Pontiac Star Chief

Grab a brochure from when this car was new and emblazoned across the front you’ll see the strap line ‘dollar for dollar you can’t beat a Pontiac’ and ‘only the price tag reveals its true cost’.

It’s hard to believe looking at this car that it wasn’t the best money could buy, because lets face, the glamour, the frivolity and beautiful detailing suggests a car far more expensive. Look at a British car from this era in the mid market space.

For my British viewers who may not be fully au fait with the GM divisions of the time, it sat in the middle of the hierarchy; with Chevrolet sitting beneath it and Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac sitting above.

Within the ’54 range offerings from Pontiac, you had the Chieftain and the Star Chief was the top trim package - making it the first prestige car to be offered by Pontiac.

It marked an interesting point for Pontiac too, because prior to the launch of the Star Chief, all Pontiacs had shared their wheelbase with the Chevrolets. This new model heralded a new era for Pontiac with the longer 123.5inch/313 centimetre wheelbase. The Tru X frame which makes up the basis of this was said to be used in some of America’s most expensive vehicles.

This wasn’t new if you were wondering, it was already in use on the junior Oldsmobile and Buicks. The car was still on the A platform, but with a boost of 11 inches to the rear of the frame.

The body is by Fisher, but if you’re a British car fan and thinking it is linked to Fisher Ludlow, don’t be fooled. They are aren’t linked and the Detroit company has no bearing on the midlands based business.

The engines in these were the straight 8s, again, nothing groundbreaking or new and in the brochure I obtained, they didn’t mention any other engine option but I believe later on the Pontiac 6 is offered as an option as it appears in later brochures from very late 54 onwards. There are several brochures which come out to support this car in 54 and not all appear to give the same options!

The straight 8 engine had a high compression ratio of 7.7 to 1 and gave an impressive 127 horsepower and for the Star Chief, was fitted with new carb and inlet manifold to add further improvement and the new aluminium dipped valves were said to double valve life.

For comparison, the six was 118 horsepower, so still a great option!

The car was touted as having two driving ranges, which essentially translates to low and drive and Pontiac billed it in sales brochures as the worlds best proven automatic transmission.

The dual range, hydra Matic power was said to make accelerating in the one and 3/4 ton vehicle sp breezy you could reach legal speed in a matter of seconds. With advertising laws so lax in the 50s, this could mean absolutely anything, but it sounds amazing.

The power steering on this is dreamy and I’ll show you later on as we cruise - it’s said to relieve up to 80% of the steering effort although I would say it feels far more giving than that. It combines a ball-nut steering gear mechanism with a hydraulic booster. The idea behind the set up was to give you the stamina to drive further, in a more safely manner and to arrive feeling refreshed.

So all that considered, lets have a better look at what is on offer.