Next up in our ongoing series about American cars Down Under is Pontiac. In researching this I’ve also found a real treat, but we will refrain from discussing it at this point.
In the Chevrolet edition of this series, there was some discussion in the comments about how Chevrolets were imported from Canada due to tax advantages. That makes complete sense given both were within the British Commonwealth. However, I have encountered some information that may add another layer of complexity to this.
It seems after World War II the amount of American dollars available was in short supply in Australia and their use was legislatively limited. Fuel was imported using American dollars and importation of American cars required a permit due to the type of funds being used.
Since many American car companies had a presence in Canada, cars in knock-down form could be obtained from there as the factories in Canada were already producing export models for other markets. The incomplete cars sent to Australia were then assembled by GM Holden.
Nearly all American car brands, including Nash, Hudson, and Studebaker, could be found new and for sale in Australia shortly after the war. The introduction of a domestically built Holden branded automobile in 1948 helped curb that considerably, particularly the upper-tier GM brands of Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac.
While corroborating this information (found at ozgm.com) has been a challenge, the basic premise makes sense.
For Pontiac, a V8 engine first appeared for 1955 but was gone again for 1958.
The V8 engine had returned by 1961 with use of the Chevrolet 283.
It was marketed as the Laurentian, a model name used in Canada.
A drive review of the Australian Laurentian did not generate a lot of enthusiasm for this Pontiac, saying it was an expensive status symbol given the very few extras the Pontiac possessed over the much less expensive Chevrolet.
Here’s a great illustration of the dashboard and instrument panel. Note the gear selector for the Powerglide is on the left.
By 1967 the 283 had grown into a 327 Chevrolet V8. The Powerglide remained. Also changed was this Pontiac was now marketed as a Parisienne instead of a Laurentian.
Incidentally, the rear axle was a delightfully geared 3.55:1.
Imports of these large Pontiacs was winding down by the late 1960s, a 1968 shown here. Production numbers for these in Australia had always been minuscule, often in the low hundreds – or less. With so many good domestically produced alternatives, these big Pontiacs simply didn’t make a lot of sense for most people.
But it was a good run.
Now, for the surprise mentioned earlier. Cruising around youtube, I found this video. Claimed to have been a salvage yard near Melbourne, it features nothing by right-hand drive Pontiacs and Chevrolets. It almost seems the entire production of these cars all congregated on this one property. The video is a series of pictures taken in late 1985.
Looks like illustrations are by the legendary Van & Fitz, Wonderful Pontiac adverts form 59 through 72. I wonder if the originals were flipped to show RHD, and then details such as badging redone? or were these original work in total?
Their work was so distinctive and unmistakable, and uniformly gorgeous
Great video! Hard to imagine today.
The junk yard in the video has to be the most organized I’ve ever seen. Everything was grouped by year and type. Impressive.
I like the illustration of the ’68 Pontiac juxtaposed with the (McDonnell?)/Douglas DC-8. It was drawn very accurately from what I remember of that plane.
In the original of the final “airport” illustration, the car is a Tempest (and the plane wears Pan Am livery).
Interesting. So not flipped as speculated by Jason above, just airbrushed or cut-and-pasted as necessary; only the barely-visible steering wheel position has to be changed. That does subtly change the context since the people who are approaching the passenger’s door in a given scene would now be approaching the driver’s, which might make less sense if the driver was first unlocking and opening the door for the shotgun rider.
In the prior photo, the airstairs had the Pan Am logo but not the (accurately rendered, pre-fanjet) Douglas DC-8.
The logo on the airstairs isn’t Pan Am’s, they used this globe design. Still my favorite plane livery, the version shown here.
I recall reading that on the Van and Fitz illustrations, one guy did the cars and one guy did the backgrounds, which were later photographically merged. So plopping in a Parisienne / Catalina in place of a LeMans was a pretty easy move. I had both the Dinky US and RCMP versions of this Parisienne as a kid.
The logo looks like a BOAC now British Airways Speedbird flash to me. You’d have seen that in Australia back then.
That is really interesting, trying to sell a Pontiac that is simply a clothes-change away from being a Chevrolet. Especially in a market in which these big Americans were seldom seen.
Over here the Pontiac provided more value than the price spread over a Chevy would suggest. But not down under, it would appear.
One man is up on on a ladder, in an illustration for a country where the Sloan ladder had no meaning. Looks like he’s on the third step, bit high for Pontiac.
Little known Australian auto fact:
Not only did they switch the steering to the right side of the car – they also had to follow Australian laws and have the cars ride backwards as well, making every car except the Corvair and Beetle a rear-engine car!
