Author's next mission: find a stellar Stellar. Never saw one with properly working rear lights - they must have had quite an interesting wiring harness.
I drove a new Pony that was in the city's fleet during a summer job (my regular fleet ride, a retired Malibu cop car, was not available). Even though I was used to a manual choke on my parents' '81 Civic, the Pony took a while to start on rainy days. It felt...agricultural. They did look like improved Chevettes at the time, and sold by the ton. They even had a tacky black and gold "special edition", whose proud owners often graced with chrome lip / chrome gold center mags from Crappy Tire. Ahhh, the '80s...