According to the book on fieros written by Gary Witzenburg: "Yet fairly late in the program no on could agree on to what to call the car.Sprint had been one possibilty.The designers and a lot of other Pontiac people favored Pegasus,an old Pontiac showcar name.One designer in Bill Scott's studio,Jon Albert,even took it upon himself to create and emblem showcasing the winged horse from mythology.Jon's design was so good that it eventually became the P-car's badge even though the Pegasus name didn't fly
Pontiac rejected Pegasus,according to Bill Hoglund, because most people mispronounced the name.They put the accent on the second syllable(Peg-GAS-sus)instead of the first PEG-ga-sus)."So we had a big,huge name study,"relates Hoglund,"and finally came up with Sunfire.We figured we had the name!
Then one day I got a call from a janitor at the assembly plant named Clavin Queen."Calvin said it's the greatest car,but everyone thinks the Sunfire name is awful."What's wrong with it?It is old fashion ,he said, and that car is too new and fun and fresh to have that tired old fashion old Pontiac name on it."
"Finally we said ,Okay,let's setup a meeting.Bring everyname you want and we won't leave the room until we all can agree on one name."
Before that meeting took place though,Pontiac chief designer John Schinella came up with Fiamma."It means first love of the heart:flame excitement,in Italian",he realtes.One night Sergio Pininfarina,the Italian designer, was in town,so we went to dinner,and later hadhim over to my house.I showed him slides of the car and a list of Italian names and ,after much discussion and a sorting out of phonetics,we felt Fiamma best suited the spirit of the car.
"Everybody liked it until they took it to the dealer council, and then Bill Lane and Holund called me and said John,we just can't use that name.The dealer council doesn't like it at all.I said"What's the matter with it?" Lane said,They just ought to think it should be called Firebird XP or something similar."
"In the studio ,we all felt that an Italian name was very appropriate,esp with a few of us being of Italian descent.That next Saturday ,while thumbing through the Italian dictionary at home,my wife,Roxann,came into my home studio and asked why I was so quiet.I replied that we had lost the Fiamma name,and I mentioed that some of us were disappointed,but we still wanted to persue a new Italian name.
"Then almost immediately,I tripped on the word,fiero!I said,Hmmn,that sounds interseting.My wife asked what it meant.I told her,it means very proud."And we both agreed that was the right name.
"Hoglund was about to have this big meeting to decide on a name.I called it The Last Supper,because we were all going to go into this room,about 12 of us,and lock the door,and we couldn't leave until we had a name.
" Before the meeting,I started calling some of my supporters.Hulki didn't seem to care one way or another,although he wanted a Turkish name.Jim Fitzpatrick,the comptroller and a real Design staff supporter,liked it.So did (executive designer)Hank Haga and Pontiac interior design chief Bill Scott.
Bill Hoglund picks up the story here:So we got to that meeting .We invited everyone who had anything to do with the car:Hulki Schinella,Scott,manufacuring guys,sales guys,the whole staff.They'd submitted names before to planning,so we put them all on a wall.The first process was .Okay,each guy can choose his fav,and he had 5 min to sell it.We went around the table,and got the list to five.Then we got it down to three:Fiamma,Sunfire and Fiero.Fiamma was considered too sleek.Sunfire sounded too old.But Fiero was just right"
reprinted without permission from the book hope it doesn't offend him.Go get the book Fiero by Gary Witzenburg great book lot of interesting facts.Oh yea p3000 was also considered.Hope this helps
