This week, we featured the very rare and little known 1980 Corvette America on the site – a custom, coach built four-door Corvette that was officially commissioned by General Motors. The Corvette wasn’t the only two-seater that GM carried out such experiments on, though. The automaker also once built a four-seat version of the mid-engine Pontiac Fiero, turning it from a spry two-seater into a more comfortable and spacious 2+2.
Motor1 recently spoke to Fiero enthusiast and current owner of the Fiero GT 2+2, as it’s officially known, Frederick Bartemeyer Jr. According to him, the car started out life as an early, pre-production Pontiac Fiero and was just the ninth example ever built. It narrowly avoided being crushed along with the rest of the pre-production Fieros and was subsequently turned into a four-seat design study, with GM lengthening the chassis to make way for a pair of cramped rear seats.
While a four-seat mid-engine vehicle may seem like a bit of an oddity, GM may have gotten the idea from Ferrari, which offered the 308/208 GT4 from 1973 to 1980 and the Mondial from 1980 to 1993 – both of which were mid-engine 2+2 vehicles with V8 engines. Ferrari had originally developed the GT4 2+2 as a rival for the Porsche 911, which has always had space for a pair of rear seats thanks to its efficient rear-engine packaging.
The Fiero GT 2+2 was nearly crushed once again after GM decided not to put the vehicle into production. Instead, the automaker decided to stick the vehicle in its Heritage Center collection, where it resided until 2009, when GM sold off a handful of Heritage Center cars amid its bankruptcy restructuring. The car was sold at Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale 2009 auction, where it attracted a high bid of $17,600. The car was purchased by the aforementioned Frederick Bartemeyer Jr., who currently has it on display at the Pontiac Oakland Museum and Research Center in Pontiac, Illinois. It’s destined to remain a showpiece for the remainder of its life, as it was sold on a scrap title and cannot be registered for road use.
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Source/photos: Motor1 and Midwest Fiero Clubs Region of AACA on Facebook.
Comments
Well unlike the Vette this is a real GM built car.
This car stated off with the coupe body styling with windows that wrapped into the roof for the rear seat. It was later rebodied as a GT.
Fred is a buddy of mine and is a true historian on the car. You should speak to him so you can correct this Story.
This car was never considered for production. It was as Fred stated a design study but not for the Fiero.
It was a design study on how to build bigger space framed cars using the floating plastic body panels. So in other words it was a test that lead to the dust buster vans and the Saturn models.
You can get in the back but there just is so little foot and knee room.
The Ferrari GT4 and 911 had nothing what so ever to do with this.
This was even rarely show to the public till about the time the Fiero ended production.
Even though it was started in and around 1983.
There is a ton of info on the Fiero still unknow in the public sector. GM kept quiet as there was a lot of politics and hard feeling when the car was canceled.
Fred has done the most work but people like myself and a few others have uncovered some really neat unknown things about the car p. We also do our best to dispel the myths like the lotus suspension myth.
The truth per Tom Goad Pontiac engineer and racer was it was pure GM design for the 88. But what he disclosed was Porsche Engineering was asked in to help disk in the turn in and feel.
There were also plastic wheels and a DOHC V6 and 4 coming for 1990 along with electric power steering.
RIP Fiero, please tell more… RIP Pontiac. Still cannot believe how horrible the brand was managed for so long. GM Authority thanks for sharing…
Interesting C8.R,
My first thought was how could this be based on a pre-production 1984 Fiero when it uses the bodywork from a 1986 to 1988 GT. Your comments provide interesting insight.
I’d love to know more about the inside story of the Fiero. I was a kid at the time and loved GM, loved Pontiac, and wanted a Fiero to be my first car some day. I was heartbroken when it was dropped. I even wrote to GM and pleaded with them to keep it; as a kid, I thought they’d care what I had to say! In some ways, I still haven’t gotten over its discontinuation yet. That’s still reflected in my cynical comments here to this day. I view the Fiero as one of the great tragedies of GM history.
If there’s anything more you could share, I’d certainly love to hear it. I know Pontiac sorta tricked the GM Board and disguised the Fiero as a fuel sipping commuter car to get it approved. In the end, the Board got their revenge by axing it just when Pontiac had turned it into the sports car they’d really wanted it to be all along.
