I have long suspected that if it weren’t for John DeLorean, there would have been no Fiero.
John DeLorean quit GM in 1973, founded the Delorean Motor Company in 1975, reportedly vowing to show GM how to build cars. He began production of his DMC-12 in 1981. He was out of business by the end of 1982.
It takes years to develop a new car, more if the car is unusual like the Fiero or the Delorean, so I believe that the development of the Fiero had to have begun before Delorean’s car reach production. The decision for the go ahead on this development may have been driven to some extent by rivalry felt by his former cohorts at GM.
Lotus was hired by Delorean to develop his car and they tried in vain to get him adopt a mid engine layout and incorporate retractable headlights so that the front wouldn’t have to be so high. He wouldn’t listen.
I think GM, a share holder in Lotus at the time, did listen.
John Delorean’s faith in the market for a car like his likely gave GM executive food for thought. Throw in the rivalry factor and voila.
Less than 12 months after DMC whet bust the Fiero hit the dealer showrooms.
Four and a half years after that, with the point made and John Delorean humiliatingly defeated, the Fiero was canceled.

If you squint your eyes, the Fiero and Delorean appear to be very similar

The Deloreans even had a 2.8 liter V-6.
At what event was this photo taken?

quote Originally posted by gem1138: The Deloreans even had a 2.8 liter V-6. At what event was this photo taken?

they have a pegeut 2.8 V6

quote Originally posted by pontiackid86: they have a pegeut 2.8 V6

I thought it was a Volvo 2.8 V6?

Edit: Apparently it was both?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRV_engine

[This message has been edited by Silicoan86 (edited 06-11-2009).]

PRV....2.8V6

Peugeut / Renault / Volvo

They are french automobile companies...but Volvo is swedish...

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fierogt28

88 GT, loaded, 5-speed

[This message has been edited by fierogt28 (edited 06-11-2009).]

I think Gary Wittezenburg's book on the Fiero tells the story very well. I don't think you can give John Z much credit for the Fiero unless you can say he planted the seed in a few people that were in future product planning. The time was right for an economical 2 seater. That is how they sold GM on the car and that is what they built. The public loved the car from the start and thought that the styling said go faster so it evolved and GM killed it mostly for the declining market share in such a small segment of the automotive pie. We could not give then away in late 87 and 88 as the dealers quit taking orders with inventory backlogs so production was slowed to a crawl. It was a far cry from 84 when it took weeks to get a Fiero ordered and on the ground when demand was high and the Fiero was about the only 2 seater on the market. In 88 I could drop an order in the system and have it on the West coast in 11 days. The factory was desperate for production. At the time cancelling the car was the right thing to do. Yeah there were hurt feelings within Pontiac at the time and you can blame Chevy blah blah and all that but it was numbers

Delorean was full of himself and without others to control his maverick style of decision making he was destined for failure.

I've read his book and the unofficial one which both make interesting reading of his life and times in the auto business. Interesting man but not very disciplined.

quote Originally posted by gem1138: At what event was this photo taken?

The Lone Star Fiero club in Houston had a gather at the Delorean Motor Company Facility in Houston.

That place is the final resting home to all the spare parts from the Northern Ireland DMC plant. They have enough NOS parts still in the crates to build tens of thousands of Deloreans.

Unfortunately they are not allowed to create VINs so they have to start with a title and VIN plate which means a DMC-12 has to die for them to build a new one.

quote Originally posted by jscott1:That place is the final resting home to all the spare parts from the Northern Ireland DMC plant. They have enough NOS parts still in the crates to build tens of thousands of Deloreans.

A friend of mine with a Delorean told me that they are actually out of driver's side fenders. He got in a wreck and had to get a used one refurbished.

[This message has been edited by Rolling Thunder (edited 06-12-2009).]

what about doors? :X

quote Originally posted by hookdonspeed: what about doors? :X

I don't know about the driver's fenders, but they have doors coming out the wazoo. They told me they commissioned a new run of doors because it's one of the more difficult parts and most distinctive.

[This message has been edited by jscott1 (edited 06-12-2009).]

It's nice to see the DeLorean make a comeback. That put a smile on my face, no question. I seen 1 Delorean in my life and it had 5000km on it. For sale for 35,900$. Basically, it was brand new. But that was in 1995. I'll never forget that day when I seen it. It was at a special exotic sports car dealer in Montreal, QC. It was a 83 DeLorean.

Anyways, that car was my first dream car I wanted. Moreless you have to have money to own one as the only place to get parts are through DMC in Houston and other branches.

The fiero to me was a cheaper car that had / has the looks of a nice mid-engine lay-out. Plus engine swaps for the fiero are dime a dozen. You can do many things to them.

As I never thought one day a new delorean would be assembled, we are seeing it come back and not dieing. That's the best part.

As JScott posted, one day I'd like to see that warehouse in Texas. Looks like a nice place to see a part of history.

I don't think we'll ever see new fiero parts stacked up like that warehouse...

