quote Originally posted by cvxjet: The 1990 Fiero prototype was produced before 1988....basically; Hence the 4th gen F-bodies looked like the Fiero prototype....And that was the GM styling at the time....way too much overhang....I remember thinking the new(1993) Camaro looked like a missile-on-a-roller-skate.....(I actually bought a 1999 Formula, so I have no room to talk!)(In it's defense, the 4th gen was a very good car...) What kind of blows my mind is the 1990 prototype instrument panel....It looks almost exactly like a 4th gen F-bird.....and that car's production was at least 4-5 years in the future....That panel was either a very early pre-production prototype, or once again, a design that was Pontiac-wide, and tho wasn't used in the Fiero, it was transferred to the new Firebird design team after the Fiero's demise. One last thing; I have always wondered why no one has produced a 1990 body kit...It seems like it would be a natural!

Here is the deal per John Schinella the head of design.

He was the one who first showed us the 1990 Fiero photos at the Pontiac MI show back in the 90's when the car was a no show due to GM not letting them bring it out.

He clearly stated that back then that he loved the styling so much "It was too good to throw away". At the time GM of the 1990 Fiero design was being worked on they were working on the GM 80 program that was AWD and FWD to replace the F body. Well it got canceled. It also contributed to the Fiero death as the platform was planned for the same plant as the Fiero to help fill out capacity.

Schinella was left with the need for a new 4th gen F body so they adapted the design over to the new car. It was not just coincidence that they look alike.

The same for the dash panel as it was originally for the 1990 and designed around 1984-1985 and was reused in the new 4th gen F body when the Fiero died.

The 1990 model really was more what they wanted in 1984 and much of the work began on it in 84-85 if not earlier. I have a drawing of just the emblem for it and it is dated 85-86. Back then new cars worked in 5-7 year cycled to develop and it was around much longer than people realize in development.

As for kits. That has been covered many times. There is no way to pull molds from the original cars is one issue. Second the cost of it would not be cheap. Finally so few would be sold it would not make any money. Even back in the day most body kit made little to no money and that is why so few lasted or are even remembered today. To make one it would be done only for the love of it and the Fiero people are just not usually financially able to just do it for love only.

At this point enjoy the one we have.

Note the C pillars are painted black. Originally they were transparent and you could see through them. They broke and were repaired and painted to cover the repair.

The GTA emblem on the nose is only there to fill the holes. GM does not have the original emblem on it. As of now I know of only three and there may be a 4th out there I have not officially confirmed yet.

Also I am not sure what they did on the suspension. Some versions show the prototype plastic wheels on the car. They are the silver ones. And then the wheels today are a more standard offset wheel much like the Firebird had. I am not sure how they did this and make both off sets work. The positive offset plastic wheels were mostly on clay versions so they may have just stuck them on there in the right spot and worked around them.

But in the end the Fiero design did live on as it really was adapted to the 4 gen F body and was not a by chance thing. This is a very documented point from the guy who oversaw both programs.

Thanks for the info and clarifications....Just wonder "What might have been".....A few more years of production would have changed the Fiero's legacy so much!

quote Originally posted by cvxjet: Thanks for the info and clarifications....Just wonder "What might have been".....A few more years of production would have changed the Fiero's legacy so much!

The truth is the odds were against the future on the Fiero in more than one way.

The real reason it died was not just the Fires and Recalls but the fact Chevy and Corvette people were worried about losing sales to a lower priced model while they were having a hard time making a business case for their own car with falling sales.

As Johns Schinella pointed out to us at the dinner Chevy sells more cars so they get more say with GM. They pointed out that the plant was able to build 250K cars and were only doing 30K. The truth is 30K was what Pontiac expected sales to fall to when the GM 80 program was moved into the plant to fill out capacity.

Well the GM 80 was killed when the Ford Probe was move to be a new model and not replace the Mustang forcing GM to rethink the FWD AWD GM80 and move to a 4th gen F body. This is why they reused the FIero styling to save money, time and Schinella liked it.

The plant was left way under capacity as Chevy pointed out and the program was killed.

