An affordable mid-engined car that also got great gas mileage? Sign me up! Unfortunately, the Fiero was killed before it ever reached its full potential.
The GM did leave a lot on the table but the truth be told the car would have been lucky to last another 5 years even if they put it right.
The two seat market is limited and often runs in cycles. The Corvette and Miata are the two real acceptations to the rule. All the big names like RX7 and MR2 Nissan 300 and 280 all went in cycles and never lived long lives.
As for the Fiero it would have never been a NSX as it would have never have been priced to be equipped to meet that level of the market. GM would have never let it surpass the Corvette. Chevy sold more cars and Chevy got more say in product than Pontiac that simple fact came from John Schinella GM design that over saw the Fiero and was one of its biggest supporters.
The hardest thing to do is a low volume sports car at a low market price. Anyone can build the ultimate sports car for $200.000 and up but to do it in the 10,000-30,000 units per year and still sell it at a low price and keep it competitive with updates is a major challenge to the strongest companies. If it were easy they all would have a cheap sports car.
The Miata is even now showing the strain as Mazda has tried to share platforms with Alfa to share the development cost. If something does not happen there may not be another gen of this car. The Pontiac died just at the right time to prevent the Solstice from dying on its own. It has little time left too and there was no replacement coming.
The Fiero would have never been state of the art compared to the big buck cars but GM left a lot on the table by not supporting the car with proper funding. To be honest it is a miracle it was even built in the first place with all they had to go through.
Well if the object was to create an affordable mid engined car with great gas mileage, didn't it succeed? And if wasn't killed before it reached its full potential, it was killed 1 year after.
Totally agree on the CR-Z. How Honda managed to get worse gas mileage 30 years later astounds me.
Granted the Prowler was short lived, but considering the only time I see one its being cruised around in by a 75 year old man, the v6 auto kinda makes sense.
The Aztek does have a cult following. Don't ask me why, but it does. Its not an off-roader. Its a minivan for people who drop acid.
Half right on the SVX. The trans was useless, but it also had windows that didn't really, technically open. Okay I guess if its some exotic sports car, but it was a sport luxury car.
Two of my cars are on that list, the Fiero and the SVX. I almost bought an Aztek a couple years ago. If I did, all of my cars would be on that list. That would have been great, almost.
Aztek was not meant to be an off-road vehicle. It was a crossover... to the extent most SUVs are, now-a-days.
As for the Fiero. It was almost perfect in 88. If you look at the '89 Fiero, it was becoming larger and more like the Camaro. Yuck. The engine needed to be swapped out, but otherwise, the 88 was pretty nice and affordable.
Aztek was not meant to be an off-road vehicle. It was a crossover... to the extent most SUVs are, now-a-days.
As for the Fiero. It was almost perfect in 88. If you look at the '89 Fiero, it was becoming larger and more like the Camaro. Yuck. The engine needed to be swapped out, but otherwise, the 88 was pretty nice and affordable.
More like the Camaro became more like the Fiero. They still didn't have a 4th gen body design for the F-body when the 90 Prototype Fiero was done. When Fiero was cancelled, a lot of the styling used was transferred over to the F-body. I know it's a bit of a nit pick, but the styling cues originated with Fiero. The 90 Fiero even had the same gauge cluster that was eventually used on the 93 Firebird. Pontiac brought the 90 out to some Fiero shows and people got a lot of great photos. You can find a lot of them on here. It also had a DOHC 3.2 V6, which later became the 3.4 DOHC engine.
It would have been interesting to see how the Fiero and F-body would have developed had both remained in production. I don't think the 4th Gen as we know it would have been released.
More like the Camaro became more like the Fiero. They still didn't have a 4th gen body design for the F-body when the 90 Prototype Fiero was done. When Fiero was cancelled, a lot of the styling used was transferred over to the F-body. I know it's a bit of a nit pick, but the styling cues originated with Fiero. The 90 Fiero even had the same gauge cluster that was eventually used on the 93 Firebird. Pontiac brought the 90 out to some Fiero shows and people got a lot of great photos. You can find a lot of them on here. It also had a DOHC 3.2 V6, which later became the 3.4 DOHC engine.
It would have been interesting to see how the Fiero and F-body would have developed had both remained in production. I don't think the 4th Gen as we know it would have been released.
I wouldn't be surprised about the gauge clusters. They pull what they have available (or are working on) and reuse where appropriate.
Good info. As for re-using the gauge cluster - virtually every car has a unique gauge cluster - 4th Gen F-body shared one, but I don't think any other GM car did. Here's the gauge cluster in the '90 Prototype...
The Banshee was shown in '88. I'm not sure how far along Fiero and F-body design was at that time.
More like the Camaro became more like the Fiero. They still didn't have a 4th gen body design for the F-body when the 90 Prototype Fiero was done. When Fiero was cancelled, a lot of the styling used was transferred over to the F-body. I know it's a bit of a nit pick, but the styling cues originated with Fiero. The 90 Fiero even had the same gauge cluster that was eventually used on the 93 Firebird. Pontiac brought the 90 out to some Fiero shows and people got a lot of great photos. You can find a lot of them on here. It also had a DOHC 3.2 V6, which later became the 3.4 DOHC engine.
It would have been interesting to see how the Fiero and F-body would have developed had both remained in production. I don't think the 4th Gen as we know it would have been released.
You are so correct as I was there when the 1990 was first shown to the public by John Schinella. He said the styling was too good to go to waste do they adapted it to the F body.
What else gets left out is the F body was being turned into a FWD car in the mid 80 as the GM 90 program. It was Canceled in the 11th hour and left GM scrambling to replace it with the 4th gen we did get. Also what many forget is the GM 90 was also expected to be built on the same line as the Fiero with composite body panels too.
The new Fiero in GT form was just a little wider and longer but not as much as some thing. It was still on the same space frame but it has some minor changes. The coupe would have been pretty much the same as the present car but for maybe a little more width.
To really understand this whole deal you really have to take in a lot of factors. The Fiero was not loved by all at GM as we know and many who disliked the car getting more power were at Chevy. The Corvette could not risk losing many sales to a cheaper sports car and so Chevy made it know that the Fiero plant was under capacity and not as profitable as it should be at a time Pontiac was not exactly making a lot of money. With the GM 80 canceled there was nothing to move to the plant.
I have read the paper work from the meeting that killed the Fiero and as I was told by someone who was there that no matter what Pontiac presented the decision was made before the meeting was ever held.
There was a factor of pay back also by some in GM for Pontiac not doing as they were told too.
There still many other factors in play too like the over production of the Fiero in the early years that did not help later sales as the market was saturated with the car. If Chevy sold over 100,000 in the first two years it would do a lot of damage to later sales too. Pontiac needed the volume to buy time but paid a penalty for the high volume by 1988 but the hope of the GM 90 was their bail out factor that vanished.
The Banshee and California Camaro were just show cars that featured styling hints but no real 4th gen under the skin. These cars were early in the development of the car and just hinted at parts of what was to come.
