Driving the Lambofierorghini
A few weeks ago, we threw a surprise party for my inlaws in celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary. We really surprised them, too, as their anniversary isn’t until March next year, but we figured we’d do it now while we had the family all in one place.
Imagine my surprise when I popped outside for a moment and saw this in the car park….
This isn’t the sort of car that you’d normally expect to see at a 50th wedding anniversary. I saw it from a distance in the fading light and figured that we actually had a Lamborghini in our midst. The truth wasn’t quite so exotic, but it was a lot more exciting in one way. The fact that it wasn’t a six-figure supercar meant that it was likely to be much more accessible, and I found out later that night just how accessible it would be.
The car belongs to my wife’s cousin, Eric. He lives on Vancouver Island, which is where we happened to be heading a few days later. Conversations ensued and invitations were issued. Sure enough, a few days later, we found ourselves heading to Eric’s place to stay on the first night of our Vancouver Island trip.
So to the car itself.
This is a kit car, comprising a custom interior (as yet unfinished) and a customised Lamborghini Countach exterior made from fibreglass. Underneath it all are the basics of a Pontiac Fiero, a mid-engined coupe that was made in the US from 1984 to 1988. The few that still exist are now popular targets for kit cars due to the weight-friendly rear-engined layout and the small, low body shape.
Here’s an example of a Pontiac Fiero SE for those who haven’t seen the original car before:
Check this out for a list of Fiero kit car links. As you can see, it’s a popular past time, with some pretty good results, too.
Eric’s car looked a fair bit different when he first bought it. It was incomplete and ended up being stripped down and fully rebuilt. The front wheel arches were hideously high and ended up being lowered by around 5 inches. It had no finished paint job. The front headlamps were more traditional Countach style units, but these were ditched for small conical units that were taken from a early 1990s Honda, with fibreglass mounts made to suit.
The engine is the original 2.8 litre V6 from the Fiero. In its original state, this engine put out just under 150hp and whilst many kit-car builders replace the V6 with a V8, Eric’s opted to retain and tune the V6 to just under 200hp.
The interior is unfinished at this point, though the basics you need in order to drive the car are there. The dashboard functions and there’s a stereo in place. Eric’s also installed a rear view camera with a dash-mounted screen so you can see what’s going on out back. It’s essential, too, as there’s no rear visibility otherwise.
Eric’s pondering what to do with the interior at the moment. He’s even considering replacing the whole instrument cluster with a digital readout, which would be very 1980’s indeed.
Eric brought the car out of the garage for these photos and after I’d wandered around the vehicle recording the shots you see here, he asked me if I wanted to go for a ride - would I ever?!
The car roared to life and I got an instant reminder that the worked V6 was literally just inches from the back of my head. The noise was incredible. We got out on to the open road and when Eric opened her up it was an absolute feast for the senses. You have the visual experience of being so low to the road with a huge raked windscreen in front of you. Then there’s they physical experience of being so low-slung, being pushed back into your seat when the driver hits the gas and the wind rushing past like you’re in a convertible (note: there are no windows in those doors as yet). Combine all this with the aural sensation of an engine sitting almost on your shoulders and it really is an experience.
A few miles down the road, I was presented with another opportunity that I was NOT going to miss. “Would you like a drive?” Eric asked.
I didn’t need a second invitation.
Getting into the car is an experience in itself. It’s really low to the ground and the scissor doors and low roof-line make for some interesting contortions (especially for someone who’s enjoyed Oreo cookies like I have for the last 4 weeks). You have to get your right leg in first and make sure it’s on the right side of the steering wheel, then sit lightly on the sill and try to shimmy your butt over on to the driver’s seat.
Once you’re in there, there’s plenty of room and driving position is actually quite comfortable. The engine roared to life and we were on our way. I was a little more accustomed to the whole experience by this time, so I could concentrate a little more on actually driving the car without being too overwhelmed by things.
At around 200hp, the car has just a little more power than my 1985 Saab 900 Turbo, but without the turbo rush. It’s a completely different type of power, though. Obviously. In this car, the power comes on straight away and whilst you’re travelling at a reasonable clip, it feels like you’re travelling much faster due to the noise and the low seating position.
There’s a lot of reasons why you wouldn’t buy a kit car like this. The vibrations and rattles are too numerous to mention. The visibility in any direction other than straight ahead is terrible. The potential for mechanical or structural failure is ever-present. It has next-to-no storage.