Now many on the Fiero program only expected 5 years and anything more was a bonus as I was told by one. They over sold the car the first too years it left few people to buy the car as 2 seat cars are limited sales as not everyone can live with only two seats or afford the 2nd or 3rd car. Most 2 seat cars sell in much lower numbers like the Miata that in North America sells between 8K-18K depending on the newness of the design. Pontiac told GM they could sell 100K units and they only said that to buy time for a car that never arrived in the GM 80. At that point you had in two years around 200,000 Fieros around and not many buyers left to buy a new one. Even a new model would have bought some time but not much.

The Fiero had nothing to share the plant and the gamble did not pay off.

We also need to remember GM did not just go broke in 2008 as it was going on for a long time. in the early 80's Pontiac was a dead man walking with poor sales and few exciting cars. They lost their V8 in 79 then they lost their full size Bonneville force to rename the Le mans a Bonneville. Olds was going strong on the RWD Cutlass and were not in trouble.

Most 2 seat cars last only 5-10 years if you look at the RX7, 300z, 280z, MR2 died twice, RX8 , Del Sol and others lived short lives as people tend to buy these cars and do not repeat as they change so little. Since they bring in little money updates are limited for most.

Now what the Fiero did do was with the Firebird they brought people back to the dealers and help make the Grand Am one of the top selling cars at GM. It saved Pontiac as when the Cutlass went FWD Pontiac became stronger and lived on longer. Old faded fast.

GM did not understand Pontiac as it was an engineers division. They did not know how and what to do with many Pontiac cars. In the end when Lutz arrived he said how can you have a performance division with no RWD cars?
It was too late to save by the time he arrived as they had no global sales.

To be honest The Fiero if it had lived may have only lasted 2-5 more years at best. The only two seat cars that show much long life is the Corvette and Miata. The Corvette is like a Cult but even with them they have had close calls. The Miata has lived on with global sales and limited sales in each market with many special paint and wheel editions over the years. It also appealed to women more than most sports cars and they buy half the cars in America.

There are other details and issues but time and space is limited here. A lot of union politics and a Pontiac leader in Losh who really did not care did not help either.

I know some don't want to believe it but the Fiero was not going to live much longer. History of most 2 seat cars point this out and the limited sales of 2 seat cars even like the Solstice bear this out. If Pontiac had lived the Solstice may have only had 1-2 years left with falling sales and little profit.

The low price sports car segment is a tough one as there is little money in it and today it is not just about making money but making the most money you can per dollar invested. Even cars selling 50K units making some money die to be replaced with a SUV that makes more money and sells 250K units per year.

This is really big picture stuff and many at GM refuse to talk or if they do they do it quietly and the real story never really gets told.

[This message has been edited by hyperv6 (edited 10-26-2016).]

quote Originally posted by WingNut - MD: BUMP Keeping this one relevant. Nice to see this is still in the General Forum and not archived.

Do threads even get archived anymore? Forum traffic has slowed considerably and server memory cheap. Just curious.

I have to chuckle at the 56K warning in the title

[This message has been edited by jscott1 (edited 10-27-2016).]

quote Originally posted by cvxjet: One last thing; I have always wondered why no one has produced a 1990 body kit...It seems like it would be a natural!

It be easier to take a 1992 gta and put the 88-89 notch decklid on it and cut a 85-88 fiero bumpercover to fit..
As that is all that 90 fiero looks like..

quote Originally posted by E.Furgal: I'm sure much is true, but you left the real problem off the table.. 1) chevy pointed out the under useage of the factory, as they wanted one.. and Pontiac would not play ball, and IS the reason the reborn f-body does not have any clones.. You say, Pontiac was dead by 2010, yup but they never even worked on a twin.. And Buick wanted one and call it Skyhawk .. 2) The vette.. yup g.m.'s flagship.. but was NOT the reason.. g.m. has handicapped vehicles for that flagship for decades and would've here also.. see #1 3) pricing.. The fiero true fate laid in the pricing.. a loaded med. red metallic (extra charge) 88 gt was 18000.oo (17800.oo if you want to split hairs) You could get mustang gt's for less.. heck you could get a 88 formula firebird for less.. They did this same thing to the 4th gen f body in 2000-02 where a WS6 t/a was over 31k.. and dealers asking more as the stick-shift models where limited . The pricing was way out of line,, This killed them more than anything else.. A Pontiac g/p, monte Ss , a firebird/etc or a fiero for the same money? And the firebird formula smoked it in speed and handling.. and by 88 it was well known how easy it was to get 1g out of the 3rd gen.. If the Fiero was priced at 13k and the mustang and f-body was 17K ya, it have sold.. but that was not the case.. 4) the economy was in the dumpster in the late 80's.. fun cars took a big hit because of this..