Note the body panels were interchangeable between the Base Coupe and GT. Under the skin the chassis were all the same.
It is common for owners to chase a non GT to a GT in a day just changing a few body sections,
GM modified many show cars each year as the styling changed.
The Porsche Eater a 2.7 Turbo 4 was a wide body GT is 1985 but by 1988 it was a Fast back GT with TTops.
I even added a TTop to my 85 that is the same as what the 88 used.
I will post more later about these photos. Note the 1990 Fiero GT in the photo over the 4th gen F Body. The styling being shared is not coincidence, the Fiero when canceled had the styling moved and adapted to the F body including the same gauge panel in the dash.
Also note the GM80 model on the flat bed in white, it was the FWD F body replacement when it was canceled. The cancellation was key in the Fiero death as the car was planned for the Fieromplant to fill capacity.
The people to blame for the failure were GM, Chevy and yes even a Pontiac. I will explain in another post.
What I post is not my feelings or thoughts, What I know is what I was told by the Fiero team people I have met over the years. I have been involved with the Fiero since 1980 and still own my V6 I bought new in 1985.
https://www.google.com/search?q=1990+fiero+f+body&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=HYJMFDCHSbMpoM%253A%252CL9gwt1KGeO00BM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kT8veiH4azSO4sHG8YXd8Sds1rpdg&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjK_KiO0_XmAhXDHM0KHTR6ARIQ9QEwAXoECAoQCQ#imgrc=HYJMFDCHSbMpoM:
Here is my own a Fiero. Note the nose emblem is from the 1990 coupe. It is one of about 125 made in various colors but only about 24 are known to exist. I have half of them.
https://gt.ppdictionary.com/random_photos/back_notchie.jpg
Thanks for that. Beautiful little car. It looks like it could be brand new. The emblem though, I can’t make out. At first glance I thought it said Pegasus but that would be moving backwards rather than forwards and if the emblem was a mock-up for the 1990 model it obviously wouldn’t use the original code name. Your car, and even writing the word Fiero takes me back in time to being a kid who loved this car and rooted for it in every IMSA event I could watch or get my Dad to take me to. I always imagined the ‘90 Fiero would look like the GTP race car. As they say, fun times!
I bought the car new crashed it and rebuilt it. Added T tops and other parts including the Herb Adams suspension. The hood emblem is a 3D emblem relief of the Pegasus. I have the GT one that is a little flasher too.
I show it today and it is so clean I can polish the floor pan under the car. over half the car is original paint. I even won best paint last year at one show. I used it as a daily driver for three years including winter. Driving a Fiero in the snow is like tight rope walking in ice skates. Pontiac Built Excitement. It would go straight well but turning is was a challenge. The nose would like to push then the rear could easily over steer dropping the throttle. It really did teach me car control.
I too was at the races and got to be around the race teams. I still have a Huffaker Racing GTU team shirt.
The GTP cars were just Spice race cars and shared nothing with the street car. They became Firebirds when the Fiero Died.
The GTU and GTO cars were tube chassis but at least used the body panels you could buy for the street car making a road going version. The GTO car actually even used the stock steering wheel. It won a race in the few it ran at Columbus. It beat the mighty Roush Mustangs at the time. Makes you wonder what could have been.
Here is the short version of what killed the Fiero and it is not what many realize.
There were three people involved with the failure of the Fiero GM, Chevy and Pontiac.
The Fiero was proposed as a sport car for Pontiac and it was vetoed by GM and or canceled several times. Pontiac promoted it as a commuter car getting 50 MPG with the full intentions of building it into a sports car. They finally got the go ahead.
Pontiac took compromises that if things did not go right it would back fire on them. One was to use parts bin parts. This compromised the car and the 4 cylinder suffered high failure rates. It also leaked oil and did cause some fires that the media blew our of proportion.
Pontiac also over built the car as the plant they used was a very high capacity plant and needed at least 250K units to remain viable. Pontiac built 200,000 Fieros in just the first two years. That is way too many for a 2 seat car that have a limited market too keep up. But Pontiac was banking on the GM 80 program that was the plastic bodied F body FWD, AWD replacement.
