The Gold Special Edition car was a reversal of the Black Special Edition cars. Instead of black paint with gold striping, the Gold Edition had gold paint with black striping. Well, it was actually dark gold/brown striping. Basically, the package consisted of:
-- Solar Gold exterior with dark gold pin striping
-- Gold grille liners, I.P. engine turn, and misc. interior and exterior gold emblems
-- Black tail lamp housing, and black windshield and backlite moldings
-- Gold glass in Fisher hatches (CC1) with black molding
-- Interior trim restricted to base or custom camel tan vinyl or cloth
-- Formula steering wheel in camel tan with gold spokes
-- Gold 15x7 cast aluminum wheels (15x8 if the WS6 was ordered with it).

Just like the Black Special Edition cars that preceded them, the Gold Edition Trans Am also had all of the gold appointments on the car. They had the gold bird emblem and gold spokes on the steering wheel. Gold Dash Bezel and gold shifter button emblem. Also, another thing that stands out on the interior is the steering column. On regular gold 1978 Trans Ams, the steering column was black, but in the Y88 Gold Special Edition, the steering column was camel tan.

The Y88 Gold Special Edition was also the first introduction of the newly designed 5 color hood bird that became the standard in 1979.

On the Y88 Gold Special Edition cars, the tail lamps were paint black. This was a change made in the 1978 production model year. Prior to this change, the tail lamps were painted the same color of the body, but this changed to black in 1978.

With the addition of the WS6 package in 1978, they introduced the 15x8 snowflake rim. In the beginning, the 15x8 inch snowflake rim in gold was painted in its entirety except for the outer lip of the rim. This was true of all gold snowflake rims in early 1978.

(see Bulletin below)