Acadian (automobile)

Acadian is a make of automobile which was produced by General Motors of Canada from 1962 to 1971. The Acadian was introduced so that Canadian Pontiac-Buick dealers would have a compact model to sell, since the Pontiac Tempest was unavailable in Canada. Plans originally called for the Acadian to be based on the Chevrolet Corvair, which was produced at GM's Oshawa plant; however, the concept was moved to the Chevy II platform to be introduced for 1962. The brand was also offered in Chile, with models built in Arica.

In order to promote automobile manufacturing in Canada, The Auto Pact (APTA) in the 1960s had provisions prohibiting sales of certain United States-made cars. General Motors responded by offering certain makes of cars manufactured in Canada primarily for the Canadian market such as Acadian, and Beaumont which started as an offering in the Acadian line but later became its own brand. Initially, Acadians were retrimmed Chevy IIs, offered as a base model, mid-priced Invader and top-line Beaumont. The car used Pontiac styling cues such as a split grille but was marketed as a separate make, never as a Pontiac. . As with the concurrent Chevy II, Acadians were offered with 4-cylinder, 6-cylinder and V8 engines. There was a choice of transmission, depending upon the model and engine installed, 3 and 4 speed manual gearboxes or the 2-speed Powerglide automatic.

For 1964 and 1965, the Beaumont name was moved to a retrimmed version of the intermediate Chevrolet Chevelle, at which time the name Canso was applied to the top-line compact model, equivalent of the Nova. Invader became the series name for the base model. Data for the 1966 Acadian were: engines available were six-cylinder (194 cid, 8.5 compression ratio, 120 bhp rated), V8 (283 cid, 9.25 compression ratio, 195 bhp) or (327 cid, 11.00 compression ratio, 350 bhp rated), overall length of 15.250 feet (4.648 m); overall width of 5.942 ft (1.811 m); height of 4.483 ft (1.367 m); turning circle of 38.40 ft (11.70 m); front track of 4.733 ft (1.443 m) and rear track of 4.692 ft (1.430 m). Its fuel tank held 13.5 imperial gallons.

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