Pontiac ran into a problem when GM killed the GM 80 program when Ford did not kill the Mustang Fox body and replace it with the Probe. This move left the Fiero plant under capacity and venerable.
Chevy at this time was worried about the increasing cost of the Corvette and sustaining sales. Each year from 84 on the Corvette volume dropped. They were worried if it dropped too much due to a Fiero that was a sports car at a lower price they would not make a business case for the C5.
Chevy knew Pontiac had the new suspension coming, They knew they had a DOHC V6, they saw the one V8 car build and running at the test track in AZ. Pontiac also had a successful racing program that Corvette still lacked.
So Chevy to protect the Corvette made moves to point out the plant under capacity and the bad publicity knowing they needed to make the move before the second gen Fiero came out. Pontiac went into the meeting and showed all they had ready but Chevy had more say because they sold more cars and successfully killed the car. Mike Losh the new manager at Pontiac also was new and had no ties to the car so they lacked support from the top. Most of the fighting was the Pontiac engineers and designers. John Schinella was the true champion of the car from the very start to the end.
Killing the car created hard feelings within GM at Pontiac, Chevy and GM leaders. It also created major issues with the UAW who made big concession that GM reneged on. It really got to the point that GM tried to act like the car never existed. People would not talk about it and were afraid to speak of it. John Middlebrook had planned on showing the 1990 GT at the Fiero show in the early 90’s and was ordered not to show the car or lose his job. John Schinella did bring photos of the car to the dinner at the Silverdome where it was seen for the first time. Later the photos were quietly released in a few magazines. I was there to see this first hand.
Many in the Fiero program have told me they did not expect the Fiero to have a long run. Most 2 seat cars last about 8-10 years at best. Just look at the RX7 and MR2. But they needed to do something at Pontiac as GM had been looking into closing Pontiac down. the new Firebird and Fiero generated the excitement they needed and it helped sell a ton of Grand Am models that really saved the division.
The bottom line is Pontiac took major risk and it burned them. Chevy was the jealous big brother that was willing to do what it took to save their own Corvette. GM really was the parent that did not act to make Pontiac and GM work together to compliment each other for the benefit for the whole company. This is the kind of thing that killed GM is they worked as bunch of separate companies not as one operation. Gm was its own worst enemy.
Here are a couple odd points. One was the advanced group at the tech center first offered the V6 mid engine proposal to the Corvette team in the 70’s and rejected. Later it was offered to the lead of the Fiero program when he was looking for a way to lower the cowl of the car. Moving the engine lowered the cowl as it had no engine to look over. Note the Mercury Capri FWD convertible and the high cowl. This info came from the Corvette manager in his book.
The Corvette was at risk as it was canceled in the early 90’s. But the manager of the program continued to finish the C5 and it saved the car. He paid for it with his future at GM.
There are more side roads here to this story and more details but this is the basic deal. So many people come up with all sorts of reasons and while many contributed most were not the real or only cause. It took a series of events by several groups all not working together that brought the end.
This is the story that needs to be told and preserved. A book on this would be a perfect case study of how dysfunctional GM was as a corporation over the years.
The same dysfunction is also what played a roll in the Corvair failure as well the Mustang coming and being cheaper. to build as was the Camaro. But yet Nader gets all the credit or blame.
Even today while we argue here about what to build and what not to build there is so much more going on that companies have to do or thing affecting the decisions so what appears to be a no brainer is not always as easy to do as we think.
You really need to learn on how things work or don’t work as to why things are as they are. Many hate some of my post because I say something will not work. But the reason I post it is not what I feel but I know it is something that GM won’t or just can’t do.
While GM is not perfect today it is much better running than they were. That is not to say there is still a lot of room for improvement. The truth is most companies would not have survived what they have already come through. They still need to get the divisions to be what they can be and work together better. Having less models and divisions should have come long ago. They could not run what they had and more of it did not make it better.
At least now they have the money side of things in better shape.
Refer to the photos above in the one link. The white car on the flat bed is the GM 80 Firebird. The red Fiero GT is the 1990. As you can see GM took the Fiero design and transferred it to the Gen 4 F body. Even the dash was transfered over. Keep in mind the 1990 was built around 1985. John Schinella the lead designer said the design was too good to throw away so his team reused it on the front engine car. You can see how similar they are compared to the Camaro.