21.09.2012, 16:35
Top: Pontiac stretched a standard '85 Fiero coupe into this 2+2 as another trial in adapting the car's space-frame to other body styles. Rear side window wrapped up and over to make a moonroof for those in the cramped back bucket seats. Protruding side scoop never made it to showroom Fieros, but would have been interesting. Center and above: When the axe Fell an Fiero in mid-1988, this full-size mockup was one of several designs in contention for 1990. Highlights included a "softer" nose, elevated rear deck, longer roof with bulkier B-posts, and a revised mid-body character line that fully encircled the car and tied in more neatly with the taillamps.
Top and center: This fairly extensive facelift of Fiero's 1987-88 Styling may have been aimed at '89, certainly 1990. Bespoilered tail with "tunneled" backlight Shows a hint of Trans Am or maybe '68 Dodge Chargerj, while Ferrari 308/328 overtones appear in the bodyside indents, whose shape repeats around the front side-marker and parking lamps. Above: A variation an this basic theme proposed an even closer Trans Am tie-in via a full-width taillamp lens, Jong a Pontiac hallmark. The visual kinship with the T/A was no doubt intended to further Fiero's claim as a unique performance car following the major chassis changes of 19', rather than is early image as a low-cost collection of corporate components in sporty midengine format.
Also in the running for 1989 or '90 was this version of the "Trans Am look" that was being evolved when Fiero was felled by GM costcutters. Flared rocker bottoms furthered the T/A connection, but a more sculptured back panel with triple-lamp motif would have been Fiero's own. Front end was a careful evolution of 1987-88. Headlamps would have remained hidden beneath pop-up hood panels, but the switch from squares to oblongs shown here implies a planned change to smaller, newer-design high-intensity lighting. All four of these views were taken just outside the Design Staff offices at GM's Warren, Michigan, Technical Center.
Plastic outer panels made Fiero styling easy and inexpensive to change, but the "driveable space frame" made additional body styles rather more difficuk and costly than conventional construction. Even so, Pontiac devised a racy Fiero-based speedster in mid-1983, then updated its Styling a year later. The handsome red job seen here was buik around 1986, with that year's GT coupe lower-body styling, to investigate the feasibility of a convertible Fiero. Besides a fully engineered soft top with modest "stack height," this prototype boasted a left-hinged rear deck that swung up sideways for engine access. But cost factors made production unlikely even if Fiero had continued past 1988.