Canadian Brands

Podcast Episode: 0257
Canada's Dedicated brands

​What if Canada’s car legacy is more intriguing than you ever imagined? Step back in time with us as we unravel the stories behind Canada's unique automotive brands, meticulously crafted by the big players like General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler to meet the distinct needs of Canadian markets. 

​         I think Ned Flanders said it best. I can't Maude, it's a Geo. Yeah, that famous saying from the Simpsons as Homer had become best friends with Ned and he was trying to get him to go golfing. And Ned is taking off in a Geo. Now, a Geo was a weird brand. It's kind of an in-between little entry-level vehicle created by General Motors in the late 80s and ran into the 90s. It was really just Suzuki under a General Motors nameplate, but they also had Chevrolet versions and Pontiac versions. So why did they need four different versions of these vehicles with a whole brand-new brand? Well, dealerships, dealerships wanted their own select brands. You have to remember, back in those days, gm had two different dealerships Pontiac, Buick, GMC and Chevrolet, Cadillac, Oldsmobile, Geo was thrown in as an entry-level brand to the Saturn Isuzu nameplates because Saturn wanted to get those entry-level vehicles too. But this was for the American marketplace. Today, being Canada Day, we're going to talk about the divisions made by the big three to fill the slots that dealerships wanted in the great country of Canada. Yes, today we're talking about Canada's dedicated brands.
 
        Welcome back to the AutoLooks podcast. I am your host, as always, the doctor to the automotive industry, Mr. Everett Jay, coming to you from our host website at AutoLooks.net. If you haven't been there, stop by. Check it out. Read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings. Go to Corporate links website page. Big or small, we have them all. Car companies from around the globe, all available in one main place on the internet that is AutoLooks.net. The AutoLooks podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by Podbean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email over at [email protected]. So, like I said in the beginning, dedicated brands for Canada. Yeah, Canada had its own dedicated, specific brands and two of the big three had their own dedicated brands. Now, Chrysler Corporation did have one dedicated brand for a specific dealership, which we've talked about in a previous podcast.
 
        If you listen to our podcast about Eagle cars, you understand why the Eagle brand came out, because when Chrysler Corporation took over the old American Motors division, it came with Jeep, but Eagle was created out of the dust of American Motors. The Eagle Premier was this vehicle that both American Motors and Renault were working on together and it was so close to being finished. They decided to sell it yeah, Chrysler just couldn't give up on it and to create a full brand because you have to remember, when American Motors went under, those dealerships didn't go under. Some of them were kept. They were kept because of the Jeep name that was attached to it. But Jeep wasn't a full-scale brand.
 
        Jeep essentially by that time only had four vehicles. You had your standard Wrangler or YJ back in those days, the Cherokee, the Comanche and the Grand Cherokee. Now, up until the early 90s they did have the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer. Now, up until the early 90s they did have the Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer, but that was kind of a limited production and kind of ran on its own. So, they needed sedans to fill the gap and they created Eagle cars, utilizing old American Motors products and fitting in a few products from Mitsubishi. Now Mitsubishi products were also branded as Plymouth and Dodge products. The original Dodge Dynasties were an Eagle Premier but only sold in Canada under the Dodge name. Now they did this because they needed to fill gaps in dealership lineups and Canada was an amazing place for this to happen.
 
       As we saw in the 90s, General Motors, with the help of bringing Suzuki to North America, decided to utilize their vehicles to help fill gaps in their own lineup. So, they utilized Suzuki products to build the little Chevy trackers, the original little Pontiac Sunrunners, and they had Geo trackers. It was Suzuki's sidekick a Chevy tracker, a Geo tracker and a Pontiac Sunrunner. Geo was made, like I said, to fill the gap with Saturn Isuzu's dealerships. But in Canada General Motors and Ford had other brands and this date all the way to the turn of the century. 