So that’s where that famous backwards ’59 Chevy really came from….
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2009/09/curbside-classic-1959-chevrolet-biscayne/
Yes the Aussie built Pontiacs were all Cheviacs, it was quite a surprise when looking under the bonnets of the first few I saw, That junkyard is known about an old mate of mines cousin is in the Chevy club and runs a 67 pillarless 4 door alledgedly the only one in OZ but because hes a kiwi and a good bloke when I was offered a 66 Laurentian without a rear window(removed by shotgun) in Tassie I contacted him and got told about that yard of wrecks for a replacement, the deal fell thru so I never got to go there, the 66 was a 283 glide car the engine ran well but no gears, it felt like the linkage had come off and since where it was had old logging roads as the only access and it was a low to the ground car it had likely been torn off by rocks, left side of the tree shifters are normal on chevs and Pontiacs out this way the complexity of a right side shift linkage doesnt bear thinking about only International did that and they were a menace, I had one, In New Zealand both American and locally assembled pontiacs are around imports of lightly used cars began here in the 30s and continues today only the source has altered slightly to include Japan.
In the video, the tacked-on auxiliary tail lights on the bottom of the “bat wings” of the 1959 Chevrolet are a shocker. They’re factory…no custom car builder would put on something that ugly, and they are also visible on several other 1959-1960 Chevrolets in the video.
Yes those were factory fitments in Aussie, not here in NZ we had flashing red indicator lights if thats what the CKD kit contained
A lot of car guys here in Canada don’t know about the Aussie Chevrolet’s and Pontiacs.
If I had some mad money it’d be fun to import a couple back here and go to a show with a RHD parisenne or Laurentian and watch the heads revolve.
Where’s that lottery ticket again?🤑🤑
They go for really stupid money out this way, you need a lottery win plus postage.
Oh to have air travel as easy as it was back then. I’m surprised the airplane driver isn’t a captain.
The shots are at Norm Teppers…..long gone
From a comment under the video on YouTube, I gather this was on a farm near Minyip, a town of 500 out in northwestern Victoria about 200 miles from Melbourne. Dryland farming country, wheat and grains, subject to drought, pretty ideal for preserving old “bloody aircraft carrier yank tanks”. The comment just above says long gone – I don’t doubt it. I have an unreliable memory of driving out to nearby Warracknabeal in the late ’80’s and seeing this from the road. Old Pete will likely know: from his comments, I think he lived out that way for years?
It’s apt that a farm there had these cars, because they were a real “Western District grazier’s” car when new, that is, they needed some real money to buy and run. The Western District is to the (damper) south of this area, much richer grazing (or crop) country, and was and is a source of land-owning old money in this state. Minyip is on the edge of “Mallee country”, named after the characteristic knarly gum tree that was present across the (large) semi-arid region. After WW1, the government granted returned soldiers free acreages out in the Mallee country, which the poor bastards did their best to try and make useful. The land was too barren for small farms, and many walked off in despair, particularly during the Depression, and the removal of the mallee gums made the area a dust bowl. Small farm towns like Minyip, once thriving, are shrinking by the year as the farm sizes (necessarily) get bigger, and the entire area is economically poor, just as in many parts of rural USA. I mention all this both for general interest, and because it just seems so poignant that the cast-off’s off the rich should end up gathered tidily on the land of the poorer.
And now that the whole nation has become a (much less evenly) rich place over the past thirty years, those cast-off’s are likely all restored for lots of money by well-off “working class” baby boomer in the cities.
A life cycle of an Aussie pseudo-Ponty could make quite an interesting one, from riches to ruin to riches again.
The Laurentian was of course the mid-range Pontiac in Canada (Strato Chief -> Laurentian -> Parisienne), so it’s odd that the ’61 Australian Laurentian got the 3 round taillight design from the US Bonneville, which didn’t appear on any Canadian Pontiac. Even the top level Parisienne in Canada had the same rounded/rectangular rear lights as the lower end models.
Mid-range Laurentian triple-star trim on the rear fender – and Bonneville taillights!? It’s just….not right. 🙂
Done in the same spirit that gave Aussie Belairs the three taillights of the Impala?
Probably the cheapest way of incorporating the amber turn signals that were required for the Australian market. Certainly a much more elegant solution than some of the other tacked-on amber signal lights we’ve seen in this series of ‘Americans Down Under’ posts.
Good point.
Interesting stuff, and the artwork from this period always assumes, with the width they put into the cars. Yes, they wide, but that wide?