#1 Well Chevy was offered the Fiero platform in the beginning but was refused. Later on they were offered it and rejected it. At that point they had no real want to save the platform.

As for the 4th gen Camaro GM was out of money and by the time the 4th gen died due to the inability to pass the new crash standards it was never approved. Also Pontiac did have a program for the Holden based model and it was going to be a new GTO. But GM stopped Lutz due to poor sales of the first one and the fact Pontiac was going to die due to the fact GM was recieving the last nail in the bankruptcy coffin. They were broke and knew Pontiac was gone before many in the public sector could grasp it. The Buick never was a real consideration.

#2 Flag ship or not the Corvette has to make a buisness case just as any other car and Chevy fights any threats any way they can. The Corvette was killed in the 1990 and saved by Russ Mclean as he ignored the order. https://www.yahoo.com/news/...297778068758582.html It killed his career at GM but when he continued with the C6 it saved the car. Things were that bad for GM and the Vette in the late 80's and 90's.

#3 Yes the price was going up but so was the performance with the new model. The plans were to take on the Corvette at about half the cost. Pontiac still could easily move the 25K-30K units expected but they needed more in the plant.

#4 When is the economy never a factor Captain Obvious?

While there is some truth to what you say most of these points are just general automotive issues all cars face and nothing specific to the Fiero. You can argue with my info but it all came from people from the Fiero progam and a couple from the Corvette program as well as well known documented points of Fiero history.

I did leave out much about how Pontiac stepped on many toes as they refused to kill the car when ordered. I could cover more about the broken deal with the UAW that led to bad blood with Pontiac, GM and the Union.

There is much more but the simple fact is Chevy wanted it dead so it was killed. I have held and read the paperwork that was used at the meeting pointing out the changed Pontiac was going to do. The GM manager who let me read it said no matter what was offered that day GM and Chevy came in with a plan to kill the car and Losh showed little support for his own people. He was there to control cost and push the new W body cars that did not do all that well to start.

Then the simple fact that most 2 seat cars live short lives. It is just the nature of the business as they are as much a fashion statement as they are are a car. Once the new wears off they make little money and are hard to get new money for to redo them when they grow old in 5-10 years. They attract attention but not much in profits as they are not profit centers.

To be honest if not for Bob Lutz the Solstice is a miracle it was ever build. But it too was too late to save. Lutz tried to save Pontiac but the lack of global sales killed it.

For some the truth is hard to accept but it is what it is. While you points hold some truth they were not major players in the death of this car. Or at least not so to those where there and involved in the program.

[This message has been edited by hyperv6 (edited 10-27-2016).]

I don't think Price was ever a concern for the F-body. Have you priced out a Camaro lately. The top of the line Camaro costs more than the entry level Corvette. And probably out performs it also.

quote Originally posted by jscott1: I don't think Price was ever a concern for the F-body. Have you priced out a Camaro lately. The top of the line Camaro costs more than the entry level Corvette. And probably out performs it also.

funny, when that wasn't true they sold a ton of them..
as soon as it was priced out of the reach of the market buyer.. it stalled..
pony cars are kids cars,, young adult cars, not for a person that can pay for a caddy..

But when they were not that expensive they did not have dry sump systems and could not lap the Ring in Germany just 2 seconds off a million dollar Porsche either.

But keeping that in mind the V6 model today can be had starting at around $29k and up and it would out run the older V8 model by a good margin. The V6 now will do 13's and the 4 will do 14's in the quarter mile. Add the 1LE package to the V6 and t will lap Virginia Raceway faster than the V8 Mustang GT.

If you look at this you have to take all the facts into perspective.

The other fact is the car is priced to where most buyers are. As time was going on the F bodies were to the point insurance was crazy for anyone under 30. Heck I could afford the Trans Am but ended up with a Fiero as the insurance was off the chart.

