Building the Canadian Car
We were making them up to 1965 – 60 years ago
Aug 30, 2025
Most of the people reading this weren’t even born when Canadian auto workers were producing from scratch tens of thousands of cars in Canadian assembly plants with Canadian-made parts. Even fewer will remember when their parents, or perhaps their grandparents, actually owned one.
If you came of age after the Auto Pact was signed in 1965, this is ancient history. 1965 was when our auto sector began to integrate with the American industry. Before that Canada produced thousands of cars (and trucks) – albeit in branch plants of the American big 3 – GM, Ford and Chrysler. Most the the production was identical to the American models (some of the names were changed, such as the Ford Frontenac and the Pontiac Acadian and they might have had different grilles) but the designs were were the same … More
