Saw this on Yahoo and thought I would share it with everyone. A positive story about a Fiero involving someone who wasn't even born when the Fiero came and went.
Today in Tech
This rad teen is building her own car for her 16th birthday
By Tecca | Today in Tech




It's been two years since 14-year-old Kathryn started restoring an '88 Pontiac Fiero

If you've ever watched an episode of MTV's My Super Sweet 16, then you're probably no stranger to spoiled teenagers asking their parents for fancy, expensive cars... and then throwing tantrums when they get the wrong color or model. Thankfully, 14-year-old Kathryn from Michigan is cut from a completely different cloth — she's been rebuilding an old car for the past two years, mostly on her own.

It all started back when Kathryn was only 12. She successfully convinced her parents to let her buy an old Pontiac Fiero using her own money that she earned babysitting. From the start, she planned on spending four years restoring the car until she can legally drive it. Her parents first thought it was a phase she'd outgrow, but she's clearly still keeping at it, even going as far as to miss soccer this spring to concentrate on her masterpiece.

Kathryn's story first hit in the internet in 2011 when her (very proud) father posted about her efforts on a Fiero forum. Since then, Kathryn has been visiting the forum herself, and other users would sometimes even ask her for car advice. Not bad for a young lady who started with simple sanding and painting before moving on to more difficult tasks like upholstery work and even welding, which she thought was terrifying. We can't wait to see what the car looks like in two years' time, and what new project Kathryn cooks up in the future.

[Image credit: Wikimedia]

Hey 308, nice to see another East TN Fiero owner up here...but...That thread is right here on PFF.

Robert

The thread for this build is here: https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/085309.html

Nice to see youth doing something good with their time. Go Kathryn

There was also an article about her on Jalopnik: http://jalopnik.com/5901950...or-her-sweet-sixteen
And the thread mentioning it: https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/088971.html

[This message has been edited by Formula88 (edited 04-17-2012).]

That's not the same car. The one in her thread is a black-ish aero notchie ('86 SE?).....if it were this white Formula then there wouldn't be much work to do to it!

LOL! This thread is EVERYWHERE.... So much positive reaction to our little 14 yr old Pennock :-)

First Jalopnik, then Yahoo, Now MSN.

Me needs more servers!

quote Originally posted by mrfiero: That's not the same car. The one in her thread is a black-ish aero notchie ('86 SE?).....if it were this white Formula then there wouldn't be much work to do to it!

They just used a random picture of a Fiero they found on the Internet, with more explicit allowance for re-use, probably to be legally smart about it.

quote Originally posted by dobey: They just used a random picture of a Fiero they found on the Internet, with more explicit allowance for re-use, probably to be legally smart about it.

Ironically the picture belongs to a forum member here...

Yet another site linking to the thread: autoblog.gr

Wow cool, I had seen the thread but didn't know the media covered it. A note about the pic being of a white one. At the bottom it says : "[Image credit: Wikimedia]"
I think they just used a stock image of any Fiero for their story.

[This message has been edited by 2.5 (edited 04-18-2012).]

The fiero was before my time too im about to turn 21..i am just into classic cars as is but id much rather have my fiero than some japanese car these are nice collectable sports cars in my opinion

And one more: The Mary Sue

quote Originally posted by css9450: Ironically the picture belongs to a forum member here...

Perhaps, but it was pulled from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fiero88.JPG

There it says it was explicitly released into the public domain, meaning they have some legal grounds to reuse it in their article. And if it hasn't been, then the blame gets pushed down the line and Yahoo! is in the clear.

Thanks all for keeping us in the loop. We are trying to keep track of where it appears and things for Kathryn's scrap book.

