Let’s Make Some More Cars Out Of The Fiero’s Criminally Underutilized GM P-Body Platform

Many writers on this site and those of you reading now are critical of General Motors’ efforts in the later part of the last century, and indeed, the world’s biggest automaker at the time did make some major, head-scratching missteps. It often seemed The General managed to stay in business despite itself, like a giant boulder continuing to roll with the momentum of its huge mass, but crumbling nonetheless.

Personally, I would have to sum up my feelings towards GM of this era as “disappointed” uttered in the same low tone your dad might use after you wrecked the family car. While GM did have its share of irredeemable offerings such as the Cadillac Cimmaron, most of the automaker’s failures were imaginative, innovative, and just this close to world-dominating greatness – see Chevy Corvair, Cadillac Allante, the early front-drive X-cars, and even the dreaded Vega.

Despite their flaws, many of GM’s undercooked offerings went on to be improved or even perfected to the levels the talented designers and engineers had in mind from the start, usually just before the models were discontinued thanks to the reputation of their prematurely-launched predecessors.

The prime example of a GM flop-fix-forget cycle is arguably the P-Body, sold as the Pontiac Fiero starting in 1984. It’s a perfect example of a General Motors car that didn’t live up to the promise of its looks, and when it was finally improved enough to be a decent car, it was too late.

The steel frame with detachable, dent-resistant plastic body panels was revolutionary and allowed for easy replacement of damaged components, and even the potential to swap the stock panels for style-transforming optional versions. Look at that baseball just bouncing off the skin in the inset image below; I’m surprised Pontiac didn’t show how apple pie could be easily wiped off the hood for the maximum American vibe.

Ultimately, the Fiero was the sole mass-production model built on the P-Body platform. The mass-production distinction is there because GM only produced a little over 1,000 examples of the only other offering on the platform, and every one of those was unceremoniously crushed. That car was the EV1. Oh, GM …

But what if the P-Body had been allowed to be more than just a two-seat sports car? Could it have lived on – or at least escaped untainted by the branding of “failure”?

More P-Cars For The People: The 2+2

I recently uncovered a one-off example of a Fiero that Pontiac commissioned in the late eighties as attempt to improve the practicality of this by-then slow-selling car, and I think it could have been a key to an unrealized potential for this underappreciated design.

For every positive thing in the automotive world, there seems to be a corresponding negative aspect. Most enthusiasts love two-seat sports cars and even pickups; the smallest and seemingly most elemental vehicle is probably going to have the greatest fun-to-drive factor. At the same time, sales of two-seaters are typically going to be very limited; larger manufacturers see them as merely niche or halo products, not profitable machines with room for at least four people.

Ford famously changed the Thunderbird from the two-seater 1955-57 body style to the much larger four-seat 1958 car; sales quadrupled compared to the early car. The Nissan Z series was popular in the seventies but made even more popular by the addition of a 2+2 variation in 1974 and continued through almost all subsequent models (though the four-seater was sold as an Infiniti G35/37 in later versions).

Naturally, somebody at Pontiac must have known this fact and saw it as a possible savior for the by-then-struggling Fiero. This one-off 2+2 example was created by subcontractor AutoFab to test the idea, and it ended up going nowhere since the fate of the P-car was likely already decided by then.

This sole example escaped the crusher and was sold at an auction of GM concept cars; it now belongs to Fiero guru Fred Bartemeyer and lives at the Pontiac Oakland Museum and Research Center.

As with many mid-engine cars with tiny back seats, the proportions are a bit dachshund-like; the fact that AutoFab couldn’t make new doors for the thing only makes the prototype look worse.

Was it a bad idea? I really don’t think so. Even if adults couldn’t fit in back the usefulness of the car increased exponentially by having the extra interior space. I’ll admit that the execution could have been better, and more than that I think GM could have used this stretched P-Car as a basis for some revolutionary new cars for a number of divisions.

Yes, this is going to get weird, but you guessed that already, right?

