Scrap

"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury) 07/06/2019 at 10:54 • Filed to: None

2

9

This is the 1 989 Fiero. Three were built, but for some reason apparently all of them were sent to the crusher. Rumor has it that they were more powerful than a Corvette and that was not allowed. They finally got the suspension right and made it look quite good and then not even one makes it to a museum.

WilliamsSW > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 07/06/2019 at 11:03

7

  Yeah, that sounds like standard GM practice all the way through!

GoodIdeaAtTheTime > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 07/06/2019 at 11:20

7

oops. the formula and base car were crushed. The GT survives, it is now red . It comes out for Fiero shows once in a while.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > WilliamsSW 07/06/2019 at 11:23

2

They continued that same trend with the EV1.  I guess we could give them points for being consistent?

WilliamsSW > BaconSandwich is tasty. 07/06/2019 at 11:40

5

GM has always been weird like that, but this time frame was some of their best ( worst) work. They even hired me in 1989. Dummies. 

shop-teacher > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 07/06/2019 at 11:44

1

Grrrrr

for Michigan > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. 07/06/2019 at 12:09

2

Rumor has it that they were more powerful than a Corvette and that was not allowed.

I’ve always been skeptical of this and here’s why:

Of the three protot ypes we are aware of, the most powerful had a prototype LQ1 DOHC 3.4L V6 that eventually made 210 hp when it debuted in various 19 91 W-body models. The Corvette of the time already made 250 hp from its L98 which would be replaced by a 300 hp LT1 in 92 and the 330 hp LT4 in 96.

Even if we believe the rumors that a prototype did exist with a turbo 3800, it would have been a Series I that in supercharged form only made 205 hp whe n it debuted in 1991. Sure a turbo version may have made more power, but even at its peak the L67 SI only made 225 hp, which again is less than even the L98 Corvette which would have been replaced within a year or two of the MkII Fiero’s debut.

Finally, the Fiero was never intended to compete on the same level as the Corvette in the first place. It always competed with the likes of the MR2 and X1/9. In fact, if you look at the way the MR2 developed as it entered its second generation, the parallels with what we know about the MkII Fiero are striking. The styling evolved in the same way, t he Quad 4 ( 160 hp in production form) would’ve given the base model an advantage over the MR2's 130 hp 5S-FE, and the LQ1 put down similar numbers to the 200 hp 3S-GTE.

What actually killed the Fiero was that it no longer made sense financially. In 1984 Pontiac sold nearly 137000 Fieros. By 1988, even with the updates to the GT and Formula that helped it win comparison tests against the supercharged MR2, Pontiac only sold 26000 of them.

The Fiero was only approved for production as inexpensive and fun commuter, not as a sports car. The MkII would have finally let it be what John DeLorean and Fiero enthusiasts always wanted it to be, but that was never what Pontiac wanted it to be, so they killed it. They weren’t interested in making a sports car to compete with Toyota.

Were they right? The Miata’s success makes me think there may have been opportunity there that they failed to take advantage of, but look at what happened to the MR2. It evolved into a Miata competitor by the third generation and then was killed off as well. The Miata is still here. I think the market changed, Pontiac saw that, and so they bailed on a business case that didn’t make sense.

As much as I loved my Fiero and wish there would’ve been a second generation, what other car of that kind has survived? None. Not even the CRX, which was a much more practical take on the same basic idea. 

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > for Michigan 07/06/2019 at 13:42

1

I think the old post I read got it a bit wrong. Not more powerful, but faster than a Corvette due to the smaller size and lower weight with similar horsepower. All the things that make a car good and GM throws it away because it competes with their porky mi ddle-age-crisis-mobile.

From the reading I’ve done over the years, Pontiac did want to make a sports car but we’re thwarted by the brass at GM. In an attempt at stealth they proposed it as a cheap commuter vehicle to get it into production. There’s no reason a car like that needs to be mid-engined, as the wildly successful CRX so deftly proved. Getting it into production was key, and accepting Chevette suspension and an I ron D uke, at least on a temporary basis, were the bitter pills necessary for the subterfuge to work, and it did. By the time 1988 rolled around it was finally becoming the car they wanted from the outset , but by then the market had moved on and it was too late to save what was now a decent sports car.

As always, it was GM at its finest, misreading the markets and blowing opportunities one right  after the other. How they’re still in business remains a mystery to me.

BaconSandwich is tasty. > WilliamsSW 07/06/2019 at 13:50

2

The way I see them now is that they are bipolar.  Half the company wants to do a good job with electric cars, and there’s some really solid engineering going into them.  The other half is only interested in maximizing profits by pumping out every configuration and size of SUV and crossover imaginable, at the expense of any sort of long-term thinking.  I can understand both sides, but they are going to end up shooting themselves in the foot if they can’t look more than a year in advance.

WilliamsSW > BaconSandwich is tasty. 07/06/2019 at 14:23

1

The part about pumping out volume to maximize short term profit has been true since Sloan founded the company, and has always hindered their thinking to varying degrees.