In 1966–1967, Pontiac rebranded its slow-selling full-size Star Chief as the Pontiac Executive, still positioned between the base Catalina and posh Bonneville. The promotion didn’t help the Executive’s fortunes, and this big middle-of-the road Pontiac survived for only four more years before disappearing for good.
You may have noticed that in some organizations, it’s easier to promote an incompetent or malfeasant employee than to fire them, especially if they’re politically connected or have a lot of seniority. It doesn’t really solve the problem, but it sometimes serves to shift the issue somewhere else, which can be the next best thing.
The old Pontiac Star Chief had had seniority, there was no question about that. It was the last of the pre-Bunkie Knudsen models, dating back to 1954 — a relic from the age of Silver Streaks and light-up Chief Pontiac hood ornaments.
In practical terms Star Chief was a long-tailed Chieftain Eight, created by extending the frame 11 inches aft of the rear doors to make the A-body Pontiac closer in size to GM’s B-body cars. At first, it was the top of the Pontiac line, and sold rather well, but by the late ’50s, the Star Chief was overshadowed by the new Bonneville, and buyer interest dried up.
Remarkably, the later B-body Star Chief managed to fail at the height of Pontiac’s success. Pontiac built more than 800,000 U.S.-market cars for 1965; only 31,315 were Star Chiefs. It didn’t help that it was now offered only in four-door sedan or Vista four-door hardtop form, at a time when a lot of buyers wanted two-door hardtops, but the Star Chief was now a model without a mission. Even the name seemed corny by ’60s standards.
For 1966, the Star Chief was kicked upstairs to become the Star Chief Executive. I assume the “Executive” title was intended to suggest a sophisticated new image, more in keeping with the spirit of the mid-1960s. The “Star Chief” name was then abandoned for 1967, which was probably the plan all along.
Conceptually, the Executive was still a Star Chief in all but name, which meant that, depending on your perspective, it was either a long-tailed Catalina or a de-trimmed Bonneville. Compared to the Catalina, the 1967 Executive sedans and hardtops had a 3-inch-longer wheelbase, 124 rather than 121 inches, and stretched 7 inches longer overall, for an overall length of 222.6 inches. All the extra length was at the rear.
There were now two Safari station wagons in the Executive line, but they did NOT benefit from the tail stretch: All 1967 Pontiac full-size wagons were 218.4 inches long on a common 121-inch wheelbase, differing only in trim and equipment.
An Executive two-door hardtop coupe now started at $3,227, which was $276 more than a 1967 Catalina in the same body style.
Aside from the longer tail, Pontiac justified the price with all-vinyl upholstery, a foam-padded front seat, a deluxe steering wheel, a dashboard clock, and some courtesy lamps and bright moldings that were optional on the Catalina.
The Executive also included deluxe wheel covers, although you could order those on the Catalina for $16.85.
One might assume — or at least hope — that some of the Executive’s wheelbase stretch would go into improving rear seat space, which was pretty grim on a two-door Catalina. Unfortunately, putting the additional inches of wheelbase within the cabin would have necessitated new doors for the four-door models, and there was no budget for that. Therefore, the Executive was no roomier in back than the smaller Catalina. On a two-door hardtop like this one, minimum rear legroom was a mediocre 33.9 inches, ridiculous for a car this size.
With the earlier Star Chief, the long tail had at least paid off with a truly cavernous trunk. The trunk of the Executive was still enormous, but the AMA specifications reveal that its usable luggage volume was a mere 0.9 cu. ft. greater than that of the Catalina. The reason was the Executive included trunk interior side panels, which better protected the inner fenders from being dented by bulky cargo, but cut into total cargo volume. The space was still more than generous, but the Executive’s actual capacity really wasn’t much greater than the Catalina’s.
All but 122 1967 Executives had Turbo Hydra-Matic. With THM, the standard engine was the high-compression two-barrel 400 cid V-8, with 290 hp and 428 lb-ft of torque. A low-compression version of that engine, with 265 hp and 397 lb-ft, was standard with manual shift and a no-cost option with automatic. You could order an Executive with any of the more powerful optional engines, up to the 428 HO with 376 hp, and dual exhausts were optional for $30.23. I think this car has the base engine, although neither listing indicates whether it has the high- or low-compression version; from the underbody photos, it looks like it has single exhaust.
