The X400 Series of Cars

As I was doing the research for the 1963 Pontiac X400, in the mid 1980s, I uncovered some material on the other X400 Pontiacs that the styling studio made. When I received the material from Styling Studios, they included the name of Jim Jefford a race car driver in the 60s and a friend of Bill Mitchell. He was given an X400 by Bill with his initials engraved on the con­sole of the car. I was able to locate him. The car he had was a 1960 Bonneville con­vertible and was specially built in the styling studios as the 1960 X400. Jefford later sold the car to Richard Stevens of the Excalibur Motor Co. I contacted Stevens to talk to him about the car. Many of the things on the 1960 car sounded like they were carried over to the 63 version. Stevens sold the car to Michael Chinsky in Chi­cago, who I was able to locate. Michael did not have the car but did have many photos of it. These he sent to me to copy for my records. The 1960 version had a Lat­ham Blower on it. This was missing when Mike got the car. He contacted Latham and was able to get a blower to restore the car back to original. In the material he got from Latham, there was a photo of a 1959 Pontiac X400.  This is the oldest one I know about. There is no record of this car ever being shown and was probably a styling exercise. From the material I have there were several X400s produced through the years, 1959, 1960, 1962,  and 1963/64. The 1960 x400 has been found and is now owned by Joe Bortz in Chicago. It is in excellent condition.  There is no record of the 1959 being preserved and was probably crushed.  I could not find any record of this car attended any shows.  The 1962 has no record of being shown outside of the the design studios.  I did find records that the 62 was taken appart and many of the parts used to make the 1963 X400. When I was looking at the photos of the 1963 being worked on at the styling studio, I noticed there was a sheet attached to the windshield.  When closely looked at this sheet it listed what was to be done to convert the car to the 1963 X400.  Several items on this sheet were things to be removed from the 62 version.  They included the engine, out side mirrors and some minor trim pieces. A photo below shows this sheet on the windshield and I was able to make a copy of this sheet.  Unfortunately there is a second sheet below the first one and I can not read it.  The last X400 was the revised 63 to the 64 version which went to a number of shows.  This car had many features of the 64 Grand Prix, but the front end was very special and different from any car.  The rear was all new design.

     

 The 1959 X400      

      

The 1960 X400                                                                                                                                                  

        

  The 1962 X400                                                                                    

        

 The 1964 X400    

 

Shop order build sheet on windshield of the 1963 version