During the summer, I came across this 1986 Pontiac Parisienne in the junkyard dressed up as a taxi. It wore the livery for Stampede Cabs, but was crudely painted. Perhaps a discarded TV or movie car?
While Parisienne is a Canadian name for this generation, they were also available in the United States. It was based on the Chevrolet Caprice with a different grill and tail light trim. For 1985 and above, Parisiennes like this one the rear quarter panels, deck lid and wraparound tail lights returned from the 1980–81 Bonneville.
In North America the phone numbers of the format 555-xxxx are reserved for fictitious telephone numbers generally used in TV series, movies, and ads. This avoids some random person getting flooded with calls after their number gets used. This car had the phone number of 555-010, adding further evidence that this could be a movie or TV prop car.
This car was located in Calgary, Alberta which is known for the Calgary Stampede, an annual event that includes rodeo, exhibition, and festival of western culture. This car could have been used by someone to attend the ten-day event, which bills itself as “The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth”. Or it could be a prop car. The popularity of the Calgary Stampede means searching for the term “Stampede Cab” is a fool’s errand.
The interior likely was in reasonable shape before hitting the yard, as these seem to be quite hard wearing. The tufted seats look quite comfy as well. If there was any doubt before, the lack of any taxi equipment confirms this one was not a real taxi.
This Parisienne is a Brougham!
I did not check too closely but I would strongly suspect this a 305cid variant of the Chevrolet small block V8.
The vinyl top shows how crudely the paint was applied, giving further credence to my TV or movie car theory.
It looks like this Parisienne started life in a rather dull brown. The yellow might be poorly applied, but it is certainly more cheerful.
The detachable rear wheel skirts were only available for the B-body on the Parisienne and Bonneville.
It was a treat and also a shame to see this Parisienne in the junkyard. They are a less common sight these days and this one actually looked pretty solid. Does anyone recognize this one as a prop car from a movie or TV series?
I have a 1986 Pontiac Parisienne Brougham-Black, Champagne tufted interior with 102K mikes in showroom condition. Poor man’s Cadillac!
DESECRATION! 😲 I recall the first Pariesse called *A CAPRICE in drag.* This one looks all dragged out.
That’s a shame, likely nobody wanted it. Probably was made quite road worthy as it would have caused a big nuisance to the show if it broke down often.
The yellow is not quite right, too lemony from old Yellow Cabs yellow that had a slight orange tint.
In the 80’s I drove this generation of a Caprice for my brief two-three weeks as an independent contractor for Yellow Cab in Miami.
Nice driving car with a great a/c. But the daily lease and thirsty car meant 16 hour days living in a car mostly waiting for the lucrative airport runs. Took 8-10 hours to reach the gas and lease break even point. I experimented by even sleeping in the car to bypass waisted time commuting home to sleep, but I waisted vast amounts of fuel to run the a/c and showering was a bigger problem— so no carrer in taxi driving for me!
New York City regulates the yellow shade of taxis, as far as I know no place else in North America does.
I’m going to guess that since the Calgary Stampede seems to be a large, organized, event, this “cab” essentially served as an official (or unofficial) support vehicle for the event. I’d imagine that a large multi-day rodeo would have the need to ferry people from place to place and perhaps drive various individuals who have indulged in more than a sufficient amount of celebration back to hotels (or wherever it is that rodeo participants stay during an event).
It’s not surprising to me that this was originally brown. I can only envision full-size Pontiacs of this era as brown. Did they come on other colors? 😉
1,470,288 people attended the Stampede in 2025 so it would certainly not be an official support vehicle. But could have been created by a fan or company hanging on to the side of the event.
Holy cow…that’s like 4% of the entire population of the country coming to a single event? Wow.
Yep!
Any reason these went back to the old rear style the last 2 years of production? Seems kinda funny. Also were these sold in Canada longer, the downsized 87 Bonneville replaced it here. As it was these were a dealer lobby creation after the corporate pessimism killed off the full size model (the modern variant of this would be Dodge bringing back the Hemi Charger relatively quickly
I assume Pontiac wanted the Parisienne to look like a Pontiac again, not a Chevy. Apparently the dies to make the 1981 parts were still around and they reverted to Pontiac-only rear fenders, decklid, and tail panel and lights, as well as seat and inner and outer door trim. Unfortunately from the A pillar forward it remained a Chevy, with a Chevy dashboard inside – not bad, but the ’81 Pontiac parts looked more upscale and unique. I read online somewhere from someone who worked in the assembly plant why they couldn’t bring back the Pontiac dash or front fenders and clip, but I don’t recall what it was.
