My bet is while doing the swap, they have had a chance to drive a newer car.. forget the Camaro/mustang/etc. just a new v6 car.. say a ecoboost fusion.. and then when the swap is done. drive their FAST fiero and go ,well ,um , it is faster than it was, but it is still a slug.. When a normal family car can out run/brake/turn your "hot" car.. the thrill is gone..
It is the same reason many spend buckets of money restoring a muscle car because they wanted one or had one back before they got married.. and after all that cash and waiting, they drive it and they had forgot how bad they drove, how finky they are..
We've been spoiled by just how good todays most basic vehicles are.. And forget just how stone age the vehicles car guys/gals love were.. This comes to ahead after the car is done, and their memories of it's speed/handling isn't the same as reality.
Guess I fit this, I am selling my chop now after the swap was done less than 6 months ago. But for pure smiley reasons. I have the car to a point someone else can finish it to their liking with color choice and whatever else and giving me the capital to build another chop. The world needs more chops.....So I must sell one to birth another..
I guess it depends on what makes a car ”hot”. You can't recreate memories. Most of today's cars are fugly, uncomfortable, and boring.
Sure, you can get a beautiful Corvette, or some exotic car, but find me a car for under $20K that looks as good as a Fiero, is American-made, and is rear-wheel drive. Now, find a mid-engine car for under $10K that looks half as good, and that has low maintenance.
The Fiero wins. The Fiero is its own worst enemy. It's a low-slung sporty car with a good price, but only 2 seats. No practicality for a family, a collector, an elderly person, or a young person. Not enough seats for a family, not enough value for a collector, too low/sporty for an elderly person, not flashy/trendy enough for a young person, and you mostly have to do all the work on it yourself. Worse, the Fiero has a rep of fires and bad gas mileage following it.
The Fiero is fun to drive. That's its appeal. Once that's gone, it's time for the car to go.
[This message has been edited by tshark (edited 09-17-2017).]
I guess it depends on what makes a car ”hot”. You can't recreate memories. Most of today's cars are fugly, uncomfortable, and boring.
Sure, you can get a beautiful Corvette, or some exotic car, but find me a car for under $20K that looks as good as a Fiero, is American-made, and is rear-wheel drive. Now, find a mid-engine car for under $10K that looks half as good, and that has low maintenance.
The Fiero wins. The Fiero is its own worst enemy. It's a low-slung sporty car with a good price, but only 2 seats. No practicality for a family, a collector, an elderly person, or a young person. Not enough seats for a family, not enough value for a collector, too low/sporty for an elderly person, not flashy/trendy enough for a young person, and you mostly have to do all the work on it yourself. Worse, the Fiero has a rep of fires and bad gas mileage following it.
The Fiero is fun to drive. That's its appeal. Once that's gone, it's time for the car to go.
I completely agree that today's cars are fugly. There are exceptions to that rule though, the new Miata is one for me; and for me only one of the exceptions happens to be an american made car. The 2016 and 2017 Ford GT is a beautiful car; it's the only Ford I would ever get caught dead in.
I do have to agree that it is it's own worst enemy. It has everything I could ever want (except ac in my car...), but no way for me to fit much else of what I want inside of it... If/when I ever get a wife, I'm gonna tell her not to make me choose between her or the car; because she's not gonna like my answer I already tell people that I'm gonna die with it in my possession if I can keep it running that long. And I've already had someone ask if they could buy it off of me, I promptly turned them down of course; I'm not so glibly going to throw away the two years I spent to get it running again just to get 1/6th of what I put into it back.
The Fiero is more than fun to drive, it's pure joy. Every time I get behind the wheel I turn into a prepubescent girl who is just happy to be with her friend. Every time I hear the engine roar to life I remember being 4 years old and my dad working on it in our old garage. Every time I see the engraved plenum I gain more respect for the designers who had the stones to make a beautiful car in spite of GM's management. I have a 2003 Miata, and it is nowhere near as fun to drive as my Fiero is. It's easier to daily, but nowhere near as fun.
2017 base model Porsche Boxter is 56,000.00. If you make any where near a decent salary it is probably as affordable as a 16,000.00 Fiero GT was 35 years ago.
2017 base model Porsche Boxter is 56,000.00. If you make any where near a decent salary it is probably as affordable as a 16,000.00 Fiero GT was 35 years ago.
