Here is a response I got from JonB, the owner of Partsrack. He got the first customer 96 GTS and still has it with no paint work ever done. He had to go look, but says the white stripe does not continue down the vertical edge of the facia. Apparently, the pictures I posted were pre-production or marketing renderings. The Pace Cars may have had this, but it not make it to production. The official pace cars (I believe there were two) also had a sunroof, which was an oddity required to allow the driver to make hand signals. I used to have pictures of one of the sunroof cars. This was unique to the real pace cars, not to be confused with just 96 GTS's with the pace car stickers.
Here is JonB's response. Thanks to Jon for taking the time to look.
Jon
2:01 PM (21 minutes ago)
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to me
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My car was the first retail car delivered, as well as CAAP customer pickup # 1. Still mine, original paint.
44 mile trip to find and report that Stripe does NOT extend onto the vertical air dam skirt. Stripe Abuts/ends at that skirt.