26 Facts About Pontiac Fiero

1.

Progressive technologies incorporated in the Pontiac Fiero design, included composite panels, unique for their time.

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2.

At the time, the Pontiac Fiero's reputation suffered from criticisms over performance, reliability, and safety issues.

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3.

Pontiac Fiero 2M4 was on Car and Driver magazine's Ten Best list for 1984.

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4.

The Pontiac Fiero was the Official Pace Car of the Indianapolis 500 for 1984.

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5.

Pontiac Fiero was conceived as a small, two-seat sports car with all new suspension and a V6 engine.

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6.

The Pontiac Fiero was redesigned to use a fuel efficient version of GM's 2.

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7.

Pontiac Fiero was an unusual design for GM, and stood out from their other products.

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8.

Pontiac assigned oversight of the Fiero project to Hulki Aldikacti, a Turkish born executive with over twenty years of experience.

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9.

Pontiac Fiero blueprints traveled back and forth between the two engineering branches, resulting in a waste of time and money.

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10.

Many modifications in the Pontiac Fiero's designs were needed to be made for production; for instance, despite his long-standing interest in manufacturing body panels from plastic, Aldikacti consented to metal body pieces, the dies for which were much less costly.

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11.

Pontiac Fiero was told by counterparts at other GM divisions three times that his project had been cancelled by corporate management.

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12.

Hoglund took the reins when the brand's popularity was heavily diluted; Pontiac Fiero's cars were said to be bland, outdated, and what customers of the past would buy.

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13.

Additionally, the Iron Duke engine, which was designed for optimal running at low RPM, was unsuited to drivers who purchased the Pontiac Fiero expecting a quick, high-revving motor keeping with the design of the car.

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14.

At the beginning of production the Pontiac Fiero was only available in Red and White colors with Black and Light Gray Metallic introduced later, the paint shop was only able to handle four different colors at a time.

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15.

The Pontiac Fiero Coupe, called "Fuel Economy Leader", came with the MY-8 4-speed manual transaxle that had a 0.

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16.

The top model was the Pontiac Fiero SE, starting at $9,599, it included the WS6 handling package along with other trim upgrades.

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17.

The Pontiac Fiero became the first 4-cylinder car to pace the 500 since a Stoddard-Dayton paced the 1914 race.

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18.

Production of the 1984 model ran from July 1983, until almost the end of 1984, this resulted in Pontiac Fiero exceeding its first year goal of 80,000 units, which was 28,000 more than the initial estimate and the most two seater cars produced by any US manufacturer at the time.

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19.

Additionally, starting with the 1987 model Pontiac dealerships offered an upgrade in the form of an "option" that changed the original body to a Pininfarina Ferrari 308-type body, called the Fiero Mera.

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20.

The suspension was never a Lotus design though; it was the suspension the Pontiac Fiero engineers had designed in the beginning, along with what they learned from the racing program.

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21.

Prototype of the never-produced 1990 Fiero was displayed at the 20th Anniversary show in July 2003, at Fierorama 2005, at the Michigan show in 2006 and most recently at the 25th Anniversary Show in Pontiac, Michigan, in 2008.

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22.

Unique plastic body-on-spaceframe design, helped the Pontiac Fiero to achieve a NHTSA NCAP frontal crash test rating of five stars, the highest rating available.

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23.

The Pontiac Fiero was the second safest vehicle sold in America from 1984 to 1988, beaten only by the Volvo 740DL station wagon.

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24.

Pontiac Fiero is aware of 260 fires attributable to the condition, along with ten reported minor injuries.

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25.

Pontiac Fiero is popular for being modified into Lamborghini and Ferrari replicas along with other custom kit car modifications.

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26.

Select Wal-Mart locations sold a special "Since '68" Pontiac Fiero made by Hot Wheels, which uses the original 1984 mold with a new paint job.

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