So Long, Fiero … and I Mean Long

First of all, if that 2+2 model was ever going to save the Fiero, it needed to come out much earlier in the car’s life, as in around the 1984 launch. As such, we’ll need to apply the changes on that prototype to the initial car. Here is the early 2-seater Fiero we all know and love:

Here is the 2+2 version of the same car. I’ve shown it two ways; one is with a longer side door that arguably works better proportionally than the one-off car:

The other way I’ve shown it is with the standard car’s door length and “suicide” rear half doors as on later GM cars:

In both cases, to improve both the now-very-long car’s looks and also increase the practicality I’ve installed a Camaro-like glass hatchback. The vents on top of the engine on the standard car would need to go away, replaced by air intakes on the “C” pillars. Stuffing cargo back here would block some rear vision but it would give much-needed extra luggage space.

Actually, there was so much more potential P-Body car platform. Is a four-seat Fiero all we can do? As they say today, hold my beer.

The Commuter Car: Chevy Cappybara

Even newly-minted Fiero fans know the car came into being with a bit of deceit. From the beginning, the Fiero might have been envisioned as a small, mid-engined V6-powered sports car, but the people championing the idea knew very well that top GM brass would never approve another two-seat sports machine when the Corvette already existed. Thankfully, the young Pontiac engineers who championed this idea in 1978 knew how to get it through the byzantine corporate bureaucracy.

With fresh memories of the first energy crisis, these engineers knew that management would likely love the idea of a small four-cylinder “commuter car” that just happened to have two seats. Oh, and it would be mid-engine with room in the engine bay for a V6 but my guess is that they conveniently neglected to mention that to management. The project got the green light; that’s how to play the corporate game right there.

However, that initial idea of a small “runabout” car is still kind of interesting. While I’m very happy that we got the Fiero, I do wonder if that “commuter” car the engineers used as a ruse to get the sports car made might be worth considering as well.

I give you the Chevy Cappybara (intentionally misspelled, like Aztek), a two-seat economy car with a small Isuzu four-cylinder engine and optional, larger GM “Iron Duke” motor. The Cappybara has a glass hatch over the rear cargo area and engine, and features a taller nose than the wedgier Fiero. This creates space for a functional frunk, giving the Chevy much more cargo space than its Pontiac counterpart. The blunt nose also allows the Fiero’s pop-up headlights to be omitted, reducing cost and complexity and a distinct face to differentiate it from the Fiero.

Not that the Cappybara wouldn’t be fun to drive, but with only four-cylinder options the performance would be limited compared to the Pontiac variant of the P-Body. It’s not like we’d make a V6-powered Cappybara SS later, would we?

A Bit Of Luxury: Cadillac Ciel

Cadillac was just itching to get some interesting small cars in the eighties, yet all that we received was a rather pathetic gussied-up Chevy Cavalier and a super-expensive roadster with Eldorado mechanicals. Could the P-Body platform have come to the rescue here?

I say yes. Somehow, stuffing a V8 into the Fiero seems counter to the lightweight concept of a sports car, but that’s not to say that such a drivetrain wouldn’t fit the image of Grand Touring coupe. Enter the Cadillac Ciel.

With a fuel-injected small block behind the 2+2 passenger compartment and different suspension tuning, the Ciel could be a quick way for “The Standard Of The World” to get a legitimately fast luxury sport coupe.

There might have been a very shallow frunk in the nose; note that the Ciel would have the Fiero’s pop-up lights in its Aston Martin Lagonda-like nose:

Hey, it’s like the infamous Fiero-based Zimmer Quicksilver, but about thirty percent less silly. Well, maybe twenty percent less silly. Sadly, to keep all the brands happy, we’d probably have to offer the Ciel exclusively with an automatic transaxle. Don’t worry: you can see a skunkworks Getrag 5-speed “Ciel Touring Coupe” model happening, right? You probably can, but I’m imagining a P-Body variation that you’ll maybe wish that you hadn’t seen.

El Fiero: Pontiac Fiero Sport Pickup, GMC Burro, and Holden Boomerang

So we have a long wheelbase Fiero, and we’re trying to shove a small rear seat in there. It’s not a bad idea, but two seats and a lot of distance between the passengers and the rear bumper? You’re thinking what I’m thinking now? No, of course you aren’t; you’d be an idiot to suggest a P-Body pickup truck.

