Well lets team up and shoot Pontiac executives at will.
After our club president talked with Jim Mattison of Pontiac Historical Services over Easter the Australian PCCA president informed me that Jim told him due to the presidents pictures of the holdig yard on the net, my pictures of the holding yard on the net and about 3 other unauthorised holding yard pictures online Pontiac went all stupid and drastic and stocktaked the whole development area and crushed everything that is not a current project.
So yes the 3 1989 Fieros that used to be there are now crushed. There is no more in existence. Pontiac Historical Services don't even have one.
Why Pontiac is trying to erase the Fiero as a bad memory is anyones guess as some other prototypes made there way to Pontiac Historical Services.
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01:32 AM
PFF
System Bot
mrgone Member
Posts: 598 From: Barrie Ontario, Canada / Bridgewater Nova Scotia, Canada Registered: Mar 2001
Sorry.... Im better now... Man Pontiac killed the Fiero twice now. How sad.
------------------ Pennock's Fiero Forum Members Photo Page If you want to add your Fiero to the collection, post or send me a photo. (Sent photos ONLY to: purplehazeracing@yahoo.com )
Yep its true. Disgusting but true. I got told today by our club president who has many dealings with POCI, Jim Mattison of Pontiac Historical Services and people like Jim Wangers of Pontiac advertising and GTO fame. Jim Mattison told him of the news on Easter Sunday at the presentation night of the Australian Pontiac Nationals as Jim was over here for them.
He woulda told me earlier but he has been recovering from a stroke he had 2 days after getting the news. No the news didn't bring on the stroke...he is a Firebird fan.
Shooting is too good for the bastards. Lets bring back public floggings. We can hold them at any Fiero shows and invite a different Pontiac Executive each time.
Before you get all worked up, them crushing the cars is nothing new. They can't keep them forever and there's no connection with GM trying to erase the Fiero. GM isn't trying to erase the Fiero. There is just no money in them paying any attention to it and 10,000 people begging them to build more is about .1% of what they need to sell to pay for tooling. Their cancelling Olds and that product line alone sold a gazillion more cars each year than the Fiero over it's whole life. If there was still money in making them, they would. GM doesn't stop building profitable cars, they crank them out ad-nauseum. Witness the Olds Ciera.
Money. Money. Money. Stockholders. Dividends.
GM's job is money and those 89's didn't make money, took up space and weren't needed. They don't keep most cars like that. They didn't even keep most of the Vette project cars over the years. They just can't.
There's no conspiracy only business.
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02:03 AM
AusFiero Member
Posts: 11513 From: Dapto NSW Australia Registered: Feb 2001
Originally posted by terryk: There's no conspiracy only business.
Why did they send other prototypes to PHS and no Fieros ?
Surely 1 Fiero wouldn't have been to much to ask.
Hell I would have even offered to store it in my garage for them. Hey and I am sure 2 other forum members coulda come up with some storage space too...lol.
Yeah I know it all boils down to business but with so many auto museums crying for a chance to display stuff like this it is a very big shame.
And in this case I have it on very good authority there was a bit of paranoia involved, not just over the Fieros but plenty of other stuff lieing around that had been photgraphed once too often and still had some useable and stealable technology in them.
Cheaper to crush than to guard you might say.
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02:12 AM
pontiacs4me Member
Posts: 500 From: Wichita, Ks, USA Registered: Feb 2001
so we need to dig up as much info as possible on the prototypes, get the pictures and such, figure out the dimensions, get some good mold makers and fiberglassmen (ferrari-momo) and make replicas of them, that bolt on our existing frames. then we can drive them to pontiac and say well you guys can "Kiss our Asses because we got ours now". And they will be like "where did you get those cars?" and we will be like "you guys will never know" and that will really mess up their heads, and it will all be worth it in the end. BTW, Ill help.
[This message has been edited by pontiacs4me (edited 05-05-2001).]
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03:46 AM
Mach10 Member
Posts: 7375 From: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Registered: Jan 2001
Get as many pictures as possible, from as many angles as possible. Get in contact with the people that originally developed the car, and have them fill in the blanks. Then find someone with drafting experience to build models. THEN you find the glassmen. Unfortunately, it will be a speciality product only, as the appeal to non-fiero fans will be limited.
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12:27 PM
mrgone Member
Posts: 598 From: Barrie Ontario, Canada / Bridgewater Nova Scotia, Canada Registered: Mar 2001
I doubt seriously that the photo's contained anything cosmic. Makes for good airplay, but you can bet the competition is far ahead of any tourist visiting the yard.
Originally posted by Mach10: Get as many pictures as possible, from as many angles as possible. Get in contact with the people that originally developed the car, and have them fill in the blanks. Then find someone with drafting experience to build models. THEN you find the glassmen. Unfortunately, it will be a speciality product only, as the appeal to non-fiero fans will be limited.
I have a lot of info on who made all the glass and plastic pannels for the Fiero..