The first gen Porsche Boxsters (1996-2004) can be picked up for $7-$15K as well.
I've done two drivetrain swaps in the past few years - a LT1 engine swap into a '62 International Scout that replaced the factory 95HP 4 cylinder, and most recently, replaced the stock 1.3 in my Samurai with a 2.0 motor. Both cases resulted in expectations not meeting reality. The Scout now has too much power - you stand on it, and you get a nice smoke show. Sure, it's neat once or twice, but the cost of tires adds up quick, and it really makes it undriveable on the street. Granted, this has a lot to do with running off road tires - they just don't hook as well as street tires, and the OLD school leaf suspension isn't set up for this power level, at all. I've been kicking around the idea of pulling the 4WD bits, lowering it, and making it a street/strip truck....for 3 years now. Otherwise, it's just been sitting in the shed.
The Samurai was largely done to get more freeway power. Anyone who has driven a lifted Samurai knows this all too well - power on the freeway sucks. Sure, you can regear them, but you're still going to be limited to 55-60mph, foot on the floor, on the freeway if you're going to bigger tires. It will now cruise at 70 without much issue, but it still doesn't perform on the freeway like I expected it would. Plus, with the deep gearing I installed before the motor swap, the throttle is twitchy at low speeds, and it's hard to do a smooth takeoff because the 2.0 makes so much more torque down low. I wanted something that would be a more capable daily driver, but ironically, the extra power has made it less of a daily. I've also had extensive cooling issues with it on the freeway, despite having bought a full swap kit for putting this exact motor in a Samurai that I spent quite a bit of money on...It's now essentially a street legal trailer queen, that I only use off road.
In both cases, I've got FAR more money into both of them than I'd ever get back out of them. Enough so that I've thought about selling both, but haven't done so. The Samurai is an awesome crawler, so I don't really want to sell that anyways...but it was an awesome crawler before the $4000 motor swap too. Having a LT1 powered Scout has been one of my dreams for years, basically ever since the motor came out in '92, and now that I finally have it? I don't like it, lol. But I'm also afraid that if I sell it, I'll regret it shortly after..as has been the case with most of my pre-1970 vehicles I've owned and sold.
I think a lot of us have unrealistic expectations when it comes to swaps like this, myself included. We think we're gonna end up with a bad ass street screamer, but end up with an expensive pile of headaches that don't perform at a level we thought they would, and many people just choose to cut their losses and move on. They'll say that they're moving on to other projects, or something else similar, but who's going to buy a car like that if the ad read "This thing has cost me so much money and time that my wife has threatened to divorce me half a dozen times, and I'm sick of even looking at it anymore"?
But then, there are some people as well that just plain enjoy the build aspect, to the point that they really don't even care about driving it. I have a couple buddies like that - they'll spend 3 years building a car, drive it half a dozen times after it's done, then sell it to make room for something else that they can spend 3 years working on in their 2 car garage. It's kind of like life size Tamiya model building for them, but they just don't have the 500 foot long fireplace mantel to show them off on.
[This message has been edited by urbex (edited 10-13-2017).]
I do not know why it is common to sell a swap after completion. If car modding is your hobby it makes sense to move on to another project. For me, I have been driving my turbo ecotec swap for 10 years now. I have continued to modify the car every winter and then drive it all summer. The only stock parts left are the body, most of the frame and some of the interiour. I have always wanted to build a kit car but importing one in to Canada is a PITA so basically I am turning my fiero in to a hand built car. The other engine swapped car I have is a 1991 Honda Civic wagon that my youngest son and I rebuilt. It has a D16Z6 in it now. We use it all summer now every year.
[This message has been edited by wftb (edited 11-13-2017).]
88 with full IMSA body kit ,, custom dash and Northstar/5 speed swap. a really fun project and it drove very nice. it just never really got my heart pumping like the SBC car did, which I had built earlier, so I sold the IMSA. 377 SBC, big brakes, paint, interior, many hd suspension mods etc. loved the car and drove it a lot but I'm a builder and wanted to move on to bigger/better things. I kinda wish I hadn't sold that one however .
