[yvesmontreal]

Alfa Canada

As a follow up to Ken's info, Alfa Canada must have existed by the fall of 1968. I bought my first GTV in Febuary of 1969 in Montreal.

From what I was able to find out, Alfas were first imported in Canada in the late 50's by Budd and Dyer, a mostly British car distributor based in Westmount (Montreal). They handled Rover, AC, Aston and Jaguar as well as being a Rootes dealer. They imported a number of Giuliettas, a couple of 1900SS series 4 (one of which was long owned by Robert Paige in Victoria BC), some 2000 Touring roadsters and a couple 2600's. They had a branch store in Ottawa which sold a few Alfas too.

Another Montreal business, Anglo American, took over around 1963. They were a Fiat distributor and imported Maseratis for a little while. They imported Alfas up to 1967. Canadian Motor Industries (the original Toyota distributor in Canada) may have briefly handled Alfas at that point (note that the only TZ imported originally was sponsored by CMI).

I have a period article from Track and Traffic which clearly marks 1968 as the starting point of Alfa Canada; with big plans to invade the canadian market . They indeed shut down in 1978 after the Alfetta fiasco and the problems they had on the home market.

A series of private importers followed thorughout the 80's, there were periods with no importers, and finally the canadian market became a branch of Alfa USA. This made new Alfas overpriced and sales stayed marginal until the end.

 

[yvesmontreal]

Thanks for the history lesson Yves. I remember the name Budd and Dyer, but nothing about them. I bought my GTV in Febuary of 69 from Sports Car Specialists who were located on Victoria Ave. in Westmount at that time. They later moved to St. Catherine Street (I think)

When I started sighseeing Montreal as a car-crazy teenager in the 70's, I remember seeing SCS on the facade of their former building on Victoria (it's now a medical clinic). By then they had moved to the street level of a two storey garage at 4430 Ste-Catherine in Westmount, nearly across the street from Budd & Dyer's former location (long gone by then). 4430 was a landmark for sports car freaks: Luigi (Ferrari) occupied a nook on the second floor, and some other sports car shops existed in the building.

SCS was not an Alfa dealer very long (like many other dealers, it seems Alfa gave them a hard time on warranty claims), by then they were called Heritage Motors and sold Mazdas and Saabs. They went bankrupt shortly after. 4430 Ste-Catherine was torn down a few years ago to make room for condos.

 

[yvesmontreal]

BTW were 1970 Alfas imported at all to N America?? - I was told they were not. My scouring of the Toronto Star Classified rarely showed ANY '70 Alfas!-always a jump from '69 to '71s.

Alfa skipped the 1968 and 1970 model years in the US. I think the official excuse was to adapt the cars to increasingly stringent safety/smog requirements, but these were non-existent in Canada before 1972. The reality may have been an overstock of cars by year end.

I have seen many 1968 and 1970 registered Alfas in Canada; I have owned a couple, but I have also seen a lot of Alfas from that period registered one or even two years after they were built! One club member had a "1971" roundtail...

Back then , it was not unusual for european car importers to redate cars at the end of the year. I have seen evidence of Fiat and Citroen doing the same.