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Australia and Pontiac have a special connection: in the 2000s Holden sent the Monaro and then the VE Commodore stateside as the rebadged GTO and G8, respectively. Both gave a brief boost to the manufacturer, but couldn't save Pontiac from the scrapyard.
Our connection with Pontiac first appeared in the ‘50s when Holden began assembling Complete Knocked Down (CKD) Pontiac kits imported from Canada.
During the ‘60s Australia received its full-size sedans, renamed from Bonneville and Catalina to Parisienne and Laurentian, the names of which were shared with the Canadian versions.
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As the cars were sourced from Canada, Aussies missed out on a lot of goodies the Americans got.
Under the sheetmetal, the cars had Chevy running gear, so instead of Pontiac’s own V8 engines, the Parisienne used either Chevy’s 4.6-litre or 5.4-litre V8, both of which were teamed to a two-speed Powerglide auto.
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Full-sized doesn’t even begin to describe this muscle car, it was a road-going Titanic. Weighing in at about 1800kg, the Parisenne was also 5.4 metres long and 2.0m wide, even without Pontiac’s US-specific wide-track platform. Yeah, the US versions were even broader.
From 1961-69, two generations were assembled locally and a pillarless hardtop become available in ‘65. By '69, Chrysler, Ford and Holden offered V8s in their sedans, which were cheaper, more agile and offered better performance.
The last time you could buy a brand-new Pontiac from local showrooms was in 1970.
What’s your favourite Australian-made Pontiac? Let us know in the comments.
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