        If you didn't know this, there was a car company that was one of the biggest makers of cutters and carriages in the British Empire, hailing from Oshawa. Ontario is literally a sub-suburb of Toronto. It's one of the many kinds of like Vaughan, Brampton, Burlington, hell, even Hamilton now is considered part of the greater Toronto-Hamilton area. Okay, so it's literally a suburb outside of it. Well, there's a man named Robert McLaughlin who started this business building these amazing cutters and carriages. Well, his son eventually became good friends with Billy Durant from Buick, or should we say William C Durant, whose daughter actually went on to marry De Tomaso. Yeah, go back and listen to our podcast about De Tomaso. You'll learn the history about that and how De Tomaso fits in with even the GM empire, along with the Ford empire. It's a pretty good podcast. Go back and listen to it after this one.
 
      So, Sam formed an alliance with Billy Durant of Buick. He wanted to utilize their vehicles to build cars for the Canadian marketplace. It took a lot of coaxing to get his dad to actually sign on and want to build these things, because he didn't see a future in the automobile. Carriages were great, they were strong, they were dependable and the automobile in its early days was literally a new technology that was always falling apart. Remember the early days of Tesla. They didn't go that far. They had lots of issues. They had to put these transponders in them just to prove to people that they were actually a little bit better than what people were saying. So, his father didn't really give into it. But Sam eventually got his father on board and started building what they called the McLaughlin automobile.
 
       Now, if you know anything about McLaughlin, McLaughlin’s actually known of very widely in the royal family, even when Prince William married Princess Kate. Well, at that time, just Kate, that old classic vehicle from the 1930s they rode around in was a McLaughlin from Canada. Oh yeah, one of the best built vehicles. They ran on the same lines as companies like Duesenberg, Rolls-Royce and Pierce Arrow. Now Buick eventually caught on and kept McLaughlin on.
 
      When General Motors moved into Canada. McLaughlin was eventually absorbed, part of the General Motors Corporation and was kept on as the top tier. Cadillac didn't make its way here in the early days. McLaughlin was kept at the top tier of the General Motors pyramid. It sat above Buick in Canada because Canada wasn't big enough of a marketplace for all the many divisions of General Motors. So, although they were built of original Buick products, they decided to keep them as an extra Well that didn't last forever. They had a 15-year contract to use drivetrains from Buicks in their original vehicles. But essentially the fallout of GM outing Durant led to an eventual fall of McLaughlin. Sam McLaughlin would have helped finance Durant's new business into a racing car developer, louis Chevrolet. Yes, Sam McLaughlin from Canada helped finance Durant's enterprise into Chevrolet automobiles. So, Chevrolet essentially wouldn't exist today if it wasn't for Canadian investors helping them get their feet wet. And with that Durant managed to build his business back up and take over General Motors. He would eventually set up Chevrolet of Canada.
 
       By 1916, Durant regained control of General Motors and Sam McLaughlin became the vice president of General Motors. A Canadian was the vice president of the world's largest automobile corporation. Well, it's 1916. Ford's still king? So not yet. But we're getting there Because of this.
 
      In 1916, with Sam McLaughlin as vice president of General Motors' board, McLaughlin begins making Chevrolets in Canada, alongside building their own McLaughlin’s, which their father, Robert McLaughlin, didn't want to give up because he knew he built some of the best cars in the world. From 1918 to 1942, McLaughlin Buicks were made by GM Canada before officially becoming just the Buick moniker in 1942. Sam originally stayed on as the vice president of GM Canada until his death in 1972. He was 100 years old.  But they eventually relinquished control of McLaughlin Motors to General Motors. Gm of Canada still holds their largest automotive producing facility in the country of Canada, in Oshawa, Ontario, on the original hollow grounds of McLaughlin Motors, where McLaughlin originally set up to build Chevrolets. Now there are other vehicles that would have Canadian monikers go along with them come out of that plant down the road. But for now, we're going to move on to the competition from 1946 to 1961. 

​         Introduced in March 23rd of 1946, monarch became a new division for Ford-only dealers in the country of Canada. Essentially, Monarch was just the Mercury division for Ford-only dealers. You have to remember, back in those days you were a Ford dealership or you were a Mercury dealership. Occasionally some of them would throw in Lincoln with it as a top-tier luxury brand. But they also wanted the premium brands. Well, ford at its own standard dealerships a Ford Motor Company only selling Ford products wanted a premium brand product and because they couldn't get Mercury, they had to go with something else. So, in Canada the dealerships demanded a premium vehicle and with that in March 23, 1946, they created the Monarch brand for Canada only, running from 46 to 61.
 