I don't know. I "finished" my 3800 swap this February and it works great as a daily-ish driver. I've put 4K miles on the car already! I did the suspension and brakes and a bunch of other stuff so its not just a death trap I suppose. I plan to keep the car, luckily it only took me 18 months from buying it to driving it with the 3800 otherwise I may have been more mad at the time investment. There are still a few issues with the car, like I need to put in window sweeps and the used transmission I used doesn't have OD, but they aren't impossible to fix. I think like some have said its important to have realistic goals, these cars are never going to be an Italian sports car or the fastest car in the world, but if they make you happy you keep it. I see a lot of people end up selling their Fieros because the can't get in or out of them as they get older or if they have an injury, swapped or not that seems to be the big reason I hear about from people. Also when a project is in process you can't really sell it for a lot of money, basically you can hardly sell a half baked project car, so people work to finish the project even if they half ass it just so they can sell it and not lose a ton of money in the sale. Jessica
I have a few reasons I want to get rid of my 9 second fiero stuff....
1. I make significantly more money than I used to, which means I have other cars that command my attention (I road race almost every other weekend) 2. I have a bunch of nagging items I want to upgrade on the drag fiero... Its not things that are needed, but things that I want to work on and spend money on, that just isnt at the top of my list when I head into the garage. 3. Driving stuff that is this fast around isnt as exciting now that I am old enough to fear my mortality... and insurance rates. 4. Once apon a time there was a truly special performance vs price found in the fiero.. you could have a car that handled great and made great power for very little money. Sadly now there are lighter, faster, better options out there, and the steel brick 2800lb fiero doesnt hold a candle to the sub 2500 aluminum enhanced stuff out there.
Originally posted by darkhorizon: 4. Once apon a time there was a truly special performance vs price found in the fiero.. you could have a car that handled great and made great power for very little money. Sadly now there are lighter, faster, better options out there, and the steel brick 2800lb fiero doesnt hold a candle to the sub 2500 aluminum enhanced stuff out there.
For similar money and RMR? Such as what besides an old and ugly boxter?
I wrecked my first Fiero in late 2016 after 8 years of ownership... when I looked for a replacement toy/project car, I did not find many appealing choices (in the sub 10k price range), so I got another Fiero.
I suppose the Lotus Elise could have met my requirements, but that's more dough than I wanted to cough up.
DH, where are these sub 2500 lb sports cars that have now become available?
As time passes, I find that the choice of appealing cars goes down, which is contrary to your observation. My observation is that cars with each year come more weight, more feature bloat, more driving aids, more airbags, more expensive parts, power everything, TPMS, non-serviceable wheel bearings, everything that is undesirable for a toy/project car.
[This message has been edited by pmbrunelle (edited 11-21-2017).]
For similar money and RMR? Such as what besides an old and ugly boxter?
240sx, rx7, rx8, etc.. any car you can put aluminum motors and economical, durable manual transmissions in.... In terms of sitting in front of or behind the engine I'm not that picky and all of the ones on my list are still considered mid engine.
I also really like what is available in the fwd world now that modern tires are around. It's really transformed what you can do with a fwd if you can solve a few problems with technology. In the road racing groups I run with, fwd cars are at the top every weekend.
240sx, rx7, rx8, etc.. any car you can put aluminum motors and economical, durable manual transmissions in.... In terms of sitting in front of or behind the engine I'm not that picky and all of the ones on my list are still considered mid engine.
I also really like what is available in the fwd world now that modern tires are around. It's really transformed what you can do with a fwd if you can solve a few problems with technology. In the road racing groups I run with, fwd cars are at the top every weekend.
Well, if we consider front engine then yes. But it defeats the point. What has always made the Fiero attractive was the rear mid engine. Not interested in front engine, let alone FWD. Hence why I asked which car for similar money and RMR? MR2 is ugly as sin. Boxter the same as is a convertible. A Cayman is way more money. Elise again is an open top. Exige is way more money. There is nothing else.
[This message has been edited by Rn2016 (edited 11-22-2017).]
my car will never have a swap because i have no cash for a swap. i like the car just the way it is. i own an 800 kawasaki vulcan classic with 61,000 miles i drive it alot. i wanted it to go faster and my friend told me to loose weight.nice friend but true. if you change tomany things you just open up a can of worms, or i.e money pit. i have seen nelson on his way to daytona in georga on 95 , he does drive his cars.
I already tell people that I'm gonna die with it in my possession if I can keep it running that long. And I've already had someone ask if they could buy it off of me, I promptly turned them down of course; I'm not so glibly going to throw away the two years I spent to get it running again just to get 1/6th of what I put into it back.
.
