The Star Chief That Shouldn’t Be

This car shouldn’t even exist. Every Pontiac collector who has encountered it has said so. Yet here it is, with three two-barrels atop its “Extra Horsepower,” 300-hp, 370-cu.in. V-8; the basic M11 Muncie three-speed controlled by a column shifter; and Patina Ivory over Jubilee Gold paint. The manual transmission and Tri-Power are what draw in the casual observer, but it’s that paint that throws all the experts. It shouldn’t be on this car, yet the evidence is all there to say it was built this way.

Model year 1958 marked a half-century since the founding of General Motors. To commemorate the occasion, Pontiac produced a limited (sources indicate under 1,200 were built) run of Star Chiefs wearing Golden Jubilee badging and wearing Jubilee Gold paint. The only catch is those cars were all four-door sedans. This is the only two-door hardtop known in the color, and nobody was even aware of it until about 20 years ago, when