         Like I said, it essentially was just mercury, sold in four dealerships. So, you'd have the ford monarch and then you would have the mercury and we'll get to its other brand later on. They had a sedan, a coupe, a hardtop, a convertible and a wagon. It was marketed as its own brand with its own vehicles Richelieu, lucerne and scepter products. Yeah, has even had its own one with its own vehicles. Richelieu, Lucerne and Scepter products. Yeah, it even had its own one. Now the second one should be kind of a little reminiscent the Buick Lucerne from Canada. Yeah, it was originally a Buick name but it was originally owned by Monarch, based on a contemporary Mercury with Canadian-specific trim, unique grills and taillights.
 
        Both Monarch and Meteor which was Mercury's Ford division we'll get into that after this one were used to sell full lineups from single dealers. So small towns would either have a Ford or a Lincoln Mercury dealer. They couldn't have a full lineup if you only sold Fords because you had no premium or luxury products and at the Mercury Lincoln dealerships you didn't have entry-level products. And when it's a small town with only one dealership you need to sell a full line of vehicles. You need to cater to everyone in that town because if you don't cater to them, General Motors and Chrysler down the road are going to cater to them because they had full lineups. So, the Monarch division was created for the Ford Motor Company. So, Monarch, like I said, was essentially Mercury product. So, if the small town only had a Ford dealership you would have Ford Monarch. Meteor was essentially utilized as Ford's product for the Mercury product lineup.
 
         Now see, the Monarch nameplate kept going, like I said, from 1946 all the way up to 1958. It was discontinued only because of the entry of the Edsel brand. But remember, the Edsel brand was a failed brand from Ford Motor Company. So much emphasis on this and when it came out people looked at it and said no, that's not going to fly. There was so much money and so much effort put into making the Edsel brand so cool. The next wave of automobiles is going to be for everything that people want, but its design did not suit that time. Even by today's standards, when you take a look at an Edsel and a Ford or a Mercury from the same time, you just see a major difference between them. Now, with Edsel brand being dissolved in Canada only within one year, monarch returned in late 1959 to pick up where Edsel had lost its sales.
 
        A drop in medium-priced cars in Canada in the 1960s eventually led to the end of the Monarch brands. Monarch, over its time from 1946 to 1961, sold 95,450 cars across 15 years of production. But eventually, by this time Ford didn't see a need to have a medium-priced vehicle because they knew people were going down the road and since all the money was going into Ford Motor Company of Canada by the 1960s and not the Ford division or the Mercury division, ford didn't really care if it had two different dealerships selling two different products. They didn't need to sell a Mercury and a Ford dealership to keep you from going down the street to purchase from the Mercury dealership. They wanted you to buy the Ford products and Ford only Now, like we said, the Monarch brand came as the Mercury distinguished brand for the Ford Motor Company. But Ford started entering more of the premium marketplace by the late 50s and into the 60s With big vehicles like the Crown Vic. Ford was moving up and they did not need the Monarch brand. So, Ford was able to fit the table, just like they are now, from entry level to premium price range, all with one product lineup. By having a full lineup. To begin with they didn't have to worry about the Monarch brand being kept around, so they decided to discontinue it in 61. 

        Mercury, on the other hand, waited three years after the Monarch brand came out before they finally said we need Ford products within our lineups because we're losing the entry-level sales from our Mercury Lincoln dealerships. Like we need to get all those regular people who buy regular vehicles to come into our dealerships as well. We don't want them going down the street and going to every Ford Hell. The next Ford dealership isn't for 100 miles down the road. We need Ford products being sold in our small town. We don't care that you're only going to sell, like you know, maybe like 50 a year. We still need to make those sales.
 