-MH

I simply never expected this to take off!!
I just thought hey I'm re-building a car as a daddy/daughter/mom project!
Thanks for the updates and all the support....sorry if the server is still crashing.
I will be welding in my trunk this week..Yay!
-kathryn

quote Originally posted by kathryn: I simply never expected this to take off!! I just thought hey I'm re-building a car as a daddy/daughter/mom project! Thanks for the updates and all the support....sorry if the server is still crashing. I will be welding in my trunk this week..Yay! -kathryn

So how does it feel to be famous all of a sudden? Bet the kids at school are going to be talking about this for a long time to come.

quote Originally posted by dobey: They just used a random picture of a Fiero they found on the Internet, with more explicit allowance for re-use, probably to be legally smart about it.

OK......but the first sentence says "It's been two years since 14-year-old Kathryn started restoring an '88 Pontiac Fiero".


It's just odd that they would get that wrong.....I mean the PFF thread about it says it's an '86 and even has a picture of it too. I guess lazy journalism irritates me.

Nice to see this story making the rounds though......the more people reading about it the better!

She made MSN's mainpage!!! Under the MSN Now section.

http://now.msn.com/money/04...-restores-fiero.aspx

[This message has been edited by johnyrottin (edited 04-18-2012).]

quote Originally posted by mrfiero: OK......but the first sentence says "It's been two years since 14-year-old Kathryn started restoring an '88 Pontiac Fiero". It's just odd that they would get that wrong.....I mean the PFF thread about it says it's an '86 and even has a picture of it too. I guess lazy journalism irritates me. Nice to see this story making the rounds though......the more people reading about it the better!

Well I never said the "journalist" who wrote the story wasn't lazy and did an impeccable job at the research. The number of spelling and grammar mistakes I see "journalists" making on stories posted on web sites you'd think should be respectable, is just ridiculous.

Houston, we've gone viral!

If this hits Fark, Cliff's servers will spontaneously combust.

quote Originally posted by Formula88: Houston, we've gone viral! If this hits Fark, Cliff's servers will spontaneously combust.

It has already hit digg. Pretty crazy all this from one email to Jalopnik about the thread. Cliff should add a couple of more ads while traffic is so high, help pay the bills.


------------------
--Jeff aka mrfred8
88 Yellow GT

[This message has been edited by mrfred8 (edited 04-18-2012).]

quote Originally posted by Synthesis: So how does it feel to be famous all of a sudden? Bet the kids at school are going to be talking about this for a long time to come.

For those of you that have talked with Kathryn, you'll know that what she has been freaking out about the most, is the kids at school...lol!

-MH

quote Originally posted by kathryn: I simply never expected this to take off!! I just thought hey I'm re-building a car as a daddy/daughter/mom project! Thanks for the updates and all the support....sorry if the server is still crashing. I will be welding in my trunk this week..Yay! -kathryn

You're going viral!

I saw a link to it on The Wall Street Journal's "topic" page.

And we all can say that we met her BEFORE she was famous. When I'm interviewed I going to tell them how her posts on The Forum haven't changed one bit. However, I did hear she's considering raising her baby sitting fees to fund her Fiero habit.

Too bad I can't see how many visitors were here yesterday at the same time. The "number of visitors" on the main forum page only counts the people that visit that same main page. And because all people were directly linked to Kathryn's thread, they weren't counted as "online".

So for now the record of max visitors online is still 233 (while yesterday probably a few thousand were here at the same time), but I've changed it so that now it also counts people who only visit a thread.

quote Originally posted by Cliff Pennock: Too bad I can't see how many visitors were here yesterday at the same time. The "number of visitors" on the main forum page only counts the people that visit that same main page. And because all people were directly linked to Kathryn's thread, they weren't counted as "online".

You don't have server logs with some analysis tool like analog or anything?

There are currently 246 users browsing the forum (54 members, 192 visitors).

192 Visitors... I'd bet 190 of those are here for Kathryn's thread.

quote Originally posted by dobey: You don't have server logs with some analysis tool like analog or anything?

Actually, I thought of that yesterday - to run the member count program on my logs. It takes only a small adjustment to the program.