Fiero References from the book All Corvettes Are Red by James Schefter

Submitted by Ken Campbell

     I’ve read the book All Corvettes Are Red by James Schefter. This book is about the inside design procedures and inside workings of General Motors. James received full access to GM during the design of the latest Corvette design, the C5. Since I am a mechanical engineer, it was interesting to see just how screwed up GM really is!

     While reading the pages of this book, I was surprised to see the Fiero mentioned several times in the text. I was amazed at the adjectives used by James each time the Fiero was mentioned. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in reading about what it takes to get a new GM car on the road….

From page 26: “John Schinella (Pontiac Design Chief at the time of Fiero) was running the Advanced Concepts Center studio in California after winning acclaim for the Fiero sports car designed in his old studio, Pontiac 2. Schinella’s grasp of futuristic design concepts, and his ability to communicate with his temperamental charges….”

From pages 41-42: “In the eighties and nineties alone, GM started, then abandoned, three sports cars – the wonderful little Pontiac Fiero, the innovative Buick Reatta, and the upscale Cadillac Allante. Like the Corvette, each of them was imperfect in the beginning. But each of them got better and better, until just as they reached something like real quality, and in the case of the Fiero, had a genuine following, they were killed.”

     “Killing cars is a General Motors tradition. Corvette people didn’t know it in 1988, but the sports car they revered was soon to be lined up in the corporate crosshairs.”

From page 43: “He (John Cafaro) worked for John Schinella in a Pontiac Studio helping design the feisty little Fiero sports car.”

It’s nice to know that even though the Fiero is gone, it is certainly not forgotten and  that it is well respected as a significant car in GM’s history. Happy reading…

Ken Campbell