Published: November 25, 2018, 9:30 PM
Updated: December 3, 2018, 4:07 PM
The end of an era?
It looks as though General Motors’ plants in Oshawa may be nearing the end of their existence, closing the book on over 110 years of production in the city located about 60 km east of Toronto. What follows is a chronological look at 19 products built at the various Oshawa plants.
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Around the time that the auto industry began, Colonel Sam McLaughlin began building automobiles in the Oshawa area under his surname, co-branded Buick to designate the Buick engines supplied by his friend William Durant. And then switching to Chevrolets following the acquisition of Chevrolet Canada.
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Chevrolet Bel Air (1955–1981)
General Motors of Canada Limited was created in 1918, and started building Chevrolets and McLaughlins, as well as ambulances during the war years, at the Oshawa Car Assembly facility until 1954 when production moved to the south plant and began building one of Chevrolet’s most popular nameplates, the Bel-Air.
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Pickups (1955-Present)
The North Plant continued to make pickups until Oshawa Truck Assembly began in 1965 near the Oshawa Car Assembly plant. Pickups for Chevrolet and GMC have been built in Oshawa since 1955, even though the Truck Plant officially closed in 2009.
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Chevrolet shares a close bond with Oshawa, having models built there pretty much uninterrupted since 1955, including the large and larger Biscayne and station wagons of various names (including the Brookwood, shown here) leading up to the fuel crisis of the mid-1970s. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Greg Gjerdingen)
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The city has also been home to various models meant to provide unique product to Canada’s dealer channels, mostly under the Pontiac brand. Some, such as the Strato Chief, were derived from American nameplates, while others were undeniably Canadian (such as Laurentian), though some like Parisienne (shown here) would end up selling in the US for a couple years prior to being dropped.
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In some cases, Chevrolets and their Canadian derivatives were produced side by side, such as the Chevelle (and its various Chevrolet offspins) and the Acadian Beaumont (which later spun off the Beaumont badge), which used Pontiac cues without the arrowhead badge. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons/AutoPhoto)
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Chevrolet Impala (1965–85) (1999–Present)
Top selling nameplates such as the Chevrolet Impala have been produced at Oshawa through various generations, starting with an initial run from 1965 through 1985 before moving production south, only to return again at the turn of the century for what looks to finish up as another 20-year run.
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Chevrolet Caprice Classic (1971–90)
The Caprice and Impala have been closely tied for several generations but even when they were separate models, they were still often built at the same complex, meaning Caprices were built alongside Impalas in Oshawa through the 1970s and ’80s, with Caprice continuing to the ’90s.
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Pontiac 6000 (1982–88)
Responding to market demands for smaller cars, Oshawa began building the mid-sized front wheel-drive A-platform through the ’90s, including the Pontiac 6000, which slotted in between the Phoenix compact and the full-sized Bonneville (which had replaced Le Mans).
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Chevrolet Celebrity (1982–90)
Part of the A-Body attack, the front-wheel drive mid-sized Celebrity only lasted one generation before being replaced by a new platform and nameplate.
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Buick Century (1982–2005)
The Buick Century was the third member of the A-Body quadruplets, which also included the Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera (the only A-Body not built in Oshawa). Century was also the only one of the four models to make the jump to a new platform.
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Buick Regal (1988–2004) (2011-17)
Toward the end of the ’80s, GM replaced its mid-sized A-platform and full-size B-platform with the new flexible GM W-platform, with the now-front-wheel drive Buick Regal the first product announced for the renamed Autoplex, which would be Regal’s only home through its lifespan before its hiatus. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Alfvanbeem)
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Chevrolet Lumina (1990–2001)
The Celebrity replacement would join Regal on the line at Autoplex a couple years later. Lumina was meant to be the North American long-overdue rival to the popular Ford Taurus, a delay many criticized.
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Chevrolet Monte Carlo (1995–2007)
One of Chevrolet’s most prestigious nameplates, the Monte Carlo joined the front-drive revolution as the 2-door version of the Lumina, which had evolved into a second generation just four years after introduction, and joined its siblings at the Oshawa facility.
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Pontiac Grand Prix (2004–08)
The third member of the W-platform (the fourth was the Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and, later, Intrigue, neither of which was built in Oshawa) would not join its siblings in Oshawa until its seventh generation, two generations after it made the jump to the front-wheel drive platform.
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Buick Allure/LaCrosse (2005–09)
With the change to a new generation of the W-platform, the Regal went away (briefly), to be replaced by the LaCrosse, which in Canada necessitated it be rebranded Allure, for perceived Francophone sensitivities.
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Chevrolet Camaro (2010–15)
Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird production ended in 2002 (in Quebec), and Pontiac subsequently went away under the GM restructuring in 2008, but rumours of a new sporty coupe on a rear-drive Australian-developed Zeta platform soon rose, and in testimony to the production flexibility in Oshawa, the new Camaro made Oshawa its new home.
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Chevrolet Equinox (2010–17)
With the market shift to crossover utility vehicles, GM found itself in need of more production facilities for its compact CUV, which at the time was being built only in Ingersol, Ontario. Final assembly was added to the second GM production line in Oshawa, called the Consolidated Line, using bodies built at the Ingersol plant.
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Cadillac XTS (2012-Present)
With the desire to move one of America’s most-historic performance cars back to the US, Camaro left a void in production at the Oshawa plant, which had to be filled to fulfil agreements, so in came a new full-sized Cadillac built on the same Epsilon II platform as the service Impala still being produced at the plant.
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