However, I am just such an idiot. At first, the idea makes no sense; as you think about it more, it’s even more absurd. Still, a challenge is a challenge, and we can make this work.

Let’s look at a side view. The pickup “bed” would only be around six inches deep but fold-up or removable side panels and tailgate would create a surrounding wall for when you want to carry cargo. These wouldn’t be solid walls, but instead a metal grid to allow some vision through them. Plus, solid walls would give you something that looked like a Lotus Europa and I don’t want that.

Below the “bed” you’d have the rear trunk from the original Fiero; a weatherproof space just like at the back of the floor of the Honda Ridgeline pickup. Inside the “cab”, fold forward the seatbacks to access a large luggage area similar to big “smugglers bins” on a Chevy El Camino. The engine would live between these two spaces, right over the wheels for superb traction and handling for a pickup.

“Wow”, said Jason on Slack after looking at this side view, “that’s a hilariously compromised pickup truck”. Is it really, Mr. Torchinsky? Let’s take a look at Exhibit A, which must be one of his favorite “compromised” vehicles: the famous Volkswagen “Doka” Transporter Pickup.

Look at that! A tall bed over the height of the engine, fold down sides and tailgate, plus a sealed cargo area underneath.

That Fiero pickup sure looks a whole lot like the layout of that VW Bus pickup. Hell, the Fiero Sport Truck has two cargo areas under the bed versus the Vee Dub’s one. “Compromised” my ass, Jason!

Here are the side walls raised to hold the amps of the biggest-selling duo of all time back when they still spoke to each other:

Then, with cargo removed, the side walls and tailgate can be folded inwards or removed very easily in seconds without the need for an adult education.

Want more? Let’s try a different and more “trucklike” version. How about a slightly raised hood and no space-hogging pop-up headlights? With the P-Body’s plastic body parts, we could easily just remove the whole front end and change to a taller nose with fixed light that would allow for a drop-in fiberglass “frunk”. Now General Motors truck division would have their own mid-engined sports pickup as well, with even more secure cargo space than the Fiero truck.

Say hello to the GMC Burro, the world’s only true sports car pickup. Well, “only” if you don’t count its right-hand drive Down Under twin, the Holden Boomerang (if there’s one place on earth that respects utes it’s Australia).

As with the Fiero Sport Truck, sidebars with steel netting could remove and stow on board or be left at home; there are ample hooks all around so you don’t necessarily have to install the “bed” side panels to carry cargo if you just strap it down right.

Is it an orthodox “truck”? Absolutely, but if you only carry large objects occasionally and want pure driving enjoyment for the vast majority of the time you spend behind the wheel, the Burro could be for you.

P-Car Family- I’ve Got All My Versions With Me

The Fiero ended up selling nearly 137,000 units in its first year, and a total of 370,000 cars by the time production ended four years later. Those are rather insane numbers for a two-seater car and for a company like, say, Lotus, would be massive figures. Of course, we’re talking about General Motors, and for a giant such as them such an output doesn’t justify keeping a car in production. Compounding this was the fact that sales were dropping over time due to the teething issues of the earlier models which were by and large resolved by the time it was dropped.

I do think a bigger problem might have been that General Motors created a platform and used it on just one car, a rather rare and unprofitable situation for a company that would often share a chassis with over five or six brands, even internationally (like the 1982 J-Car).

None of these crazy concepts I’ve presented likely would have sold in massive numbers, but could the sum total of sales from these at different GM divisions have done the trick? We’ll never know; the loss of the Fiero was sad, but there was a lot more mid-engined fun to go around, and that’s the real shame.

If Pontiac Had Built This Instead Of The Aztek It Could Have Saved The Brand – The Autopian

Our Daydreaming Designer Takes The Chevy Corvair Into The Eighties By Borrowing Features From The Pontiac Fiero – The Autopian

Our Daydreaming Designer Imagines A Chevy Corvair As America’s First Hybrid, Even Before The Honda Insight And Toyota Prius – The Autopian

Our Daydreaming Designer Takes The Chevy Corvair Into The Eighties But In Van And Pickup Truck Form – The Autopian