Ford’s one-year-only Canada model.
It has been traditionally typical for American-brand sellers in Canada to supply expanded product lineups, usually to provide a marque larger enchantment to consumers on the lookout for one thing both roughly costly than would possibly in any other case be supplied.
Frontenac: Forgotten Automobile Manufacturers
Canada
One motive for that is that Canada’s inhabitants density is far decrease than that within the U.S., so automobile makers wanted to enchantment to bigger teams of consumers with fewer shops. Because of this, Ford, for instance, typically bought a premium mannequin that may enchantment to potential Mercury consumers, and Mercury typically had a mannequin on the low finish of its lineup to enchantment to conventional Ford consumers.
1960 Frontenac
An instance of this cross advertising got here—briefly—for the 1960 mannequin 12 months. That 12 months Ford of Canada launched the Frontenac to provide Mercury-Meteor sellers a low-price compact car to promote.
Ford Falcon
Frontenac was a separate model, like Mercury was to Ford—however was bought by means of Mercury shops. Produced for the 1960 mannequin 12 months solely, the Frontenac was basically a Ford Falcon that includes a singular front- and rear-end therapy, and a few particular trim bits.
In-built Canada, the Frontenac bought fairly effectively by Canadian requirements, with consumers snapping up nearly 10,000 examples. The Falcon clone was supplied in coupe, sedan, and wagon physique kinds, with the wagon arriving late within the mannequin 12 months.
Mercury Comet
For 1961, the Frontenac model disappeared, and the Frontenac automobile was changed by the mechanically similar—and equally worth–Mercury Comet, which was already on sale within the States.
The Frontenac title had been used beforehand for a mannequin produced by New York carmaker Dominion Motors between 1931 and 1933 for autos assembled and bought in Canada.
Hearken to the Automobile Stuff Podcast
Frontenac: Forgotten Automobile Manufacturers Footage
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