By now, it should be 2001 everywhere so Happy New Year to you all!This also means that PFF almost celebrates its 2nd birthday on Jan. 13th! For those of you that are not yet familiar with PFF's history, here's the story.
It actually started way back in 1986 when - during a vacation in Pittsburgh - I saw a Fiero for the very first time (I still have a picture of me and that car). I fell in love instantly with this small sportscar. I never cared much for most european sportscars (Porsche, Ferrari) except maybe for the Lotus. My mind was made up then: I wanted that car. Back in Holland I found nobody ever heared of the car.
It was three years later that my job (as co-owner of a computer company) required me to move to the States for a about a year. The job was in San Antonio TX and although my appartment was at walking distance from the office, I needed a means of transportation to get around town. This was my chance to get a Fiero and I bought all kinds of car magazines to find "the right one".
At the time, I was unaware of all the different models out there and as far as I knew there were only two models: the original model and the model with the altered nose.
Within a few days, I found a black 85 GT Notchback for about $3000. It had around 80,000 miles on it and according to the guy selling it, it was otherwise in perfect condition (which it was). I bought it, added a rear wing and enjoyed it immensly during my stay in San Antonio. When it was time to go back to Holland I decided to take the car with me. This turned out to be very expensive. Shipping alone was $2000 and in Holland, I had to pay an extra $7000 on import-taxes. On top of that I had to pay 19.5% salestax on the entire amount. At the end, I almost paid $15,000 for it. The dutch customs office also told me it was the 15th Fiero ever imported in Holland.
I know $15,000 sounds like a lot but cars are incredibly expensive in Europe. $15,000 buys you a small mid-class car here. And this was a unique car. So unique in fact, that I got several offers from people that wanted to buy it from me. Some people went as high as $25,000. But I didn't want to sell it and I'm glad I didn't.
A few years later, my life took a turn for the worst and I had to sell my Fiero. I wouldn't own a Fiero for another 4 years.
A lot happened during those 4 years: I got my life back together and met the woman whom - as most of you know - is now my wife-to-be. 
In 1996, my current company wrote some software for a car dealer. When the invoice was send, it turned out he wasn't doing very well and wasn't able to pay me. He offered me to pick a car instead. Much to my suprise, he had a 1984 Fiero 4-banger. It was in terrible condition and he had much better cars he could offer me, but I went for the Fiero instead. It took me a year to rebuild it to almost perfect condition. During its last repair I noticed the garage (where I had all my repairs done) had an 86.5 GT for sale. It too was in almost perfect condition and it took me about 5 minutes before I decided to sell the '84 and buy the 86.5 GT. That's the car I currently own and my daily driver.
I searched the internet for information on the Fiero and soon found myself on one of those Fiero mailing lists. This had his pros and cons. I truly disliked the fact that my mailbox was cluttered with mail each day. I equally disliked the fact that a lot of those emails where nothing more than childish flame-wars. But I was truly disgusted about the fact that the moderator didn't allow for anything slightly off-topic. People were kicked off the list left and right for asking (imho) valid questions.
That's when I got the idea for PFF. At that time, my company just started selling the FDD-X1 (digital dash) and it would also be a good place for people to ask questions about that. The FDD-X1 section was taken off later after it was clear it could take a few more years before we actually started selling it in the States.
I never expected it to be so successful. But for some reason people started to "spread the word". Within 3 months, PFF celebrated its 100th member. I think it's mostly because from the start there were some very knowledgeable people hanging around here. Of course theogre is someone who pops to mind. There were also a lot of people who kept the tone of PFF informal and made it a fun place to visit. Monkeyman certainly needs to be mentioned in this respect. 
But if I need to list the names of all the people that made PFF a success, I need to list almost 1800 names here - since that is the number of members PFF has grown to!
Flamewars have been rare indeed - showing that a discussion forum with very loose moderation does work. Nevertheless, I spend at least 2 hours each and every day on the forum. But I do this with much pleasure - thanks to you all!
Some interesting facts:
- PFF is 780Mb of pure Fiero-related information.
- Since the beginning, 15,763 threads were started.
- This totals to 125,187 posted messages.
- Since image-posting was allowed, 4,699 images were posted.
- This totals to 283Mb.
- The top-three posters are Monkeyman (4,461 posts), theogre (3,628 posts) and batboy (3,133 posts).
- PFF receives about 18,000 page views per day.
- Number of banner-advertisements shown so far: 0
Here are the three official PFF logos used (in chronological order):
Anyway, I wish you all a wonderful and fierocious 2001!
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