I recently found this story about a musician from Edmonton and his 1974 GTO.

Did you know there were only 148 Ventura GTOs sold new in Canada? I didn't, but it doesn't surprise me as they are practically unicorns.

In 1974 many purists thought it sacrilegious to base The Great One on a Ventura X-car, but remember the times. The Mach 1 was now base on a glorified Pinto and yet it all seemed to make sense at the time. We didn't suffer the fuel line-ups and outages of the U.S., but we no longer were blasé about gasoline. The National psyche had changed.  That is, unless you worked in the Alberta Oil Industry. Many big blocks were sold to Roughnecks with lots of cash to burn after 2 weeks in the wilderness at a stretch.

The 1974 GTO was actually a cool and competent car in spite of the EPA demands, Insurance Lobby demands, and fickle buyers.