The Pontiac Fiero, General Motors’ first mid-engine econocar, made its debut with the 1984 model year. It was one of Pontiac’s most iconic sports cars – a little wedge that looked like it was built to take on Ferrari. However, the two-seater’s sporty appearance camouflaged a heavy engine that didn’t produce much horsepower to propel this 2,600-pound car. The tiny Fiero wrung only 92 hp from its 2.5-liter inline four -– aka the “Iron Duke” from GM.
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A GT version of the Fiero was introduced the following year with a new, more aerodynamic nose, rear wing, and low-slung rocker panels that helped distinguish it from the other trims. The GT trim worked harder to uphold the promise of the Fiero’s sporty design, packing a transversely mounted 2.8L 60-degree V-6 — also found in the Pontiac 6000 — behind the driver and passenger. This kicked up the horsepower dramatically to 140 hp at 5,200 rpm with a little help from computer-controlled, multi-port fuel injection and special intake and exhaust manifolds. Buyers had a choice of a three-speed automatic transmission or a four-speed manual in the 1985 and 1986 models. Later, in 1986, a Muncie five-speed manual became available for the GT. Adding the manual could give drivers a slight speed advantage over the automatic.
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[Featured image via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | Public domain]
Was the Fiero GT flamin’ fast?
The first Fieros from 1984, hauling around that weighty inline-four, would run the 0 to 60 in over 11 seconds. It wasn’t sports car fast, but it was decent for what was billed as a fun commuter car with good gas mileage. The first Fieros would top out at 105 mph.-
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Things began to change for the underpowered ragamuffin with the GT version when Pontiac gave it a V6 in 1985. This upgraded Fiero had a lot more hustle and could knock out 0 to 60 in 8.1 seconds, hitting 85 mph at the quarter-mile mark. According to MotorTrend, the Fiero GT had a top speed of 120 mph.
Despite big performance improvements made to the GT in the span of just three years, sales were dropping for the Fiero. The numbers hit a painful low in 1988 when only 6,848 GTs were sold. No doubt sales were affected by recalls of earlier models. An alarming number of Fieros were also plagued by engine fires. Pontiac discontinued production of the fiery sports car after the 1988 model year.
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[Featured image by Elise240SX via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY 4.0]
