Acadian (car brand)

Acadian
Owner / user	General Motors of Canada
owner	General Motors of Canada
Introductory year	1962
Products	Automobiles
Markets	Canada , Chile , Puerto Rico

Acadian from 1966

Acadian Beaumont Cabriolet from 1963

Acadian was a Canadian car brand that was distributed by General Motors of Canada in Oshawa from 1962 to 1971 .

description

The Acadian was sold as a mid-range car through the local Pontiac and Buick dealers, as the Pontiac Tempest was not offered in Canada. Actually, the Acadian should be based on the Chevrolet Corvair , which was manufactured at GM's Oshawa plant. The decision was then made in favor of the Chevy II platform for the vehicle introduced in 1962.

Initially, the Acadian were slightly modified Chevy II , which were offered as the base model, the medium model Invader and the top model Beaumont . Despite some stylistic elements from Pontiac - like the two-part grille - the Acadian is considered an independent brand and not a Pontiac model.

Like the Chevy II in the USA, there were also the Acadian with four- , six-cylinder and V8 engines . Depending on the model and engine, manual three or four-speed gearboxes or a two-stage Powerglide automatic were offered.

In 1964 and 1965 the name Beaumont was used for a revised version of the mid-range model Chevrolet Chevelle and the top model of the Acadian was renamed Canso . The data for the 1966 Acadian were:

• Engines: Six-cylinder in- line engine with 3179 cm³ displacement, compression 8.5: 1 and 88 kW (120 bhp) output or V8 with 4638 cm³ displacement, compression 9.25: 1 or 11.0: 1 and 143 kW (195 bhp) or 162 kW (220 bhp) output.
• Length: 4648 mm, width: 1811 mm, height: 1367 mm, turning circle: 11.7 m, front track: 1443 mm, rear track: 1430 mm.
• Tank capacity: 51.9 l.

The Beaumont in model years 1966 to 1969 continued to have the body of the Chevrolet Chevelle with minor design changes such as different taillights and split grille in the style of Pontiac. Since Beaumont became its own brand, they no longer carried the Acadian name. The instrument panel of the American Pontiac models Tempest / LeMans / GTO was installed in the interior . All Acadian and Beaumont had Chevrolet engines and drivetrains. The Beaumont brand was dropped in 1969 and the Canadian dealers instead had the Pontiac LeMans in their range.

The Acadian had the Chevy II / Nova body until mid-1971 and was then replaced by the Pontiac Ventura II .

From 1976 to 1987, the Pontiac Acadian, based on the Chevrolet Chevette , was available from Pontiac and Buick dealerships in Canada.

Other countries

The brand was also offered in Chile with vehicles manufactured in Arica .

In the 1960s, the Beaumont also existed in Puerto Rico . In addition to the Beaumont dealer in San Juan, there was also a Beaumont cafeteria .

literature

• Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 , chapter Acadian.
• George Nick Georgano (Editor-in-Chief): The Beaulieu Encyclopedia of the Automobile. Volume 1: A – F. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, Chicago 2001, ISBN 1-57958-293-1 , p. 10. (English)

Web links

Commons : Acadian  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• The Acadian and its production in Chile at Tuerca.cl (Spanish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Manwaring, LA: The Observer's Book of Automobiles , 12th Edition (1966), Library of Congress, Catalog Card No. 62-9807, p. 30