1964 Pontiac Laurentian
1964 Pontiac Laurentian in Welt am Draht, Movie made for TV, 1973
Class: Cars, Sedan — Model origin: 
![[*]](/res/star.png){kind=small}
Minor action vehicle or used in only a short scene
Comments about this vehicle
| Author | Message |
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◊ 2011-04-21 12:05 |
1964 Pontiac but is it a Catalina or a Laurentian? |
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◊ 2011-04-22 01:11 |
What about the Oldsmobile Toronado one the left. Should it have it's own page? |
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◊ 2011-04-22 03:01 |
It's probably a Canadian model. It has non Chevy style wipers while most US Pontiacs had depress-park wipers (it was an option on Catalinas but not many didn't have them). |
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◊ 2011-04-22 06:06 |
PhilR, it is interesting you comment about the wipers. I had not noticed the difference before but now that I have looked at some pictures it is obvious that this is a Laurentian because the US models have 'claphands' wipers (as my 1965 Bonneville does) where the Canadian ones are parallel. It might be worth looking through some of the other foreign Pontiac pics where there has been some doubt. -- Last edit: 2011-04-22 06:07:11 |
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◊ 2011-04-22 06:12 |
Looking at some of the other Laurentians I see that they are listed as model origin USA and built in Canada. I think that as they were not built in the US they should be model origin Canada. |
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◊ 2011-04-22 06:38 |
Interesting note on this page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Parisienne - regarding wipers, saying that the Australian ones were fitted with opposing wipers. I will have to look at an NZ car next time I see one and see what we had here. Our cars were sourced from Canada and assembled here in NZ - total imports 1959 to 1968 about 1000 units. More info near the bottom of this page relating to NZ Pontiacs particularly to the dash panels used. -- Last edit: 2011-04-22 06:48:32 |
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◊ 2011-04-22 13:00 |
If this movie was indeed filmed in Germany yes, as any Oldsmobile was always very rare here. AFAIK only available at bigger Opel-dealers with had other GM-cars in their range, too. And then only on special order. There was never an official Olds-range on our market. |
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◊ 2011-04-22 14:02 |
And don't forget that these Canadian Pontiac uses Chevrolet chassis and engine as well .gif ";)") |
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◊ 2011-04-23 00:09 |
Showing off its proto-CHMSLs. |
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◊ 2011-04-28 07:22 |
All RHD Pontiacs were canadian models with depress park (opposed) wipers. The reason for using opposing wipers is probably because it was less costly than having to redesign parallel wiper mechanism as these didn't wipe the upper part on the right of the windshield. I think that RHD Chevrolets also used opposed wipers while they weren't available on the LHD models. Depress park wipers were not available in the LHD Pontiac models sold in Canada either (but full size Buicks like my 1965 Wildcat and Oldsmobiles built in the same plant had them). In the US, Catalinas had standard non-depress park (parallel) wipers like all LHD Chevrolets and LHD Canadian Pontiacs but most got the opposed wipers. In 1967, Pontiac introduced hidden opposing wipers on it's US models, and again, this wasn't available on Canadian models. For the 1968 model year all fullsize and intermediate GM cars had hidden wipers (or partially hidden wipers), including Canadian Pontiacs and Chevys. And "depress park" wipers were no longer opposing as they were in the previous years. If you're wondering what's the depress park feature, it's just the ability to "park" the wipers on the chrome moulding at the base of the windshield or under the hood on later models when they aren't operating. Once you turn them on, they don't go as far down in their cycle to avoid touching each other and to avoid smashing the chrome moulding below the windshield while operating. The left side wiper on the pre-1968 opposing depress park system was designed to sit over the right side wiper and it moved faster out of it's rest position than the right hand side wiper to clear view more quickly on the driver side when turned on. I don't think this feature was redesigned for the few RHD cars that were sold so the right side wiper would sit on top of the left side wiper but at least, once they were turned on, the driver could see just as well on it's side! I have seen a few cars with incorrectly installed wipers (right over left) but this often leads to wipers knocking on each other when they're turned on (I know, they even got stuck on my Riviera after someone reinstalled them in the wrong order (right over left!)... |