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05:57 PM
LZeitgeist Member
Posts: 5662 From: Raleigh, NC, U.S.A. Registered: Dec 2000
Originally posted by terryk: I doubt seriously that the photo's contained anything cosmic. Makes for good airplay, but you can bet the competition is far ahead of any tourist visiting the yard.
No tourists was allowed in the holding yard. It was Pontiac developments yard. The Australian tour was lucky as 52 Aussie Pontiac fanatics driving from LA to Detroit for the Woodward Ave cruise was big news and Pontiac gave them the VIP treatment. They got a tour of off limits areas, but they covered a few new prototypes up. They was given new Firebird Convertibles to cruise at Woodward in and Good Morning America grabbed them along the way somewhere for an interview.
Still kicking myself for cancelling out of that trip but I was building my new house at the time. arrrgghh.
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09:47 PM
May 6th, 2001
RichLeBlanc Member
Posts: 94 From: Manchester,NH 03103 Registered: Feb 2001
Sorry, I hate to sound like a pain in the butt, but I won't belive it till I see proof they were crushed.
GM (and even PHS) get tired of "we" fiero people bugging them all the time for info. They will tell you whatever it takes to get you off their backs. I've "been there, heard that" personally.
All corporations make stupid decisions. TOTALLY destroying millions of $$$ worth of design and research........Never
So what if there are? What is anyone going to do about it? You would have to find an extremely rich and powerul Fiero owner to have any chance of finding out for sure. How many of those do you know? It may be fun to entertain the thought of ever actually having an 89 prototype at a show or something but as long as GM wants to forget the Fiero ever happened, forget about it.
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08:02 PM
AusFiero Member
Posts: 11513 From: Dapto NSW Australia Registered: Feb 2001
Originally posted by 007DOUG: There are still 89 fieros out there.
Like to let us know where ?
Because Jim Mattison of Pontiac Historical Services certainly doesn't know of any and I think he is a pretty reliable source.
The one that was used in a lot of show pics is the one I am hoping they have forgot about as it wasn't in the holding yard with the other 3. It is probably still inside the warehouse, unless it was the first to be destroyed years ago.
Anyway if someone wants to get serious about it there is enough pics out there to make one and I vaguely remember a post where somebody overlaid their Fiero over a 89 picture and found the same wheelbase and windscreen and basic body shap hidden amongst the new.
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08:31 PM
AusFiero Member
Posts: 11513 From: Dapto NSW Australia Registered: Feb 2001
Originally posted by 007DOUG: Sorry, I hate to sound like a pain in the butt, but I won't belive it till I see proof they were crushed.
Ok this is about as much proof as I can give you. Dave Clee, president of the Pontiac Car Club of Australia (and now also in some major role with POCI) is friends with many of the international big names in the Pontiac industry of the past and present.
He invited Jim Mattison of PHS over to our nationals at easter and in conversation he told Dave something along these lines "Remember those cars you got to look at in the development area when you bought the tour over. Well they have crushed everything in that yard etc etc etc"
Proof enough for me as it did come from one guy who would know.
But it is all water under the bridge now and we still have our Fieros, which I think look better than the 89 model anyway, so it is up to us to show Pontiac how wrong they was to cut the Fiero, by keeping our cars alive forever. Which I think will happen with all the different conversions around.
On another note I noticed that American publications seem to think the Fiero is followed by a small band of die hard enthusiasts. Might be small for America but if you had that many people in Australia liking Fieros it would be considered big time enthusiasm. Don't listen to them. thousands of enthusiasts worldwide is not small like the "experts" think.
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08:48 PM
FieroLisa Member
Posts: 1992 From: Sebastopol, CA Registered: Nov 2000
OK so I agree it sucks that there are no 89 Fieros running around, but the debate will rage on in its place.
I would love to have an 89 kit, but whoever makes it better plan on doing it for fun and not profit because think about it, first of all, the fiero owners pool is fairly small, and the group of owners that *really* love their cars is even less. Then take that group and divide by some number to get the amount of Fiero owners that have enough cash to buy a couple thousand dollar kit for their cars that, face it, are worth a couple thousand if not less. I doubt theres any profit to be made after all the work is said and done.
------------------ Lisa 86 violet pearl 4 speed GT- 17 in. rims, lowered, cold-air, AOL IM: FieroLisa
not that i was ever holding on to any hope that gm would ever bring the car back, but it really disgust me that they would crush the cars over paranoia about a few photo's of some old cars in a holding yard.
i understand business decisions, i've been in business and made a lot of good and bad decisions over the years, however nothing was ever done due to paranoia!
that is wrong, and i'm very sad because of it.
now i'm not going to say that i will never buy another new gm product (hech, i've never bought one new gm product yet... actually, the only gm product that i've ever bought was my GT), but i will definatly think twice b4 i do so!
YOU KILLED KENNY!!!!! YOU BASTARD!!! 