       So, June 25th 1949, a rebadged Ford product for Canada only was introduced to the Mercury dealerships and then became the Meteor Mercury Lincoln dealerships. Meteor was brought in to be the entry-level products for the Mercury Lincoln dealers. This was due to the dealer structure in Canada and was used to carry a full lineup of vehicles for small single-dealer lots. So, if big cities like Toronto or Ottawa or Montreal or Vancouver or Calgary at this point in time didn't have to worry about this thing because they had a four-dealer ship down the road from a Mercury Lincoln dealership. But if we're talking about my neck of the woods, a small town like the town of Espanola, Sturgeon Falls, hell, even to Temiskaming Shores would either have a Ford dealership or a Mercury Lincoln dealership and the next major town for a dealership being between 45 minutes to over an hour away. People weren't going to make that long drive, they were just going to buy from whatever was in their town. And trust me, even in my home city there's a couple dealerships in the smaller outlining communities that have kept around and basically held on to those points only because it was actually too far to drive into town to purchase a vehicle. But now that we don't care. We got bigger roads; we can move a lot quicker. We don't care about traveling. That 45-minute drive has now turned into 20 minutes.
 
        But back in those days the Mercury Lincoln dealerships needed to have their own product and they were given the Meteor nameplate. From 1949 to 1959, meteor ran fourth in sales behind Chevrolet, ford and Pontiac in Canada. Yes, fourth in sales. They were essentially a Ford product, ford cars being sold by Mercury dealerships and they were fourth in sales. So technically, if you put Meteor and Ford together, ford would be top of the game, making all the sales in the country of Canada at that point in time. They had a sedan, a coupe, hardtop, convertible, a wagon, sports edition. They even had a Ute which utilized the Ranchero platform and if you didn't know this, the El Camino wasn't the original Ute from the North American marketplace. Studebaker actually had a vehicle in there long before anyone else back in the 40s. But if you're talking about the actual ones that look more like cars and less like a smaller pickup truck. That would be the Ford Ranchero, who originally started up the Ute marketplace in North America. And yes, we actually had the Meteor Ranchero.
 
         Now, meteor shared full size bodies, chassis and powertrains with Ford. They were built on Ford platforms and built in Ford production facilities. So, Oakville, Ontario, that was built. Ford products would also build Ford products and Meteor products. The Meteor products would be shipped out to the towns that only had Mercury and Lincoln dealerships and the Ford products would go to every other dealership. That's for Ford. They had unique trim taillights to differentiate them from using the standard Mercury. Essentially, they were the bottom end of the Lincoln Mercury lineup or the Ford product of that lineup, before they merged everything together.
 
        Now, if you want to get back into this, if you've ever listened to our podcast about the divisions of the Big Three, you'll understand how many different car companies each one of the big three had at the beginning of their point in time. They had tons and tons of them and you can't have dealerships for every single one of them, so you started conglomerating multitude of them together. Well, mercury was essentially created as a separate model and they were put into more premium marketplaces and because Ford wasn't added to everywhere, you still needed to sell those Ford products. And remember, ford was the bottom line of products from the Ford Motor Company. Mercury was mid-tier and Lincoln was top tier and if you want to go one step further than that, you got to go to Continental, which eventually became the top tier, but we'll talk about that in a future podcast. We talk about the Continental product and Continental name over its history. Trust me, it's got a pretty good history. Stay tuned, it's going to be a great podcast when it comes out.
 
      In 1961, the Meteor name was used for a Mercury product dissolving. The brand. Mercury came down in price due to the low loss of the Edsel brand. 378,463 cars were produced in 1961 for the Meteor nameplate. So, Mercury, because of the Edsel lineup being brought in, the Meteor product, was moved into the Mercury nameplate as the Mercury Meteor. Now we all know the Mercury Meteor existed other places in the world, but in Canada it was its own brand, falling under the mercury product lineup, and for this, because of the introduction of the Edsel, it got bumped to being a product, not a brand. But in 1964 the meteor nameplate came back and this time they weren't based off of ford products, they were based off of mercury products and from 1964 to 1976, the Meteor brand sold 255,000 vehicles in Canada. Meteor eventually returned due to the loss of the entry-level 400 in the Mercury lineup. By 1965 to 1968, the Meteor had a full lineup with the Redux, the Redux 500, the Montcalm and the Montego. Montego Lame was later renamed Le Moyne due to Mercury utilizing the Montego nameplate.
 
       By 1969, meteor started using Mercury badge. It eventually was becoming labeled as a Mercury Meteor. So, the fall of the Meteor nameplate essentially started with the Edsel brand coming in. They went back to being their own product by 1964. But, like we said, eventually by 1969, the name was also being utilized on entry-level Mercury products. By 1976, the name completely dissolved and the Mercury Meteor was moved right into being a Mercury-only product. There was no entry-level Meteor car company anymore. The brand was gone by 76. But from 1977 to 1981, the, the redo 500 and Montcalm names returned to mercury as Canadian trim levels only.
 
