Thanks to Rick88, I was able to hook up with "Tom" during my recent trip to Taiwan. I had a very busy work schedule, but I just had to hook up with him to see his Fiero. So way past 11:00pm on my last night there, I met up with Tom downstairs in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt Hotel. This is one of his cars, a 87GT that he restored. It is in beautiful condition. The only modification is the addition of the 88 staggered rims setup.



We went to Tom's friends house ("Mark") since they wanted to show me his Lambo and F-50, which are both built on 88GTs. Tom and Mark are good friends with a common interest in Fieros.


The pics do not do the cars justice, you would need to see these up close and personal (like I had the opportunity) to fully realize the time and effort that went into these projects. Real leather interiors, big brake kits, authentic parts such as lenses, badges, etc. These cars are off the charts!!! These two cars are some of the very few that are street legal. It is almost impossible to (LEGALLY) own a modified kitcar Fiero in Taiwan now. These two are "grandfathered" from many years past. He kept the stock V-6 engines in both cars to keep them legal...big engines with low mileage are simply not allowed in Taiwan, so these are perfect for their purposes. Mike estimates that he has about $70K (USD) tied up in each car.



In this picture, they have mounted a modified radiator in the back, under that stainless grill area. Tom was explaining how it was mounted in the back, and how they had to modify a radiator from another car.


The all leather interiors of both cars were hand sewn by local craftsmen. The attention to detail is just awesome. I can still smell the leather!



Pic of me in front of the Lambo. They spent a lot of time to engineer and modify the side windows (the lower part) to actually be able to hand-crank open and close. The front windshield is the authentic, slightly curved one, rather than the typical flat, kitcar windshield.



LOL...my friend John met up with us and wanted this picture of him and the F-50.



Rear of the F-50.



The absolute highlight of my trip was to meet up with these guys. To chat with them via e-mail is one thing, but to be able to actually meet them face-to-face, see-and-touch their prized projects, and to sit down with them, have a drink and talk story, was absolutely priceless. I don't know if I will ever have the opportunity to travel to Taiwan again, but I consider myself extremely lucky to have done so, and in the process, made two life-long friends.

Tom and Mark have not joined the PFF forum because they are afraid that their English is not that great. (Although they may be a little lacking on the spoken English, their command of written English is actually pretty good.) I plan to e-mail Tom with this link, so maybe with some encouragement from the fine people here, maybe we can convince them to join PFF!! They are true Fiero enthusiasts and I know they would like to join in on the forum.

Aloha,
Tom

Edited: Corrected F-40 to F-50

[This message has been edited by Fiero-in-Paradise (edited 12-07-2010).]

WOW I like them both!
Who would have known, a cool fiero guy in Taiwan! I would have never thought of such nice kits being there!
VERY nice!!

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88 GT, 3800SC, Getrag 5sp. 12" Vette Rotors,Custom stuff done

你告诉那些家伙得到PFF的网站上。
我们可以翻译它们是什么意思。

[This message has been edited by deezil (edited 12-05-2010).]

Amazing! I happy you got to meet them and they really have some nice Fiero's!

I remember a few years ago when I was dealing with Japan, I was surprised to see that although they are very rare there were some Fiero's down there and they had a very tight following. I'm guessing this is true for many area's around the world.

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AKA. FieroAlex
Not related in any way to the FieroMontreal club

That 40 looks an awful lot like a 50 to me . . . . but beautiful cars nonetheless.

Very nice indeed!

I know TOM, but also my friend
He is a very nice person
He helped many people solve the problems on the FIERO, (including me) ...

Hi Pinniferrina!

Tom wanted me to meet some other Fiero owners, but unfortunately there was just no time since I was departing early the next morning. If I ever get the chance to visit Taiwan again, I need to set aside an entire additional week to meet up with you guys and to see all the sights.

Please encourage Tom to join the forum and post pics of his two Fieros!

Tom

Thanks for sharing your most excellent Fiero experience Tom. I travel the US quite a bit for work and never seem to be able to carve out any time to "meet" other Fiero folks. My goal in 2011 is remedy this. Very nice looking cars and I would really like to see more (pics) of them! I hope they both sign up and post away. They probably have a better "command" of the english language than some of our most "active" members.

Pat

I always liked this one:

Wow, that red one is really nice, and looks almost exactly like Mike's yellow one...right down to the carbon fiber interior. And by coincidence, Mike said that he had to custom make his rim center caps, since his did not have any.

According to Tom, only about 100 Fieros were imported into Taiwan. Obviously very few are still in existence there. LOL...he says that their best supply of parts is via e-bay and Fiero Store.

In Taiwan, you can easily see FERRARI or LAMBORGHINI
But you will not see the fiero
Over time, fiero less and less the number of surviving
Whether it is because the supply of spare parts, or the owners of the factors themselves
Are fewer and fewer reasons causing fiero
Envy in the United States fiero,
My fiero, always in search of some parts, and spend a lot of time and money
Because I love fiero

Tom,

Glad you could get toghther with our Taiwan Fiero buddies. They really have some nice cars. Hopefully we can finally get the infamous exhaust system figured out. I really want that system for the Mera. I wish I could be a "world traveler" like you.

Update from my friend in Taiwan!

86FieroSEv6, good catch! Tom e-mailed me to let me know that is a F-50, not an F-40. My bad!! So I went ahead and edited my original post.

Amida, Tom said that there is only one F-50 replica in all of Taiwan, and so the red one that you posted, and Mark's yellow are in fact the same cars. Mark bought it from "Golden Chen" when it was still red and in that condition. They put a lot of work into it to fix it up, and then re-painted it yellow. One of the things I forgot to mention is that the original back area on the engine lid was solid material. So Tom and Mark made a mold so they could fabricate a clear piece, similar to the real F-50. Here are a couple of links to show previous pictures and the work they did on it: And one thing I saw in person...unlike the photo when it was red, the engine bay area is now absolutely spotless...I could eat off of it!!

http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/...5&next=913&l=f&fid=8

http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/...&next=2954&l=f&fid=8

Note: If you guys open the links with Google, hit the "Translate" button in the right hand corner and most of the words will be translated enough so that you can make sense with the photos. The second link has a bunch of photos, just hit the "next" button at the bottom of the page.

Rick: Tom said that the Fiero (the one with the headers you want to replicate) is a T-Top conversion. All of the guys in Taiwan are well aware of the rarity of T-Tops, so this guy actually bought all of the parts off E-bay to convert his car. Here is the link:

http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/...08&next=28&l=f&fid=8

Again, use the "Translate" button. Some of it may not make sense, but what the heck, we can all understand the common Fiero language! If you hit the "next" button, there are more pics and check out that 88GT Convertible! I think Tom may be THE local Taiwan expert on Fieros!

Enjoy!
Tom

When i read Made in Taiwan i will now think twice nice work guys.

[This message has been edited by Australian (edited 12-07-2010).]