Pontiac being Pontiac, there was a host of axle ratio options. Since this car has air conditioning, it likely has either a 2.41 or 2.56 axle, depending on whether it has the high-compression or low-compression engine.
On paper, the Executive seemed to have a solid position in the Pontiac hierarchy: It neatly bridged the gap between the Catalina and the Bonneville in appointments and price. However, there was no longer much for it to do there. A lot of Pontiac’s success in this era was on the strength of the Tempest/LeMans/GTO and the Catalina. The B-body Grand Prix was nowhere, and demand for the Bonneville was already very soft, so the interest in a less-fancy Bonneville that looked like a Catalina was limited.
The other threat to the Executive’s position was the Ventura. Back in 1960–1961, the Ventura had been a separate model series, positioned between the Catalina and Star Chief. When the Grand Prix arrived for 1962, Pontiac demoted the Ventura to a trim option for the Catalina, but this had proved quite popular. On a 1967 Catalina with bench seats, the Ventura Custom Interior cost $133.76, but it upgraded the Catalina interior to almost the standard of the Executive (lacking only a few strips of bright trim on the doors and quarter panels) for about half the cost. You’d get a good chunk of the price of the Ventura option back at trade-in time, and in fact a two-year-old Catalina hardtop with that option was worth more than an Executive in the same body style.
The Executive sold 46,949 cars and station wagons for 1967, only slightly better than in 1966, followed by 44,635 for 1968, 39,061 for 1969, and 32,426 for 1970. After that, Pontiac apparently concluded that its role was fast becoming a no-show job, and the Executive was laid off. Its remaining duties, such as they were, were briefly taken by the Catalina Brougham, but that didn’t sell either, and it lasted only two years. The Ventura, meanwhile, reinvented itself as Pontiac’s Nova-based X-body compact.
This Executive hardtop is a rare car: Pontiac built a modest 6,931 Executive two-door hardtop coupes for the 1967 model year. It’s not as attractive as the earlier big Pontiacs, but it has a kind of Batmobile vibe to the nose and taillights that I appreciate, and it still looks better than a lot of the increasingly grotesque full-size Pontiac models that followed it.
Although its fancy title didn’t amount to much in 1967, this low-mileage Executive — which has barely over 13,100 miles on the odometer and supposedly has both its original paint and an original interior — got a warmer reception at Mecum Kissimmee in January 2026, where it sold for $26,400.
Related Reading
1962 Pontiac Three-Way Comparison: How Did The Star Chief Compare To Catalina And Bonneville? (by me)
1963 Pontiac Star Chief Vista Four-Door Hardtop: The Forgotten Middle Child (by Aaron65)
Curbside Classic: 1966 Pontiac Star Chief Executive – Executive Privilege (by Jason Shafer)
In the Great White North, there was no Star-Chief Executive hardtop in company of our Canadian Parisienne and Laurentian but we got a Strato-Chief who’s a “Ponvrolet” or “Cheviac” counterpart of the Chevrolet Biscayne for Pontiac dealers.
https://www.oldcarbrochures.org/Canada/GM-Canada/Pontiac/1967-Pontiac-Broch/slides/1967_Pontiac_Cdn-10-11.html
And a surviving Canadian Strato-Chief 2-door sedan might be even more rarer.
I have always thought that Pontiac’s stretching the tails of their B-Body cars was absurd and made them look badly-proportioned, some years more than others. In fact, this silly practice is pretty much the worst (or best) example of style over substance, or form over function, and a relic of the “longer, lower, wider” mantra of the ’40s and ’50s. There was zero benefit except for a longer rear overhang which would scrape on parking lot and driveway ramps even more easily. Well, maybe a bit more trunk space.
Surely Pontiac could have figured out a better way to make the Bonneville (and Star Chief/Executive) look and feel more exclusive without the tail stretch. And this continued on through DeLorean’s era at Pontiac. But he did express unhappiness with the big cars and proposed ditching them altogether for A-Bodies with…longer noses. And he did that finally with the ’69 GP. FWIW, a longer hood does work relatively better than a longer tail.
Paul, your status was measured by the size of your car. There was a reason a Deville was a foot longer than an Impala, status!!!! Nevermind that there really wasnt any more room unless you opted for the even bigger and longer Fleetwood. Which let you lord over those peasents driving the Deville, your Cadillac was even longer!!!