      Now we all know the meteor nameplate actually kept around until 1981, but it wasn't its own brand. It was used as the entry level for the Marquis model, the Marquis Meteor. So, by 1981, the end of the entire Meteor nameplate and brand was completely gone from history. Never to return. But by that time most of those dealerships had merged altogether and now everything was either Ford, Lincoln, mercury dealerships or it was just a Ford dealership. You didn't need all those different brands. 

         ​Now, in 1959, General Motors decided to give the Pontiac dealerships something else. They needed Chevrolet products because Pontiac was more of the sport model and it was a little bit higher up than general Chevrolet products. Kind of remember, Chevrolet was the entry-level product for General Motors and, like we said, it was Pontiac, Buick, GMC dealerships. They needed something a little bit more entry level for the Canadian marketplace. So, by utilizing Chevrolet full-size chassis, drivetrains and other parts in similar body shells, we got the Laurentian nameplate.
 
        Now, Laurentian is actually a mountain range just north of Montreal. It is an amazing, amazing mountain range. Okay, the only mountain range in the province of Ontario that comes close to that, being that close to a major city, would be the La Cloche Mountain range. Have you ever seen the La Cloche Mountain range? Pure white mountains, and they're actually about an hour and 15 minutes from where I'm recording this podcast right now. Yeah, I can literally drive through white mountain ranges that close to my house. But Laurentians is in Quebec, so highly known of Mountain Range.
 
      Now they were marketed as more of a premium product, but just under the Parisienne. They looked a lot like a Catalina but had more in common with the Bel Air product. They were also available in Bel Air body styles, hardtop, coupe sedans all the way through to 1962. After 1963, only the Paris scene and the hardtop models were kicking around. But it eventually returned in 1969 when the Catalina was discontinued in the United States.
 
        But you have to remember the Laurentian product line wasn't just for Canada, it was also sold in Australia, built in Canada, sold in Australia as knockdown kits for GM Holden, replacing the Parisienne in 1964 for the Holden Manufacturing Corporation. So General Motors of Australia kind of neat, because you know, Canada kind of gave something to Australia as well. We had our own brand, the Laurentian brand, entry level for Pontiac. They also sold the Laurentian products in Europe because Canada was part of the Commonwealth. We had the Commonwealth status so you couldn't get specific vehicles that were built in Canada. But if Laurentia was built on Pontiac platforms being sold in Pontiac dealership and manufactured here, we could sell them in British Commonwealth countries. So, it was better adapted to the American products. For narrow streets it was more affordable due to their economy status in the Pontiac, Buick, GMC dealership lineups. So Laurentia was kind of here for 20 years, 59 to 79. They really didn't have a heck of a lot of different models from what Pontiac or Chevrolet had at that point in time. They used a lot of the Bel Airs and Catalinas. But there were specific options entry-level product for the Pontiac, Buick, GMC divisions.
 
         Dealerships need to get everyone else in the door to make sales right. Well, this wasn't going to fly over at other dealerships as well Because, to move up, Pontiac was realizing they're at premium level with the Laurentian product but they also need an entry-level as well. So Acadian was brought out from 1962 to 1971. It's created so that the Buick, Pontiac dealerships would have a compact car to sell. You have to remember the Laurentian was more of an entry-level product but it was big, full-scale products like the Catalina, the Paris Saint, the Paris Saint and the Bel Airs. They were all big, full-size products. They needed entry-level products and instead of giving Laurentian an entry-level product because people still saw them as entry-level but a little bit higher up than a Chevrolet, they needed something else. If they want to create a small new product to get sold under these dealerships.
 
       To get people into the Pontiac Buick dealerships they needed entry-level vehicles, compact and mid-sized vehicles. So, in 1962, the Cadian company was created. It was used to promote the APAC automotive manufacturing in Canada. It utilized the Chevrolet 2 platform which basically underpinned the Chevrolet Nova. Now it uses Chevrolet 2 base, Invader mid-tier and Beaumont top-tier trim levels with both a four-cylinder, six-cylinder and a V8.
 
