Feature: Made in Canada: Canada’s home-grown vehicles

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By Paul Williams

Photo Gallery:
Made in Canada

Although Canada doesn’t have its own production car, Canadians built over 1.6 million vehicles in 2008. The numbers will be down for 2009, but when it comes to vehicles, slow economy or not, we crank out quite a few!

Vehicles are built in Canada at branch plants operated by Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda/Acura and Toyota/Lexus. In the past, we’ve built Volvos, Hyundais, Suzukis and many more, depending on how far back you go. Current plants are spread out across Southern Ontario, and while we at Autos are not expressly promoting a “Buy Canadian” policy, we recognize that for many consumers, the fact that a vehicle (or any other product, for that matter) is “Made in Canada,” can impact their purchasing decision.

However, we’ve never produced a series that focuses specifically on Canadian-built vehicles, comparing “like” models where possible, and putting them through their paces in a longer format review. This is the purpose of our Made in Canada series.

What 2010 vehicles are built in Canada?

There have been some changes recently, as Canada has lost the manufacture of several vehicles to the U.S. and Mexico, but we’ve gained others. As you might expect, given that Canadians historically favour compact cars and SUVs, several models from these categories are built here.

The Honda Civic, for example, long Canada’s best selling car, is built an hour north of Toronto in Alliston, Ontario, as its Acura counterpart, the CSX.  The Acura MDX and all-new ZDX are built in Honda’s Alliston Plant 2.  The Toyota Corolla and Matrix, also hugely popular here, are built further west, in Cambridge, Ontario. This is also where the Lexus RX350 is built (the only plant that builds Lexus models outside of Japan).

Down the road from Cambridge is Toyota’s new Woodstock plant, source of the RAV4 compact SUV.

Head further west and you’ll arrive at Ingersoll, Ontario, home of the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain compact SUVs. The Chrysler Town & Country, Dodge Grand Caravan and Volkswagen Routan minivans are built in Windsor, across the river from Detroit.

Perhaps surprisingly — in the sense that they’re not mild-mannered compact cars — two of America’s muscle car icons are also built in Canada. The Dodge Challenger and Chevrolet Camaro hail from Brampton and Oshawa respectively.

And a range of Fords are built in Oakville, Ontario, including the Flex, Edge and Lincoln MKX and MKT. The full list of 2010 vehicles that are built in Canada for the consumer market is as follows:

Chrysler – Brampton, Ontario

Chrysler 300 series
Dodge Charger
Dodge Challenger

General Motors – Oshawa Plant 1

Chevrolet Impala
Chevrolet Camaro

Honda – Alliston, Ontario, Plant 1

Honda Civic sedan/coupe
Acura CSX

Honda – Alliston, Ontario, Plant 2

Honda Civic sedan

Toyota – Cambridge, Ontario

Toyota Corolla
Toyota Matrix

CAMI (GM) – Ingersoll, Ontario

Chevrolet Equinox
GMC Terrain 

Chrysler – Windsor, Ontario

Chrysler Town & Country
Dodge Grand Caravan
Volkswagen Routan

Ford – Oakville, Ontario

Ford Edge
Ford Flex
Lincoln MKX
Lincoln MKT

Honda – Alliston, Ontario plant 2

Acura MDX
Acura ZDX

Toyota – Cambridge, Ontario

Lexus RX 350

Toyota – Woodstock, Ontario

Toyota RAV4

Related posts:

1. Feature: Which cars are built in Canada?
2. Feature: Vehicles built in Canada
3. Honda marks 5 million vehicles made in Canada
4. Sales of smaller vehicles surge in March
5. Feature: Honda Civic – 36 years in Canada