Fiero

1988 Fiero GT. (Photo by Richard Lentinello.)

Another very interesting car is in my March 2015 issue of Classic Car magazine.
A 1988 Pontiac Fiero GT.
Fiero at first was Pontiac’s attempt at building a two-seater sportscar. But then the mighty General said it should be a commuter-car that was fun to drive.
Fiero was introduced in 1984. It had GM’s fabled four-cylinder “Iron-Duke” engine that replaced the troublesome aluminum-block Vega four.
The Iron-Duke was essentially one side of the Chevy SmallBlock V8, 2.5 liters displacement.

An early Fiero.

In a Fiero the motor was behind the driver, what is called “mid-engine.”
Race-cars, like Formula One and Indy, have their motor behind the driver. It gives better mass-centralization and weight-balance.
Dreamers have wanted Chevrolet to do this to the Corvette for years, patterned after the fabulous Can-Am (Canadian-American Challenge Cup) racers of about 1970.
Can-Am racers were essentially two-seat open sportscars complete with fenders and swooping bodywork.
They even had souped-up Detroit V8s at first, but that was skonked by turbocharged European overkill.

A Porsche 914.

A Lotus Europa.

The first mid-engine car I remember is the Porsche 914 (“poor-sha;” as in “poor”). It had only a Volkswagen engine, and was tricky. —Although you could get it with a Porsche flat six: the 914-6.
Lotus fielded a mid-engine car called the “Europa.” It had a Renault engine, although later you could get it with a souped-up double overhead-cam Ford four.
I remember wanting one. Supposedly they were state-of-the-art, possessed of the Lotus Formula-One reputation.
What I should have wanted is one of these Fieros. As a Detroit car it was much more dependable than a Lotus.
And the 1988 Fiero GT was best. For 1988 Pontiac fiddled the suspension to make it more a sportscar. They also had earlier made the V6 engine optional.
Both the V6 and the Iron-Duke were the package used in GM’s front-drive Celebrity clones, first available in the Chevrolet Citation, then in the Chevrolet Celebrity.
Each GM division except Cadillac had a clone of the Celebrity.
Putting that V6 in the Fiero made it more a threat to Chevrolet’s Corvette.
The magazine says GM killed the Fiero after 1988, but the scuttlebutt I always heard was it was Chevrolet.
With its upgraded suspension and V6 motor the Fiero was threatening Corvette.
Plus it was the mid-engine layout. Corvette wasn’t.

Pantera.

Pontiac Solstice.

The only mid-engine Detroit V8 I remember was Lincoln-Mercury’s Pantera. But that was an Italian supercar with a Cobra-Ford V8, not made here in the states.
Sadly, I never owned a Fiero. And the ’88 GT sounds exceptional.
Pontiac came out with another two-seater sportscar, the Solstice, but that is gone too.
So too the entire Pontiac brand.