        Now, Acadian used a lot of Pontiac styling cues but they wanted to differentiate themselves from Pontiac because they don't want to bring the Pontiac nameplate down. See how Porsche created the Cayenne and the Panamera. They kind of brought their image as a sports car company down a notch and became more of a luxury car company. Now that they have sedans and SUVs, Pontiac at this point in time between the 60s and 70s, didn't want to do that to their image. They were considered a muscle car. You've got to remember.
 
        Pontiac created the muscle car era with the GTO. If you didn't know this, the GTO was created and spearheaded by none other than John Zachary DeLorean yes, the man behind the DeLorean from Back to the Future, the DMC-12. That man created the muscle car era, shoving a big block V8 underneath the hood with a tiny little Beaumont. Yeah, power in a small package. Well, Pontiac was known for power and had the GTO. It was big, it was powerful and it's what people wanted. They didn't want it to be associated with this entry-level product.
 
        So, the Acadian was brought out to differentiate the Pontiac's entry-level vehicles from the rest of its product lineup. But you have to remember the gas crisis in the 70s and people's taste and change of muscle cars in the 70s started changing Eventually. In 1971 it was phased out and eventually became the Pontiac Ventura 2. Yes, the Ventura 2 is essentially the Acadian second generation. I have to say Acadian is kind of neat. Gm's ones right now, like Canadian and Laurentian, were kind of made to fill these tiny little slots in the marketplace that the main companies didn't want to fill. Well, General Motors had other car companies that they wanted to do this with as well and with the rise of the Acadian platform, Chevrolet wanted to get in on the action as well. They wanted something for their Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, Cadillac dealerships. So, from 1962 to 1965, a very short life the Acadian was also sold as a Beaumont for the Canadian marketplace, based on the Chevy II platform 62 to 64, and the 64 to 65 is based off the Chevelle platform both entry-level little vehicles. The Beaumont logo was essentially a Pontiac logo, very similar to it, and it was originally used to promote Canadian manufacturing by General Motors by having a dedicated Canadian brand name with it.
 
       The base model Beaumont convertible was available in Canada but never on a Chevelle in the US market. So really, if you want a convertible Chevelle from 1964 to 1965, got to remember there's only two production years you got to come to Canada and find a 1964 or 1965 Beaumont convertible, because that's the only way you're getting a Chevelle convertible Sold in bam Canadian marketplace. Only Woo, but not totally. No, they were sold in Chile and South Africa from knockdown kits until 1971. And it was also sold in Puerto Rico. Now we get it. Puerto Rico is very tied into the American marketplace but they still didn't sell them in the American marketplace. Puerto Rico was still its own country. It wasn't really associated but it was associated, you know bam. It eventually was phased out in favor of the Chevelle and Le Mans models.
 
     The Beaumont eventually reappeared between 1981 and 1985 on Canadian-only Pontiac-branded Acadian vehicles. So, it was the Pontiac Acadian Beaumont or the Pontiac Beaumont’s. Yeah, they've returned, but only available in Canada. The Pontiac T1000 or Chevrolet Chevette sister also had the Beaumont nameplate for specific models. It only really sold five years alongside the T1000. Yeah, I know that sounds like a Terminator, but it was a vehicle. Go back and look at it. Pontiac really only had two compact cars for those five years and by utilizing the old Acadian and Beaumont names they managed to keep it kicking around, but only in the Canadian marketplace. 

        Now, if you didn't know this, gm overseas actually sold cars in Japan and Europe under GM nameplates. But from 1987 to 1991, they realized, when the creation of Saturn was about to come out, they needed something for their Isuzu Saab dealerships. You've got these two car companies and there's no entry-level products. We get Isuzu's entry-level trucks but there's no entry-level vehicles. Well, General Motors was reusing the Opel Kadett for the GM Passport product overseas In Canada. They decided to bring the Passport as its own nameplate to the Canadian marketplace for the Isuzu Saab dealerships by utilizing the Opel Kadett E, either sedan or hatchback. We had the new Passport Optima for the Canadian marketplace. Essentially, they folded in 1991 as Isuzu and Saab were brought into the Saturn dealers’ dealerships and the Optima was rebranded as the Pontiac Le Mans for the Canadian marketplace. So, it was very short-lived. But Passport was here to give Isuzu and Saab something until they decided to join the likes of Saturn. And with that we get to our last dedicated Canadian brand by one of the big three.
 
