 used the same corporate inner door and guts. And I know the sedan body width is the same as the USA rear trim/lamp panel fit my car.
Was always under the impression that the pre 65's seemed to exaggerate the chassis difference, but I'm not so sure now taking a close look at the images.
The reason I'm even discussing this; There is a lot of misinformation (or just plain no info) between the USA and Cdn sedans. I'm now going out there and calling the body dimensions the same in the Sedans in 65 at least.
And yes, 1" pushed out front and back is pretty mild isn't it.
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65 Laurentian post, 67 Grande Parisienne 4 door HT.
Pre 65 was x frame in Canada vs peripheral frame in USA, also, the USA cars may have been wider than an x frame Pontiac?
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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
All the glass interchanges, all the window mechanisms etc interchange including even putting Bonneville window regulators (not the 1/4 glass though) into a 66 2 dr ht Grande Parisienne. Someone once posted there that 66 front fenders don't interchange between US/Canada because of the inner fender attaching locations. I've never checked into that.
Dashes and components interchange, except a 66 Canadian cluster is a printed circuit, a US 66 cluster is individual wires. I'm betting the 65's are a direct swap though.
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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
On the CP "B" cowl, on the 65 (probably 66 as well), along with the standard wiper pivots (red), I see the cutouts for the articulated or outside style pivoting wipers (yellow). Was this a shared stamping to cover just the Export cars? Or was this actually the USA car cowl as well?
I did some comparison measurements between a 70 Catalina rag and my 70 2+2 rag.
Front of fender to front wheel opening: Catalina = 7-1/4" 2+2 = 8-1/2"
Front wheel opening to body: Catalina = 17" 2+2 = 15-1/2"
Door to rear wheel opening: Catalina = 19-3/4" 2+2 = 20"
On my 70, you can clearly see the rear wheel isn't centered in the opening vs a Catalina. I can easily put a fist between the front part of the rear wheel opening and rear tire on a Catalina, I certainly can't on my 2+2.
Here's a quick view of the green Catalina vs the yellow 2+2 drivers side wheels:
Maybe you covered this, but I noticed overall length is the same between Cdn and US: 214.6", so maybe it would make sense that other body dimensions would be the same, with changes to non-visible parts to make it fit the Chevy chassis.
In 69-70 the Canadian cars have their own fender with the wheel opening moved one inch closer to the cowl to correct for the chevy frame having one inch less distance from the frontwheel center line to the O line (cowl). I suspect they didn't do that in 65-66 because the wrap around bumpers would have needed changing too, they just let the wheel be an inch back in the wheelhouse. The added problem for some years was when the wheelbase difference between Pontiac and Chevy B bodies was more than 2 inches.
For example in 69-70 Pontiac's were 122" versus the chevy at 119", this forced them to put the rear axle 2" forward in the rear tub (quarter panels were shared between Catalina and canadian cars) instead of one. Similar situation in 59-60. 61 was the only year where American and Canadian Pontiac's had the same wheelbase (except bonneville-starchief). Having the same wheelbase as chevy that year really hurt Pontiac sales in the US so in 62 they added an inch to 120. In 65 they added another inch to 121 and 122 in 69.
One improvement along the way in Canadian cars (not sure which year) was when chevy started changing the offset of the wheels to get rid of that look Bunkie called "gorilla on roller skates" that is very noticeable in the 59-60. The difference between chevy Impala and Pontiac track went from 3.5 front and 5" rear in 1959 to only 1" front and rear 10 years later.
Canadian Pontiac and chevies always had the same track but they cheated in the brochures because chevy listed the track with the base 6 cylinder which had narrower wheels while the Canadian Poncho brochures listed the track that an 8 cylinder car would have (which was wider thanks to the wider wheels used with a V8. American Pontiacs had wider track due to the wider Pontiac chassis (including longer rear axles).
GM often was loose with facts on these specs, perfect example is the rear track on 68-72 cars with the BOP 10 bolt, they listed Pontiac A body cars (GTO etc) as having 60" rear track but the identical diff and wheels on a buick skylark were listed as 59" The actual track was 59.5" with 4 wheel drum cars and 59" on cars equipped with discs up front (disc cars used a wheel with 1/2" more positive offset for caliper clearance).
By the late 60's the actual 4-5" extra of Pontiac (American) "Wide Track" was just a marketing myth of anywhere from zero to once inch of extra track.
