Dean Edwards has uploaded quite a few vintage photos to the CC Cohort, many of them featuring Cadillacs. This one caught my eye, not just because of the subject car, but due to a geographic mystery. The picture shows a 1972 Coupe DeVille sitting at a used car lot in Brantford, Ontario at some point in the 1980s. However, the car itself displays a Pennsylvania temporary license plate. Huh?
Cars can be exported from the US to Canada, though as one might suspect, it’s a rather lengthy process involving bureaucracy from both countries – an ordeal one would only undertake for a car that’s rather special. Now possibly these rules were less onerous in the 1980s, but it seems odd to buy a somewhat battered-looking decade-old Coupe DeVille in the US and then immediately resell it at a used car dealer in Canada. (These paper Pennsylvania tags were valid for only 30 days, so it’s likely the car was bought and resold quickly.) Of course, maybe the dealer himself found a bargain Cadillac in the Keystone State and never bothered to remove the temporary registration. Pennsylvania isn’t too far from Brantford – Pittsburgh is about the same distance away as Ottawa. But even if it were within the same country, that seems like a long distance to go to pick up such a car. A classic – yes. A Cadillac that doubtless sold for well under $2,000? I can’t imagine why.
Here’s a view from another angle. In my opinion, ’72 was the best-looking year for this generation of DeVille, as bumper regulations began eating away at the stylish rear in ’73. It’s interesting to see this car for sale alongside a newer DeVille as well; I’d love to know what the asking prices were. This shot brings up another aspect for investigation – the trunklid dealer sticker.
It’s hard to make out just what this says, but “KESS” was my first guess. Turns out there was a Kess Auto Sales in Abbotstown, Pennsylvania around the time this picture was taken. Not that this solves the mystery of how and why this car became an international traveler, but it sure is interesting.
For geographically-minded readers, the used car lot where this Cadillac was photographed can be viewed on a current Google Street View here… and it’s still a used car lot. The name now is Auto Workz, though it’s doubtful that was the name forty years ago.
We’ll probably never know just what brought this Pennsylvania Cadillac to Canada. But it’s fun to indulge in a good mystery… and of course to enjoy these great vintage shots.
I have a question unrelated to this story, but I have to know..
There is a 1983 Corvette for sale at a local dealer, but 1983 is known as the lost year for Corvette as no Corvette was sold that year. A bunch were made, but only for press/testing related purposes. None were sold to the public until 1984.
Probably a typo right? Probably, but when I check the license plate it shows that the car was first registrated June 30, 1983. I just can’t wrap my head around it..
Any Help?
There was no MODEL YEAR 1983, but they were sold to the public starting in March of 1983. The car you are looking at is either one of the early 1984 Corvettes or one of the last 1982 Corvettes.
When deciding on a model year of a vehicle, a manufacturer can only have ONE January in their model year. If a car won’t be ready until February or later of a given year, many manufacturers will then call it the next year’s vehicle and make it a looooonnnnng model year.
Sometimes you get the opposite and a late introduction gets a short model year. Mazda recently did that with the CX-5. The 2017 model didn’t go on sale until April and was replaced by the 2018 in September as usual. This meant the 2016 model was kept in production until at least the end of 2016 and possibly into January 2017 and new 2016s were being sold until April-May 2017. My 2016 CX-5 was made in November 2016 and sold in March 2017.
Jim Klein is correct; there were no 1983 model year Corvettes sold to the public. There was a small “pilot run,” after which the decision was made to skip a model year and release the C4 as an ‘84 model. There is only one ‘83 (from the pilot run) known to be remaining in existence, and it’s at the museum in Bowling Green. Rather than have an abbreviated ‘83 model year run, it was decided to have a longer-than-usual run for the ‘84 model year.
So the reason the Corvette you’re looking at was first registered on June 30, 1983 is because the ‘84 was released for sale relatively early, in the spring of 1983. But it’s definitely an ‘84 model year Corvette.
It wouldn’t be the first time that a used car dealership got the facts wrong, or simply made up their own. But if you can get the VIN, I’m 100% certain that it will decode as an ‘84.
Production on the 1984 Corvette started in January 1983.
The 84 Corvette went on sale in March of 1983 (GM Heritage Center). Since the Corvette met the 1984 standards it was certified as a 1984 model which saved needing to redo certification for two years at some additional expense. The 1982 model went out of production at the end of the 1982 model year (probably by September 1982). The early production Corvettes (before October) may be considered by some as 1983s.