The day of reckoning is coming. Anything with a V8 will cost you a lot of money. Regulations are going to make it where most MFG can not sell many V8 models with where the CAFE will be in 2025. While they do not want to stop the V8 they raise the cost to limit sales and cover the cost of the lower volume sales. Why is GM and Ford pushing the Camaro and Mustang 4 and 6 model? Because they have to.

Might also note the truck sales I expect to change too. The V8 may be a 3/4-1 ton option at some point and the half ton may become the mid size trucks as the regulations on the larger trucks are less. Half tons are going to get killed with MPG regs and that is why there is no V8 in the Colorado or coming Ranger trucks.

Finally welcome to 2016. What is cheap anymore. 1/2 ton short bed V8 trucks are $56K, a well optioned Malibu can cost $35K even a AWD Fusion can go $42K. The Ford RS is now $40-42K. The fact is they are all too damn expensive and that is why they all are investing in car sharing companies as it will only get worse.

As for the Pony car it died back in the 80's. These cars are now true GT cars and kids stopped affording them back around 82. If not for purchase price the insurance.

The Pony car was a performance car build on economy car bones. Well back in the 80's all the Economy cars became FWD and these performance cars had to go their own way. The Mustang was just a Falcon and the Camaro was a Nova.

[This message has been edited by hyperv6 (edited 11-01-2016).]

Couple of interesting observations; "Chevy not allowing competition with their flagship Corvette"....The LS7 Z28 was actually competitive/beat the C6/Z06 around some tracks....The Camaro guys were allowed to "Go for it"....

And the insurance thing; When the 1993 Firebird came out I went to check it out- great car, but when I checked with my insurance company, they said it would be $2700....every 6 months! The main reason was that the Camaro/Firebird were an order-of-magnitude worse that the other cars on the top-ten theft list....But the Gen 4 F-bodies had the chip in the key.....So, 6 years later I checked again on a 99 Formula, and the 6 month premium had dropped to $750! The F-bodies had completely dropped off the theft top-ten list....

Always enjoy reading what you write about historical and any automotive related news hyperv6!

quote Originally posted by 2.5: Always enjoy reading what you write about historical and any automotive related news hyperv6!

DITTO!!

quote Originally posted by hyperv6: Finally welcome to 2016. What is cheap anymore. 1/2 ton short bed V8 trucks are $56K, a well optioned Malibu can cost $35K even a AWD Fusion can go $42K. The Ford RS is now $40-42K. The fact is they are all too damn expensive and that is why they all are investing in car sharing companies as it will only get worse.

This is true... I am still driving my ten year old Chevy Avalanche that I spent over $40K on because the replacement 1/2 ton truck would be over $50K. And you're right 1/2 ton trucks are going to disappear into a regulatory doughnut hole between compact trucks and real 3/4 to 1 ton trucks. I don't know what Texas is going to do since every other vehicle here is a 1/2 ton truck.

quote Originally posted by jscott1: Do threads even get archived anymore? Forum traffic has slowed considerably and server memory cheap. Just curious. I have to chuckle at the 56K warning in the title

IDK, that is a great question for Cliff. I've been away for about 5 years. Just bought my car back and have been lurking around.

Yeah the 56K is funny these days, but when I made the original post, it was an issue.

quote Originally posted by jscott1: This is true... I am still driving my ten year old Chevy Avalanche that I spent over $40K on because the replacement 1/2 ton truck would be over $50K. And you're right 1/2 ton trucks are going to disappear into a regulatory doughnut hole between compact trucks and real 3/4 to 1 ton trucks. I don't know what Texas is going to do since every other vehicle here is a 1/2 ton truck.

People will adapt to the smaller trucks and others will just move to the 3/4 ton if they need a full size V8. They are little more expensive but can even be had with the top line trims now. GMC is not offering a 3/4 Denali for nothing.

The makers have to change the way people buy trucks to save the segment from regulation or just out and out cutting a model.

A half ton may be around for a while but they will focus on getting people into the other classes and let the 1/2 ton die out.

Always fun to look back. Bumping this one up to the top.

I'd also like to say hello, as it's been a while since I've been here. Hope all are well.