Sometimes, getting an A for effort is enough to have your legacy last. The only U.S built mid-engined production car until this year, the Pontiac Fierro is a classic case of this. By most ostensible measures, the Fiero was badly made, slow, and kind of a joke. Oh, and it had a tendency to catch on fire randomly.  But when you consider that the car exists at all, it's kind of amazing. Why is that? Well, there's a reason that there wasn't another mid-engined car made in Detroit for so long. You see, America's big three automakers are notorious for putting pencil-pushing bureaucrats in high ranking positions within their companies. These bottom-line obsessed geeks repeatedly stifled engineering progress in the name of saving money. Many attempts were made before and after the Fiero was made to try and bring forth another European style mid-engined sports car, all but one failed. Did we mention that they caught on fire?

RELATED: Watch Jay Leno Drive A Pontiac Fiero Disguised as Ferrari Enzo

There's a fascinating story behind the car's inception, production, and all the calamities that ensued afterward. So then, let's take a trip back in time and tell the tale of the Fiero.

One Step Forward, Ten Steps Back

As we just said, bureaucrats in management positions are the arch-enemy of auto engineers and designers. Engineering geniuses like John Delorean and Zora Arkus Duntov both tried to get General Motors interested in the idea of a mid-engined sports car aimed squarely at Euro imports like Porsche and Ferrari. Neither man ever came close to achieving that dream. AMC did manage to get a mid-engined sports car called the AMX/3 into the pre-production concept phase, but that too bit the dust because AMC was struggling so badly that tooling up a factory for production just wasn't possible.  Until the year 2020, the only man who made GM finally crack was one of John Delorean's proteges, a native of Turkey called Hulki Aldikacti.

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Doomed From The Start

Via: Philadelphia Inquirer

Predictably, there was push back from the pencil-pushing geeks upstairs. GM management allotted an insultingly small budget of around $400,000,000 to design and produce the Fiero. Considering that the average new car gets at a few billion to start from scratch, the Fiero was practically hopeless from day one.

A Parts Bin Special

Via: The Daily Drive

To add even more un-needed hurdles for the team at Pontiac, the catalog of parts they could pick from was a grab bag of badly built surplus parts from uninspiring and bland cars like Chevy Chevette, which shared much of its front axle with the Fiero. To make things even worse, the original idea for an all-new V6 engine for the Fiero was axed, predictably, in the name of conserving the microscopic budget. Instead, early Fieros came with the much clowned on "Iron Duke" four-cylinder engine found in the Grumman LLV mail truck.  The Iron Duke may have been fine for delivering your Amazon packages, but it was hopeless sitting in the engine bay of a mid-engine "sports car". Not only was the engine underpowered and old, but as we mentioned, they had a habit of spontaneously combusting if you didn't service it regularly. It turns out, the mail trucks catch fire randomly too!

Through their constant scheming to make the Fiero intentionally worse than it could've been, it seemed like the message from GM top-brass in the mid-1980s was clear. They had no interest in innovating or setting new standards for automotive excellence, and they were very pleased to sit back and sell cheap, badly made, uninspiring econobox cars to endless hoards of new Gen-X families while they profited from brand reputation even as imports slowly ate them alive. They saw the Fiero as a threat to the status quo and fought its development at every turn. Despite this, Hulki Aldikacti and his team made the most of what they were given, and at first, reviews were solid. Auto Journalists applauded the responsive steering and mind-bending 50 mpg fuel economy. Even a modern Prius would struggle to make that figure. Then, the problems starting snowballing out of control.

Too Hot To Handle

Remember how we said the Fiero had a tendency to catch fire?" It turns out, there are federal laws against cars being built this poorly, and a recall was required to stop oil leaks from spilling onto the exhaust side of the Iron Duke motor. Pontiac did manage to improve the Fiero's design over time. They added a non-parts-bin suspension and finally ditching the Iron Duke for a V6. By the time any of these upgrades hit the streets, the Fieros reputation was beyond salvageable. And so, in 1988, production of the Fiero stopped forever. It seemed as though Hulki and his team had finally been vanquished by GM upper management. For nearly 30 years, it looked like all of Hulki Aldikacti's work had all been for nothing, until something remarkable happened.

RELATED: Watch Jay Leno Drive A Pontiac Fiero Disguised As A Ferrari Enzo

From The Ashes

via The Supercar Blog

In many ways, the new mid-engined C8 Corvette is everything the Fiero could and should have been. GM's second attempt at a mid-engined sports car considers all the lessons learned from the old Fiero, and this time, there were no pencil pushers to tell them no or stifle development seemingly out of spite. There are no compromises with the C8 Corvette, it's built to a standard that would make Zora Duntov or our good friend Hulki Aldikacti proud.  Under the hood, where there once was a pitiful little mail truck engine, now sits the latest LT V8. No parts bin suspension can be found here, and we're pretty sure the C8's won't catch on fire at nearly the same rate as the Pontiac.  When you put the two side by side, you almost get the sense the Vette would look more appropriate with a red arrowhead on the front and "Fiero" written across the back. So then, 30 years after the Fiero went away, it looks like Hulki Aldiktacti's story can finally conclude with a happy ending.  Lastly, we're totally not daring GM to rebadge the Vette as a Fiero, of course not, that'd be silly. ( Please god, make it happen....)

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