posted by William Oliver
Canadian cars is the gift that keeps on giving. Here I though I had them all pretty well sorted out and covered, with all of their unusual names: Montcalm, Beaumont, Canso, Richelieu. But I obviously missed the Invader, a name that conjures up a wild and brutal sort of car. Who would name a car that? Especially in Canada, in the 1960s?
I give you the 1966 Acadian Invader, also known as a low end Chevy II 100 sedan. Not exactly the kind of car that gets the women and children rushing to hide in the haymow. Certainly its 120 hp Econoflame 194 inch six isn’t going to help it live up to its name. This is the right car for the women and children.
But wait…in addition to the 195 hp 283 V8, there was just one more optional engine: the mighty L79 350 hp Super-Econoflame 327 V8! Now that was worthy of the name, a veritable giant killer. The odds of one being in a four door sedan was of course essentially zilch, but a two door sedan would have made for the best performance for the buck, just like it did in the US.
And just like in the US, that was a one-year only option; in ’67 the top engine was the milder but still lively 275 hp 327.
So are there more Canadian car names I need to get acquainted with?
In case you missed it here before, the Acadian was created to give Canadian Pontiac-Buick dealers a compact to sell, as the Tempest wasn’t built in Canada, and the whole idea then was to promote local production with pretty stiff import duties on US-made cars.
Related CC reading:
Cohort Classic: 1963 Acadian Beaumont
I’ve always considered the second generation Chevy II body one of GM’s more underrated efforts. Totally overwhelmed by the third and fourth generation efforts, but attractive in it’s own right, and with the 327, one nice little muscle car. In my eyes, make more sense than throwing some big block in the small chassis and limiting the end result to drag strip effectiveness.
And then, somehow, GM managed to take the Chevrolet, turn it into an Acadian and keep the end result pretty much as attractive as the original. Unlike most of Detroit’s efforts in Canada, most of which came off as one of the five finalists for the original design, but didn’t go any further originally.
I like the grille on this one a lot .
My 1963 Chevy II base model had that wretched Wheeze-O-Matic 194 C.I. 6 banger and no matter what I did it was terribly underpowered .
I wonder how bad the 4 bangers were .
This is a really nice one, survivor or restored ? .
-Nate
The Acadian name kept getting used and re-used in Canadian. Here as a make then later as model name on a Beaumont (Chevelle/Malibu sort of car) and finally on a Pontiac (Nova clone and then Chevette clone).
These later became the Acadian Canso with had a Super Deluxe (SD) variant roughly equivalent to the SS in Chevrolet speak.
To make things even more confusing was a trim level on these Beaumont before becoming its own make in 1966.
Look up the top of the line Meteor Le Moyne. Only offered in 1968/69….a rare bird indeed.
I’ve seen a 1968 Meteor LeMoyne Convertible – a super rare one as drop tops were never common in Canada.
Don’t forget the Ford Frontenac.
We had a ‘68 convertible which is why I brought it up, Wellington Blue/ blue interior, 390, buckets, console, Mercury exterior, Ford XL interior, one of 115 built….what a car!
Actually as I understand it, it wasn’t actually a Ford Frontenac—just Frontenac. It was positioned as its own marque, much like the Valiant in the same year (1960).
Yes. Plus there was an earlier Frontenac that was part of the GM family as a Durant relative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Motors_Frontenac
Yes, just Frontenac.
The Frontenac was introduced to be the compact car sold at Canadian Meteor-Mercury dealers. Thus it was a Falcon in disguise.
It was replaced by the Comet for the 1961 model year.
There wasn’t much disguising the Frontenac as a Falcon. I think it had maple leaf logos on the grille and hubcaps.
The 1930’s Frontenac was a Durant in “Canadian” trim, 1931-1933. Engines were Continental units imported from Detroit and bodies were built by Canada Top and Body.
Durant Motors was formed in 1920 by William C. Durant to build Star and Durant cars. Durant left GM in 1920. There really were no business connections between Durant and GM after 1920.
That invader is such an exciting care! Almost as exciting as its counterpart in the U.S. – the “Chevy Also.” I think that they pawned it off as the Chevy II or the Nova or some nonsense.
GM named everything. I bumped into another weird one today: The new intake manifold on the 1936 Pontiac was named “Scotch Mist”.
Did every single bolt and nut and lockwasher have a name????
Think of all the funky names they gave power accessories back in the fifties – almost everything seemed to be something-or-other-‘o-matic’. IIRC someone’s power seat was even ‘Seat-o-matic’. Seems pretty childish nowadays.
Funky accessory names would make a good feature article.
I’m wondering if Canadian motoring journalists of the period commented on how ludicrous all of this was, or if it was just blithely accepted.
Neat find with a cool name. I had a 66 Studebaker Commander with a Hamilton 194 and that sucker ran. It loved to rev and was more than adequate for the car. 3.73 rear gears and 20 mpg. Now if you want to find an Invader that makes me weak in the knees check out the Gilbern. I would love to find one in the wild
The ‘Invader’ name is even odder, at first glance, applied to the ‘Acadian’ line.
The Acadians, French settlers in what are now the Canadian Maritime Provinces, were forcibly deported by the British beginning in 1755 after they refused to swear allegiance to Britain following the defeat of France in one of several European wars of the 1700’s. The Expulsion of the Acadians is a major episode in Canadian history.
Many Acadians ended up in Louisiana (Cajuns), but many gradually made their way back to areas they had lived in for generations. Who knows? Maybe ‘Acadian Invader’ was actually a carefully nuanced marketing ploy to sell economy cars to the proud Acadian population of eastern Canada.