         This one was actually had a lot of vehicles and one of the most famous vehicles built in Ingersoll, Ontario, at the Cami plant, a production facility built between Suzuki and General Motors. Like we originally talked about, that original Sunrunner, sidekick and Trackers came from that plant. But in Canada we didn't get Geo as an entry level product range for the General Motors Corporation. No, Canada was given its own nameplate. Get Gio as an entry-level product range for the General Motors Corporation, no, Canada was given its own nameplate. So Gio was the big brand for the American marketplace.
 
       In Canada we had a car company which had a car I almost bought when I was in college, the Asuna. So instead of the Geo Tracker it was the Asuna Tracker the Sunrunner.  Now Asuna survived from April 12th 1992 to July 1st. So, Canada day, 1994 is when we said goodbye to it. Only two years yeah, two short years of having Asuna around.
 
          They sold Isuzu, Daewoo and Suzuki products under the brand. They didn't sell their own products. So, everything they had either came from Isuzu, Daewoo or Suzuki. So, it was all either Korean or Japanese or Asian marketplace small entry-level vehicles built to service the Canadian marketplace. They were created for the Pontiac Buick GMC dealerships. Now we get it. Pontiac was starting to use their own tiny little Suzuki Swifts which became the Pontiac Fireflies. But in Canada we didn't have the Fireflies. No, we had the Asuna’s. Chevrolet, Oldsmobile and Cadillac essentially had Geo nameplates, but in Canada they didn't really have much of the Geo name to go off of because Chevrolet was utilizing some of those things. We sold more Chevy Metros than we did Geo Metros in this country.
 
        Asuna was made for all those other dealer units and it had some pretty amazing vehicles. The vehicle I was talking about, that I almost bought, was actually an Isuzu Impulse but it was the Asuna name. It was the Asuna Sunfire, a little sports coupe built for the Canadian marketplace. Well, essentially built for the Japanese marketplace but sold under a Canadian brand. Here they also had the Sunrunner SUV, which was chevy tracker, or Suzuki sidekick, the SG-GT, which was either the sedan or hatch which came off the Daewoo LeMans or the former passport optima platform. But eventually Asuna gave way as geo became a bigger nameplate. All thanks to the very beginning of this entire podcast.
 
       Our talk about Ned Flanders and his little Geo homer comes after Neddy. Neddy, help me, dad, he's getting faster, I can't. It's a geo because of that saying on the Simpson’s, which is so funny. Even today, like today, when I was out and I was coming home, I passed by one of those old geo metros and that's the first thing that came by to my head. Well, actually the first thing that came by my head is that actually a geo? And the second thing that came by to my head, well, actually the first thing that came by my head is that actually a Geo? And the second thing when I saw the Metro written on the back, I'm like, oh my God, it is. Was Ned Flanders in that Simpsons episode. I guess he didn't want to go to the pigeon putt. Oh well, I'll go by myself. Yeah, so in a full circle we get back to that original Simpsons episode, beginning.
 
      Geo is the reason why the Asuna brand disbanded in Canada. Pontiac Buick GMC dealerships eventually picked up Asuna products, but only with the Pontiac Sunrunner and the Pontiac Firefly. They took over for where Asuna originally came in, that little Isuzu Impulse sports car that I almost bought way back in college. That didn't exist. Okay, that went to becoming a straight Isuzu-only product for Canada, and Geo became the entry-level economy nameplate for the Canadian marketplace, only sold at Chevrolet dealerships and eventually falling in line with the Saturn, Isuzu, Saab dealerships, giving them even more market share as Chevrolet and Pontiac picked up for what Asuna originally gave the Canadian marketplace entry-level economy cars that were fun, chic and were just made to get you around, all built off-platform from the Asian marketplace.