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fierogt28

88 GT, loaded, 5-speed

I've always thought the Fiero looks like a DeLorean and a 3rd Gen Trans AM in one. It's almost like a balance of the two. The Trans AM is front engined, the DeLorean is rear engined and the Fiero has the balance of being mid-engined.

There's a fair few comments about these cars (especially the silver ones) looking like a "mini-DeLorean".

I haven't got a side by side picture of my Fiero and my friend's DeLorean Time Machine replica but I will soon. For now I've got these two similar pictures.






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James

1987 Pontiac Fiero GT (RHD)

[This message has been edited by James_GT (edited 06-13-2009).]

quote Originally posted by gem1138: I have long suspected that if it weren’t for John DeLorean, there would have been no Fiero. John DeLorean quit GM in 1973, founded the Delorean Motor Company in 1975, reportedly vowing to show GM how to build cars. He began production of his DMC-12 in 1981. He was out of business by the end of 1982. It takes years to develop a new car, more if the car is unusual like the Fiero or the Delorean, so I believe that the development of the Fiero had to have begun before Delorean’s car reach production. The decision for the go ahead on this development may have been driven to some extent by rivalry felt by his former cohorts at GM. Lotus was hired by Delorean to develop his car and they tried in vain to get him adopt a mid engine layout and incorporate retractable headlights so that the front wouldn’t have to be so high. He wouldn’t listen. I think GM, a share holder in Lotus at the time, did listen. John Delorean’s faith in the market for a car like his likely gave GM executive food for thought. Throw in the rivalry factor and voila. Less than 12 months after DMC whet bust the Fiero hit the dealer showrooms. Four and a half years after that, with the point made and John Delorean humiliatingly defeated, the Fiero was canceled.

John had nothing to do with the Fiero other than plant the seed of a 2 seater ay Pontiac.

John did oversee a 2 seat Firebird called a Firebired FIero Show car around 1968-69.

The roots of the Fiero were mainly in the mid 70's with GM engineering at the tech center. They went to Chevy with a proposed mid engine two seater with a V6 as a proposed early 80's Vette [nbote the V8 was predicted to die at this time].

The Chevy product planners and Vette team rejected the car as they were wanting to keep the Vette front engined and a v8 Two badges of honnor for most vett owners.

The proposal layed around GM engineering and was presented to Pontiac when they were looking into doing the Fiero. The Pontiac staff wanted a low cowl lower than the EXP Ford and Mid engine would not be hard to do with the new X car layout and lower the cowl. The Pontiac team adopted the engineers concept and made it work for their car. This info is presented in the book Inside the Corvette.

The Fiero concept was pretty much nailed down by Sept 1980. I have the story in a Cars Magazine on the new two seat little GTO. They discribe the proposed Fiero and they nailed it in the story with hideaway headlights, mid engine 4 cylinder and even the type and make up of the plastic body panels.

ALso note Colin Chapman did the work with Delorean. He over saw the project and GM was pretty much not in the picture at this point. Even when they gained control of Lotus the engineering side of the company was doing work that was not shared outside the companies paying for the work. As an engineering arm just as Porsches keeping information secure on other projects was very important other wise they would not get work. It remains the same today even as Lotus engineering has done work on the Ecotech Turbo engines for GM.

As for the end of the car it died due to it being in a plant that was undercapacity due to the canceltion of the FWD GM 80 F body replacment car. Chevy also felt threatedned as the Vette has never been a lock to make it to a next gen. At the time GM was already cash poor and the Vette had to pay its way to remain in production. After the intro of a new C platform sales ten to drop and there have been times if any more sales were lost the Vette could have died. THe Fiero was seen as a threat as they need sales and their price climbed.

The final year the Fiero was selling about what they expected it to sell after they over sold the car in the first few years. Pontiac took a risk and lost that there would be onother car to share the plants line and that the Honda CRX, MR2 and other cars where also cutting into the market. On top of this the bad press just made for the perfect storm. THere is so much more that goes with this a book alone on the death of the Fiero could be written.

Untill there is a book on the Fiero there will remain a lot of mis information on the web. False info become Wikipedia facts way too often. Just look at the Fiero/ Lotus suspension lie.

It was sad to see John a very tallented engineer and product guy lose control over his want for a sports car. I was glad to see he finally got his life back together before he died.

Today his book On a Clear Day You Can See GM is a must read. It is book that show the many way GM got to the point it is today. I often wonder if he was able to break GM's system and Bunkie had stayed at GM where they would have been today.

Also a loty of good info in Wangers Book Glory Days and Smokey Yunick autobio. Both cover how much and how hands on John was at GM while those in the GM towers fought his every move because he was bringing change.

Pontiac's first mid-engine compact commuter car experiment was the X4 in early 1969. It was written about in the April 1969 Popular Science. There's one on Ebay here.

quote Originally posted by TopNotch: Pontiac's first mid-engine compact commuter car experiment was the X4 in early 1969. It was written about in the April 1969 Popular Science. There's one on Ebay here.

John Sawruk also had a good follow up story on this car in HPP about a year or two ago. He is in one of the pictures since he worked on it.

The engine was a radial 4 cylinder air cooled engine. Good story.