Start with what the Pontiac Chieftain is: a 2-door sedan / 4-door sedan / 2-door coupe / 2-door hardtop / 2-door convertible / 4-door station wagon with 239.2 cuin Pontiac Straight-6 engine, built from 1949 to 1958, in a decade split by war, when civilian production stopped and restarted. What it meant takes a little longer. The shape is credited to Harley Earl.
Where it came from
The Pontiac Chieftain is an automobile which was produced by Pontiac from 1949 to 1958. The 1949 Chieftain and Streamliner models were the first all new car designs to come from Pontiac in the post World War II years. Previous cars had been 1942 models with minor revisions.
Under the skin
The engine is 239.2 cuin Pontiac Straight-6 engine; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. On the scales it comes to 1949-51: 1535 -. Drive goes through a 3-speed synchromesh manual / 4-speed Hydramatic automatic. The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 1949-51: 120 in / 1952-54: 122 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
In context
In the Pontiac line-up the Pontiac Chieftain has a clear place: it replaced the Pontiac Torpedo; it handed the line to the Pontiac Catalina; the factory was Pontiac, Michigan, United States. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Chevrolet Bel Air, the Citroën 2CV, the Porsche 356. Nearby in the Pontiac catalogue sit the Pontiac 2+2 and the Pontiac 6.
Owning one today
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Pontiac Chieftain has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.