        But back in those days we were allowed to do that. We didn't have to worry about so many damn tariffs killing us. So, all in all we've had a lot of different select brands. Now some of them came to be from actual car companies that eventually became sub-brands and other ones were dedicated brands to fill slots in product lineups for dealerships. Like we said, the Eagle car company was essentially created so that the old American motor dealerships that were now only selling Jeep products would have sedans to sell. They knew they needed vehicles and if you go back and listen to that podcast, eagle had tons of vehicles at a point in time in history and they were there for a reason, but when Chrysler was starting to do good. And right before the Daimler days, everybody had forgotten about the American Motor days and Chrysler started dissolving either those dealerships or merging those dealerships into becoming part of the Chrysler Corporation. So, in the end, Canada’s had a lot of its own dedicated brand. It's been kind of cool and going back in history finding out about Asuna, Beaumont, Laurentian, Acadian, monarch, meteor. It's pretty cool that we actually had our own dedicated brands for a country.
 
      At the point in time, they were selling these only had just over 20 million people. You've got to remember, at the turn of this century, 25 years ago, Canada had just surpassed 30 million people. Just last year we crossed 40 million. In 20 years, we managed to add 10 million people and before that it took us nearly 40 years to add that much population. We were a small country with a small marketplace, but a growing marketplace. We still needed all these divisions. All these small towns had tons and tons of people.
 
         You've got to remember the Trans-Canada Highway in Canada was not finished until the mid-60s, so this country wasn't even fully connected. Until the 60s, around the whole time that all of these divisions started coming out, when all these towns became connected, our country started demanding more vehicles. More of these people started getting money and were being able to purchase the first vehicles they were ever able to get, because delivery services were more plausible to those small towns. Yeah, that highway opened us all up and maybe again, with now our country trying to push through and become its own dedicated nation and not have to worry about depending on our neighbors to the south anymore, maybe, just maybe, they'll finally finish that highway across this great country of Canada. Until then, all these brands from the past you never know Some of these brands might come back because you got to think about it.
 
       GM still has ties in with Korean marketplace. They might bring some of the Korean products over here and start selling it as a brand-new Asuna brand for the Canadian marketplace, because we don't have tariffs on stuff coming over from those marketplaces. Hell, European products coming in, you never know. Ford might utilize some of their old brand names to bring some of those products back here. Remember the Merkur brand? Yeah, come on. They've had a lot of different divisions over these years and Canada, although being small in population but big in landmass, wasn't like the rest of the world. We weren't left out of the loop of having our own dedicated brands. We didn't have our own dedicated car companies like Australia with Holden, but we did have our own nameplates and for that Canada has had its own part in the automotive world. Now, like I said in this podcast, if you want a convertible Chevelle, come to Canada, because they were never sold in the States and only sold here under the Acadian nameplate. ​

​         So, if you like this podcast, please like, share or comment about it on any major social feeds or streaming sites that you found the AutoLooks podcast on. Like, share, comment and send this podcast out to all your friends, your families, your well-wishers. Tell them about it, ask them about some of the cars that they've owned in the past. Do they remember any of these dedicated Canadian brands, even if you didn't live in the country? Do you remember seeing any or hearing anything about any of these?
 
       Like we all remember the mercury meteor, but did anybody ever actually see the meteor logo anywhere else in the world? It's pretty neat. It actually had its own physical logo. It had the GM passport. Did anyone ever else see GM branded vehicles? And remember the EV1 wasn't the only GM branded vehicle in history. Gm actually did have vehicles built off Opel and Honda platforms sold elsewhere in the world.
 
       If you really want to know something. Toyota also had a Chevrolet Cavalier branded as a Toyota product for Asian marketplaces as well. So, you know the whole automotive marketplace. There's so many amazing stories within it and this being Canada and my home country, well, we just thought we'd spread a little bit of our automotive ingenuity and our specific brands that we've had from this country to you, the world, the listeners of the AutoLooks podcast, and after that, stop by the website, read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings, go to the Corporate Links website page. Big or small, we have them all, car companies from around the globe, all available on the AutoLooks.net website. The AutoLooks podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by Podbean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email over to email at AutoLooks.net. So, for myself and for jay, the host, the Ecomm Entertainment Group, Podbean.com and our host website at AutoLooks.net, strap yourself in for this one fun wild ride that AutoLooks and the Canadian brands are going to take you on.
 
Everett J.
​#autolooks