How did this oddball Pontiac make it to Sacramento, CA? Loaded up including power sunroof in 1981 when the full-size Bonneville was still marketed in the US? What could the story be? The Parisienne label did not arrive in the states until 1983. https://sacramento.craigslist.org/cto/4809275923.html
Ad says it's a 1985. License plates are from around 1998 or so, so it has been there since at least then. And all sorts of Canadian cars wind up in California, as California attracts all kinds of people, so just because someone says a car is "from California" doesn't mean it was originally delivered there ;-)
In S/E Michigan I used to see alot of Canadian Pontiac's in the yards, the 1st I remember seeing was a 58 Strato Chief Powered by a Chevy I-6, I only noticed it as odd because I was absolutly Positive that Pontiac only made V-8's from 1955 to 1960. I found out then how odd the Canadian Pontiac's were, this was in the late 70's. We used to hunt the early Pontiac V-8's for the forged Connecting rods they had in them up to about 1962. I was really disapointed to see the I-6 in that car. So seeing a pre 85 Pariseinne in the US would be odd, but not unheard of. Until about 3 or 4 years ago there was a 66 4-door Beumont being driven daily by a Coed that was renting a place down the street from me. Found out it was her Grandfathers last car. 230 I-6 1bbl, power glide, looked like an ugly Chevelle with a Pontiac interior in it.
Pretty sure this isn't a Canadian Pontiac. While the 'Parisienne' was a Canadian Pontiac replacement for the Catalina/Bonneville earlier, Starting in 1983, it became the big, rear-drive U.S. Pontiac - since the 'Bonneville' nameplate had been moved to the A-body rear-drive intermediate platform in '82.
But they were canadian imports those years. All the other brands B-bodies were built in the USA, but if your Big Pontiac Wagon or sedan says Parisienne on it, if came from up North. May not have been originally sold in Canada. I do understand that.
That could very well be true on the GM side of things. The last Canadian Meteor (based on completely stripped down barest of bones Marquis) was sold in 79 or 80, ironically they were all built in the USA and imported to Canada yet no Meteor's were sold in the USA.
My ex-boss' old work truck was a '96 F150 that he bought used in Maryland, but I got to looking at it and it was a converted Canadian truck. It was built in Canada but had a US panel, with MPH instead of KPH, but it had DRL's before Ford put them on US F150's and all the warning labels and manufacturer labels, both on the truck and on the aftermarket cap that came on it, were written in French and English. The original dealer sticker on the tailgate was also in French.