I like how the front and rear fender shapes channel the look of the 1959 De Ville, but have always been a bit surprised too. Was the ’59 Cadillac already considered iconic by 1971?
Not really. In fact, in 1971 many late 50’s cars still languished in the beater sections of the car lots. In 1974, when Stanley Marsh 3 created Cadillac Ranch, he picked up almost all of the cars, in drivable condition, for a song.
All Cadillacs were instant classics, until
1980s or maybe Cimarron or so.
I don’t know if it was icon status as much as it was brand identity.
Cadillac buyers of that time were a relatively conservative bunch, and between 1959 and 1976 the styling of the D-body series appeared to be more evolutionary than revolutionary.
Try as I might I don’t see an International Traveler, only Cadillacs a Camaro and a Van.
My guess is someone moved to Canada, they knew they were about to move and didn’t want to buy an entire year’s worth of registration, so they got a 30 day tag. Once they made it to Canada and realized the cost of feeding it there they traded it in. Or they bought it to make the trip because it was big enough to fit all of their belongings and once they made it again they traded it for something more suitable for their daily use.
Or it could be that the dealer picked it up at an auction south of the border for what ever reason. It is not uncommon to see dealers move vehicles surprising distances because the market can vary from location to location. Many years ago when I did the mobile auto repair thing I had a customer who was a wholesaler. His game was all about moving metal from some place it wasn’t worth much to a place where it was. He went to a fair number of auctions in Utah. He would fly down with a tow bar wrapped in a blanket and drive back with a pickup/SUV/Van and something in tow behind it. His other game was to buy VWs in Seattle, take them to CA and bring back Subarus.
For many years the trips to CA along I-5 it was not uncommon to see 2 or 3 Toyota pickups towing another Toyota pickup south from Seattle. I also have seen a seriously old car carrier loading up or on the road, again full of old Toyota pickups. I assume they are going to Mexico.
1. I never understood the “halo” vinyl roof thing. It looked to me like the vinyl roof shrunk away from the edges.
2. A law school buddy had a 72 Sedan DeVille he got from his father who had always wanted a Cadillac. By then it was about 12-15 years old and really showing its age. My friend liked to joke that the only part with any value was the leather on the seats.
3. What a perfectly awful early 1970s color combination. I find pastel yellow cars a touch challenging to start with, but the dark green top/interior is just too far. I wanted to love my father’s 1970 Continental Mark III but it was painted and trimmed similarly. I never got used to it.
“I never understood the “halo” vinyl roof thing. It looked to me like the vinyl roof shrunk away from the edges.”
I agree, and the only reason I can think of is perhaps it made manufacturing easier and cheaper. Which is a shameful thing to be obsessed with when building a car at this price point.
The vinyl roof is an optional (for the deville) styling feature. Obviously they liked the halo thing perhaps because it was different. I think the plastics industry sold the vinyl roof to the auto industry and because it is profitable, it went over big, and is still considered fashionable.
Er-ruhhh…by whom?
I was looking for a C5 Corvette a few years ago. I found what I wanted in Green Bay MI. The owner confessed it was actually a Canadian model. As I am living in Vancouver Canada that was a bonus. So I bought the car and imported it. Turns out the car was originally owned by a dealer in Toronto, driven for a few months then auctioned. It was purchased by a dealer in Green Bay and then sold to the fellow I dealt with. So that vette crossed the border 3 times! I enjoyed that car for years but sadly sold it last year.
I would like to suggest that the lot is instead now called “Auto Preference” (located on Google at 1087 Colborne St E.
What was throwing me off was the Cainsville road sign and the overpass across the street in the google view you had posted.
I need to figure out how to post hyperlinks on CC.
That’s not so. I’ve imported three or four cars from the States to Canada (and the other way round, too) over the last 20 years, and it’s really not difficult or cumbersome.
On the export-from-the-States side, you have to send the title to the U.S. Customs office at the border crossing you plan to use, so it arrives at least 72 hours in advance of showing up. Usually this is done by fax. On crossing day you bring the (original) title into the U.S. Customs office. Assuming the VIN didn’t come up as stolen or otherwise problematic, they stamp the title as cleared for export.
Then you proceed to the Canadian border and declare the car. They send you into the office. You bring the stamped title, the bill of sale, and receipts for any parts bought or repairs done between buying the car and importing it. If the value you’re declaring is unusually low—say, because you got a killer deal—and you’re smart, you bring supporting documentation such as a printout of the ad and the seller’s contact information.
