this is the story of a car so
groundbreaking an unconventional that
Guy Fieri changed his name in its honor
before that he was known as Steve Fieri
it's America's only mass-produced
mid-engine car until next year perhaps
the most 80s looking car ever built and
it might have caught on fire one or two
times get your plastic body panels
blocky GM interiors and fiberglass body
kits ready because this is everything
you need to know to get up to speed on
the Pontiac visionaries at General
Motors have been trying to build a
sports car like the Fiero for decades
but they were blocked at every turn back
when Chevy was designing the Stingray
Corvette lead designer Zora arkus-duntov
had plans for the car to be mid-engine
much like the European cars that
inspired it but GM squashed that idea
shortly after that John DeLorean was
working on one Pontiac project that
would take off the GTO he was assisted
by a young man named hulky Aldi cactii
this was the dude who would later lead
the Fiero team guys I'm really bad at
pronouncing names I'm doing a GM car and
I gotta say a dude's name that's really
hard to pronounce the young designers
who thought up the Fiero concept were a
new breed they were scrappy and wanted
to build some really cool stuff now this
was a problem because the bigwigs at GM
were a bunch of dinosaur squares who
didn't really like building cool stuff
you see by the late 70s muscle cars were
basically all gone and GM management was
content with sitting back and selling
cars by virtue of being the biggest
manufacturer in the world
that's called brand recognition you know
how beats by dre aren't even that good
but everyone buys them anyway brand
recognition coasting on brand
recognition was going pretty well for GM
until overseas rivals like VW Honda and
Toyota started building factories in the
US before the US automakers were
protected by tariffs GM management was
getting skirt they were losing sales to
foreign
editor's and their old doctrine wasn't
gonna change that it was time to build
some new stuff some cool new stuff maybe
those guys down at Pontiac have some
ideas maybe are you gonna finish your
apple sauce no you can't have it well
Jim were making the cause oh the team
first pitched the Fiero as an
italian-inspired sports car with
blistering performance to match an
American stiletto worthy of sharing a
garage with Ferraris Lamborghinis and
bushes sounds pretty sweet right well GM
didn't think so they didn't have the
cash for that GM management told them
that they needed something
fuel-efficient the gas crisis had taken
its toll and buyers wanted a car that
would get good mileage
to lead the project GM grabbed our
friend Hulk II and said here you do this
now hulkees leadership style was
unconventional with MGM it was typical
for car engineers to send over
blueprints only to have them sent back
by the manufacturing guys with notes
like this literally cannot be built with
today's technology and then a project
would die Hulk II didn't want that that
would make Ulchi angry and you would
like when Hulk using speaking of hokey
how about Hulk smash that like button
for the first time at GM the Fiero team
would be a single group of car and
manufacturing engineers working side by
side management set the budget cap for
the cars entire development at 400
million dollars now that sounds like a
lot but in the auto manufacturing world
it's not this tiny budget would be the
source of every problem in the FIH eras
lifespan to save money on development
the Fiero would use pieces from GM's
extensive parts catalog the front
suspension was borrowed from the Chevy
Chevette and the rear suspension was
repurposed front suspension from the
pontiac phoenix mounted a backwards
originally the Fiera was devised with an
all aluminum high compression v6 but
because of their budget that was out of
the question to get an engine the team
had to dive back into the part spin like
screw
duck what they jag out was a GM stand by
the iron Duke in line for
as the name suggests the engine block
and head were both made of iron it had
fairly low compression and didn't really
like to be wrung out not exactly what
you want in a sports car but just
because hulky and the Fiero team had to
borrow a few parts don't think for a
second that they weren't gonna try to
innovate a little the Fiero space frame
was a tubular chassis made of 280
separate pieces of steel weighing in at
just 600 pounds what made the Fiero
different though is that the bodywork
was unstressed
oh I almost forgot finally after five
years of development the Pontiac Fiero
went on sale for the 1984 model year
despite the less than ideal parts been
suspension critics praised the pierrots
mid-engine balance even saying that the
car felt like it was on Rails which is
like the best thing that journalists can
think of to describe a car that handles
well
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the upgraded Fiera se had stiffer
springs and shocks as well as sticky
Goodyear Eagle GT tires the Iron Duke
engine was underpowered to say the least
pumping out a paltry 9282 did deliver on
the promise of a good fuel economy with
an independently confirmed 50 mile per
gallon highway rating that's insane
most cars today can't do that including
hybrids but the good mileage couldn't
hide one of the iron Dukes fatal flaws
in its stock configuration the tall oil
pan meant the engine set too high in the
engine bay which dramatically raised the
Fiero center of gravity to remedy this
the team engineered a new oil pan that
was about an inch shorter this solved
the engine placement problem but created
a new one the engine ran with less oil
now I'm no expert okay but one thing I
know about engines they need oil now
this wasn't a problem if you kept up on
regular maintenance every car burns a
little bit of oil as you're driving
around but says the Fiero was already
running at a deficit once enough oil had
burned away the resulting friction
created a ton of heat combine this with
smaller problems like oil and coolant
leaking onto the superhot exhaust header
and you have a recipe for engine fires
burning Fiero Autoweek magazine reported
that roughly 20% of 1984 Vieira's
experienced an engine fire I'm no
mathematician but 20% of your car's
catching on fire is way too many of your
cars because you got fire I just want to
point out that a car that kept catching
on fire was named the Fiero
which is italian for a car that catches
on fire in 1985 10 years before post
Malone was born the Fiero got the v6
engine it deserved which allowed it to
perform more closely to how it looked no
longer was the Fiero just a commuter but
a sporty ER commuter
the beefier 2.8 liter v6 made a decent
130 horsepower and was bolted and
knotted to a four-speed manual
transmission the next year bought and
released the Fiero GT it had an upgraded
get track design Muncie built five-speed
power disc brakes at all four corners
thick diamond spoke wheels dual exhaust
and completely revised bodywork that
made the Fiero look like a little baby
Ferrari if your stepdads name is Dwayne
and his favorite band is Boston this is
his dream car
in 1987 GM finally recalled all those 84
Fieros that were Catching Fire Pontiac
had to repair 125,000 cars to make sure
that none of them would catch fire again
just as it was getting good the
large-scale recall cast the Fieros
reputation into the shadow of flames
forever
the recall was just in time for the
release of the revised 1988 Fiero GT
instead of parts bin suspension the GT
finally had the setup the Fiero team had
been fighting for since the beginning
the front had completely redesigned
control arms that made it easier to
steer and in the rear was a super legit
try link setup
the engine also received a balanced
crank which made it more efficient and
gave it smoother power delivery
unfortunately the GT spinal form
wasn't enough 1988 was the last year for
Fiera production since then the Fiero
has experienced a rebirth from the ashes
Fiero to phoenix rising from the grave
not from the assembly line but from the
blood and sweat of enthusiasts all over
the country while some people remember
the Fiero with engine fire memes and
unfair stereotypes it's important to
acknowledge that the Fiero is easily one
of GM's most groundbreaking cars if they
had given Pontiac enough money to build
it correctly from the beginning we would
definitely remember it differently
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