For Fan Car Friday this week we bring you Lawrence and 1987 Pontiac Fiero.  Fan Car Friday is a segment where we want to share with the world the automobiles that our fans have. We have absolutely no affiliation/relationship with the cars, the build or the owners. This post was made with written consent from the owner.

“My fun car that I bought new, when I turned 40, and still drive it, but not as much any more. It has 160,000 miles on it as I have driven the car from Maine to Florida, the Hot Rod Power Tour Long Haul 2009, 2011 and a partial 2007. Too bad for me that Dan doesn’t work on post 1975 cars. The photo was taken at the spring show in Daytona.

My 87 GT I bought new as a 40th mid-life crisis birthday present, and have driven it all over. The first photo was taken in the Badlands in 2012 when a group of us made across country trip. The photo of me on the Watkins Glenn, probably in the late 90s. It has a 5 speed manual transmission.

No metal body panels for Dan and team to pound on.

The only thing is you cannot own just one Fiero. My 88 Fiero GT is my money pit. I’ll not buy a used car again. I bought it in 1996 and have had three different engines in the car. Now with a 3.4L V6. It has a 440T auto (its forth transmission). The original was a three speed auto and a good transmission when the national speed limit was 55 mph, but horrible trying to cruise a 70.

I have another, an 88 IMSA wide body coupe with a ZZ4 TPI V8. Scary fast, fun to drive when I was younger, now just “fast and loud”. Several fiberglass body panels for the “wide body” effect. It has a Getrag five speed manual transmission.”

The Pontiac Fiero is a mid-engined sports car that was built by General Motors from 1983 to 1988 for the 1984 to 1988 model years. The Fiero was designed by George Milidrag and Hulki Aldikacti as a sports car. The Fiero was the first two-seater Pontiac since the 1926 to 1938 coupes, and the first mass-produced mid-engine sports car by a U.S. manufacturer. Many technologies incorporated in the Fiero design such as composite panels were radical for their time. Other features included hidden headlamps and, initially, integrated stereo speakers within the driver and passenger headrests.

A total of 370,168 Fieros were produced over the relatively short production run of five years; by comparison, 163,000 Toyota MR2s were sold in their first five years. At the time, its reputation suffered from criticisms over performance, reliability, and safety issues.

The word fiero means “very proud” in Italian, and “wild”, “fierce”, or “ferocious” in Spanish. Alternative names considered for the car were Sprint (which had previously been used on a GMC and would later end up on a Chevrolet instead), P3000, Pegasus, Fiamma, Sunfire (a name which would later be applied to another car), and Firebird XP. The Fiero 2M4 (two-seat, mid-engine, four-cylinder) was on Car and Driver magazine’s Ten Best list for 1984. The 1984 Fiero was the Official Pace Car of the Indianapolis 500 for 1984, beating out the new 1984 Chevrolet Corvette for the honor.

1987 saw changes to the front and rear fascias on the “base coupe” with the SE and GT models keeping the same “Aero” nose. The new non-aero noses lost the black bumper pads of the earlier models and had a smoother look. The four-cylinder engine’s power rating increased to 98 hp (73 kW) with some major modifications which included a roller cam, redesigned intake manifold, distributorless ignition system (DIS), open combustion chamber cylinder head and upgraded throttle-body fuel injection system. This was the last year for the spin-on oil filter on the four-cylinder. Bright Blue (M21) and Medium Red Metallic (M77) were added and replacing the ribbed black molding was the round style found on the GT models. As a side note, the SE models retained the ribbed molding, and added the aero nose found on the GT. Redesigned headlight motors appeared in 1987. 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. Corporate Concepts completed the “Mera” transformation and none were sold as kit form. The Mera body change was offered only on new Fieros, sold through Pontiac dealers and is considered a model in its own right. Only 247 Meras were produced by Corporate Concepts before production was halted when sued by Ferrari. With its limited number produced, the Pontiac Mera is one of the rarest American made automobiles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Fiero

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