The Canadian Customs officers, once they’re satisfied that you’re not trying to underdeclare the value of the car, will calculate any import duties and taxes due—there’s a $100 excise tax on vehicle air conditioners, for example. You pay the duties and taxes, and they issue you a cleared-import form, and then you drive off up the road.
If things go smoothly at the border, it’s maybe a 30-minute deal. If they don’t like your declaration and decide to check things out further, it could take an hour or two. When you get home, you present the cleared-import document to the vehicle registration authority in your province or territory. In some places there’ll be an out-of-province vehicle roadworthiness inspection required, which is usually not a big deal. Brakes, lights, suspension, seat belts, glass, the usual list. If and when that’s required and passed, then you arrange your insurance and register the car just like any other.
That’s the procedure for cars 15 years or older, which may be imported to Canada regardless of their (non-)compliance with Canadian safety and emissions regulations. For cars less than 15 years old, there are a few extra steps. First you have to consult Transport Canada’s list to make sure the vehicle you want to bring in is admissible. Some US models are inadmissible because they can’t readily be modified to comply with Canada Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. The CMVSS and US FMVSS requirements have a lot of overlap, but it’s not always 100%. The most notable stumbling block here is seat belts and anchorages; many of the U.S.-spec automatic seatbelt systems violate Canadian safety standards.
If your car’s an admissible model, you have to go through the Registrar of Imported Vehicles (RIV). On import you pay a RIV fee, then once the car’s imported you have a certain amount of time to bring the car into compliance with Canadian standards—usually this means adding daytime running lights and approved child seat tether points—and have it inspected. Once it passes its RIV inspection, you arrange your insurance and buy your licence plates just like with any other vehicle.
Note the 15-year rule exempts a vehicle from the usual requirements for import. Provinces and territories are still perfectly free to enforce safety and emissions requirements for registration, and some of the provinces have been getting smart and cracking down on genuinely unsafe non-spec imports (Japanese-market cars with wrong-side-of-road headlamps, for example).
Going the other way, Canada to the States, also isn’t difficult.
Thanks Daniel for sharing your experiences. I had looked up on Transport Canada’s website the regulations for importing US cars, and it was exactly as you described. I wrote that it seemed like a lengthy process because it involved two country’s regulations and inspections, etc. I’m glad to hear it’s not nearly as onerous a process as it seemed to me, especially for folks experienced in the process.
Brantford has always been a good town for older tin. Even though I have lost my family connection there, I still have a favourite transmission shop, a stainless steel muffler guy, and a great wrecking yard that allows you to wander free and poke around. I think the likely story is that many car guys would make the pilgrimage down to Hershey/Carlisle a couple of times a year, and would go with several friends. If they spotted a good deal, they would drive it back and clear customs at the time of entry. These oldies would be $1000 to $1500, and they’d put an asking price of $3000 up here. It would also explain the Pennsylvania connection.
Dean, thanks again for posting all of these pictures! I think your hunch about there being a Hershey connection is quite likely. I can definitely see some folks traveling down to Hershey and coming back with a memento like this Cadillac.
My guess is that Wayne Gretzky is involved.
Surely I cannot be the only one that thought that.
🙂
I think that the Great One took one look around and promptly booked it to California as fast as he could. His Dad still lives in Brantford, and is a class act.
I wonder if someone bought it as a quick flip as mentioned.
Anyone from Ontario will realize that obvious bodywork or not this is still in pretty good shape for the age.
Ontario is pretty vicious with its salt and an Ontario born and bred car of this vintage would be on the way if not at the wreckers.
It also was not uncommon for a car lot to do a “work in progress” sale so you could see what you were buying before the shiny new paint was put on.
Case in point. My Dad had a 70 sedan de ville that was really showing rust by 1985. He had bought it cheap and liked it so looked into having the body redone. He was told it showed evidence of at least TWO previous body jobs and there wasn’t really enough metal left to try a third.
This was the life of a daily driver car in the great white salted North.
Of the ’71-’76 standard Cadillacs, the ’72 in either Coupe or Sedan deVille is the one I’d want in my garage. It’s the look intended for this generation, and the Bill Mitchell take on some of the 1959 late Harley Earl era styling ques on the front fenders and rear quarters stand out nicely on it.
The ’72 also avoids the somewhat problematic flow-through ventilation of the ’71s, and the awful bumper fillers on the later cars.