This was the arms race in Detriot, who could build the biggest and smoothest riding barge, never mind that wasnt what a lot of the people wanted in a luxury car. That barge was the only option in town until Mercedes really started to build bigger, better equipped cars around 1970.
One of the few times I was completely mystified about an American car model, it was when my Grandma mentioned one. She had bought a used 64 Catalina sedan in 1967. A year or two later, she mentioned that she thought she might be interested in a Pontiac Executive. I had never heard of an Executive. Pontiacs were all around me in those years, and I was very familiar with Catalinas, Bonnevilles and even Star Chiefs and Venturas. But was embarrassed to have to ask Grandma “What’s a Pontiac Executive?”
When the time came to buy a new Pontiac in 1969, she chose another Catalina. Proving that even people who kind of liked the concept didn’t see the value when it came to spending the money.
I loved the styling of the big Pontiacs in the early-mid 60s, improving steadily with every year up through 1966. However when the 1967s were introduced, I couldn’t understand the new front ends with the loop bumpers and resultant headlight placement (lowers in the grille and uppers above).
I also couldn’t figure out the purpose of the character line extending up from the rear wheel openings into the doors. I still feel 1967 is the year when big Pontiac styling jumped the shark.
The splitting of the mid-trim into to otherwise identical Ventura and Executive/Start Chief was a money-saving action. The extended wheelbase Executive/StarChief did not cost any more for to make than the identical car with the smaller wheelbase (Ventura). In fact, the sale of the 30k Executives as middle line Pontiacs (instead of selling as Venturas) was a money saving action. The 30k cars could use the sheetmetal stamping molds of the Bonneville which did not have the volume to wear out stamping molds. If that volume were made as Venturas, the extra 30k cars would have necessitated the purchase of new molds since the base Catalina’s volume wore out the life of the molds.
Steel-bodied cars don’t use molds — they use dies and stamping presses — and it’s not about wearing them out in a physical or mechanical sense so much as amortizing the tooling cost.
However, I think you’re substantially right: The long-wheelbase/long-tail version of the body used by the Bonneville involved some additional tooling expense (probably a bit of separate tooling and some modification to existing tooling for longer draws), and it made more financial sense if Pontiac could spread that expense over an additional model, even if it wasn’t a big seller.
For 1967, total production of Bonneville and Executive cars (excluding the wagons, which had their own version of the B-body shell) was 131,716 units, which was a healthier number when it came to return on tooling investment. So, it made financial sense from an ROI standpoint, if not really in a merchandising sense.
About my only contemporaneous memory of these was seeing a rather tired example in a Kmart parking lot, being driven by a wizened old guy who looked like a retired mechanic. It was the contrast between the driver and the name “Executive” on the flanks that made it stand out. It was no more effective for Pontiac than it had been for Packard 10 years earlier.
I love the fastback roofline of the ‘67 and ‘68 GM B bodied two-door hardtops. To me, the best interpretation was in the Pontiac Executive/Bonneville and the Buick Wildcat. Their extended length and fender skirts made for a super slew look.
Near my pharmacy, someone has a beat up turquoise blue Pontiac Executive. It’s as big as whale with tremendous overhangs. It still has some presence though. Unsure if I have successfully attached a photo. Trying to imagine the person who is using it as a regular driver.
Idle summer morning thoughts…18 feet of car, with two car lengths between them, times a 12 foot wide traffic lane, equals 648 ft.² of downtown road space – about the size of a one bedroom apartment. Then thinking…thousands of people trying to maneuver around a city in their one bedroom apartments, all complaining about traffic congestion!
Of course when they get where they’re going, and leave it next to the curb, it’s much much smaller…only the size of a hotel room. 🙂
Does feel a little Odd for a car Model name. (I guess there were much worse ones though). That said, if you had to Picture what a ‘Pontiac Executive’ might look like,: THIS is that Picture —> “1966 Pontiac Star Chief Executive hardtop coupe in Marina Turquoise”.
(IMO)
~T
I think Mr Douglas drove one in the later seasons of My Three Sons?
For 1971, the Bonneville took the place of the Executive in the product line. The Bonneville and Grand Ville were true C bodies because the clamshell wagon was used C body rear doors.