Interesting film car, since it’s not rusted / crashed I wonder why not save it for future resprays and re use ? .
-Nate
I don’t think the film car idea plays out – if it was supposed to be a fake phone # why three digits only on the second part – also, they might have used heavy “caution” yellow paint because the car was used in a winter/high road salt environment, and the paint isn’t really “crudely applied” IMO so much as it is heavily applied, and possibly the reason there’s no “taxi” equipment inside at the front seat is because they took it out before they junked it to put it in another cab – also it could have been a small-town cab so it was just a basic hauler for/on rural/snowy highway roads, plus it might have been bought used/at auction to be put into service as a cab, so a conversion or as a second life – but, as always, I could be wrong.
Oh dear, a lesson recounting the history of Pontiac Parisienne is in order.
Beginning as a sub-series of the Canadian 1958 Pontiac Laurentian, the Parisienne became its own distinct model beginning with the 1958 model year. Canadian Pontiacs used Chevrolet chassis and drivetrains, but had body panels that closely resembled their American counterparts, but were not the same because they used the shorter wheelbases of Chevrolets, instead of the longer wheelbases of American Pontiacs. The Parisienne was considered the Canadian equivalent of the Pontiac Bonneville and later, the Grand Ville.
After GM down-sized their full-sized cars for the 1977 model year, the Canadian Parisienne and Laurentian were pretty much the same as the American Bonneville and Catalina, but, as far as I can tell, were only available with Chevrolet engines.
Following the economic recession of 1979-82 and low sales of full-sized cars, Pontiac in the U.S. decided to discontinue full-sized cars in the U.S. after the 1981 model year. For the 1982 model year the “Bonneville G” name was placed on the mid-sized G-body platform and it replaced the LeMans in the U.S. (Mid-sized Pontiacs in Canada were identical to the Bonneville G, but were sold as the Grand LeMans for 1982 and then adopted the Bonneville G name for 1983.)
Meanwhile, in Canada, sales of full-sized Pontiacs stayed fairly steady so they decided to keep the full-size Pontiac Parisienne in production. Although it now shared its sheet-metal with the Chevrolet Caprice and Impala, it still had unique trim and front and rear-end styling. It lost the unique sheet metal that it shared with the full-sized American Pontiac Bonneville, including the fender skirts. (The Laurentian was dropped for the 1982 model year. It seems that the standard Parisienne replaced the Laurentian and the former Parisienne was replaced by the fancier Parisienne Brougham.)
American Pontiac dealers complained bitterly about not having a full-sized car to sell and mid-way in the 1983 model year Pontiac began selling Canadian Pontiac Parisiennes in the U.S. GM managed to find the dies from the 1981 Bonneville/Parisienne and beginning with the 1985 models, fender skirts were again fitted to the Parisienne 4-door sedans (but not the wagons).
Pontiac discontinued the Parisienne sedan after the 1986 model year, replaced by the new full-sized front-wheel drive 1987 Pontiac Bonneville (which also replaced the 1986 mid-sized rear-wheel drive 1986 Pontiac Bonneville G). The Parisienne Safari station wagon continued in production under the name, “Safari” for the 1987 through 1989 model years.
It would appear that this is probably 1986 model based on the presence of the third center-mounted brake light visible through the rear windshield. 1986 was the first year that this was required by U.S. federal law and not present on 1985 models, unless someone installed an aftermarket light. Apparently Canada’s federal regulatory agency, Transport Canada, adopted the regulation at the same time.
The G-body was actually called Grand Le Mans in Canada for 1982 and 1983 and then adopted the American Bonneville nameplate for 1984.
Regarding the 1982-1983 Parisienne, a 2dr coupe version of it was sold in Canada, but it was never sold in the U.S. (that body style was dropped for ’84 due to low sales).
The Parisienne existed in the U.S. because of GM’s odd plans. CEO Roger Smith instituted a plan for GM’s future that meant that Chevy and Pontiac would stop building cars larger than the Celebrity, and Buick, Olds, and Cadillac would stop building cars smaller than the Celebrity. One issue that popped up was that Pontiac-only dealers in the U.S. realized that they didn’t have anything large to sell (big cars sales came back in ’83 or so). GM relented, and gave it’s dealers the Parisienne.
My guess is that this was from something shot locally but not something that was just using the southern Alberta area as a stand in (Like Hell on Wheels using it for the US midwest or Superman using it for similar reasons).
My initial impression was Heartland but I dont recall a flashback episode where they may have used this. They had cabs in the show but I want to say they were more current?