And yet there’s one very important reason why you would buy a kit car like this - it’s every fun thing that motoring should be. It’s noisy the way you want a car to be noisy. It’s got character. It’s got speed. And you’re never likely to see your car coming at you in the other direction.
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Fun is good! Safe trip home.
B
The novelty of this to a non-U.S. citizen is understandable, but these are an object of disgust to all but those who expend energy, time and resources building them.
have a safe trip home
You don’t have Oreo cookies in Australia? What kind of hell is that!?!?
During your time in Canada I hope you were able to enjoy all the different varieties of Oreos. There’s Double Stuf (twice the amount of cream in the center), there’s “Uh Oh Oreos” which are Oreos with one cookie being golden and one being chocolate, there are Golden Oreos (vanilla cookies instead of chocolate), there’s Winter Oreos (red creme), there’s Chocolate Oreos (chocolate creme), there’s Mint Oreos, Halloween Oreos, Spring Oreos…
Does Australian customs have a limit to how many trays of Oreos you can import? If you look really hard you should be able to find at least the regular style Oreos in Oz. Here’s the Australian Oreo website:
www[dot]kraft[dot]com[dot]au[dot]kraft-hosting[dot]net/nabisco/products_oreo[dot]cfm
(replace my “dot”s with . I’m trying to avoid the “no more than one URL in a comment” spam filter…
Doesn’t Kraft (who owns Nabisco, maker of Oreos) make Vegemite?
I like how you’re wearing your Saab shirt in the pic.
Griff, you know far too much about Oreos.
Don’t forget Christmas Edition Oreos… White Fudge Dipped I think they call ‘em, Spring(yellow or blue creme) Oreos, Peanut-Butter Oreos, Inside-Out Oreos (Vanilla Cookie with Chocolate Creme), and Oreos. I’ve also seen them with green creme, pink creme, and probably Lemon creme. Oh, and Mini-Oreos, as well as Oreo cereal, 100 Calorie Packs, Cakesters, ice creams, pies, and many types of granola bars and boxed, simple-to-prepare desserts.
OH SNAP I LOVE FIEROGHINIS AND FIERARRIS! THAT IS SO AWESOME! This is one of the better ones I’ve seen. I’d wrestle in a 4A-GZE rather than keep the V6, personally. I mean, if I couldn’t go with a Northstar, that is
I’d just do the rational thing and get a real mid-engined sports car like an MR2 turbo or an old esprit. The sad thing is that I actually liked how the later fiero’s looked but to each their own I guess.
Yes the Oreos as varied as the M&Ms, but
Being old enough to remember when they first came out, the great thing about the Fiero (for kit cars) is that the body is not a part of the structure. The car was a GM experiment in which the metal body structure is just under the skin and the outer skin just attaches to it. You can very easily unbolt the outer panels and replace them for collision repair or for styling changes. GM did this for model year freshenings and even when the car was in production, there were aftermarket Corvette and Ferrari Dino body panels. I think the VW Beetle (in which the whole car bolts onto a bottom frame/pan/drivetrain) is the only car that is easier to kitify.
It is also mid-engine (like a real Lambo or Ferrari) not rear-engine (like a real Porsche or VW).
The other great thing about the Fiero is that it can still serve to remind GM of the dangers of rule by committee. One group at GM wanted an economy/commuter car, the other a sports car, so the Fiero became neither (or a little bit of both if you are a glass half full type). The V6 was a case of too little, too late to save the car. The funny thing is that they could have had both with a Chevrolet 4-cylinder model and a Pontiac sports model and they could have looked completely different using completely different outer skin panels. Right about that time GM was putting supercharges on V6’s too. Thanks to Bob Lutz, the mistake was not repeated with the Solstice.
I’m with Alex on this. Why take a underdeveloped car and put a new dress on it when for around the same money you could get yourself a compete car like a Lotus or, better yet, a Panoz AIV. Obviously part of the appeal is creating your own car but even then there are better kits to build (Cobra replica, Caterham, etc.) To each their own. The Fiero itself is a pretty cool car - it just needed a bit more development; lots of potential there - kind of like the Delorean.
Oh and if you want a mid-engined kit car in the US I’m sure you could throw together a factory five GTM for about the same $$$ as a well-done pontiacborghini, and the steel tube framed GTM with it’s corvette-sourced LS1 will pretty much drive circles around any production car under $200k.
Take a look at it, it’s the mother of all kit cars and their cobra replicas are pretty cool too
http://www.factoryfive.com/table/ffrkits/GTM/GTMkit.html
And it’s built in Massachusetts as well!
If I was to do a fiero, I’d do it the way GM should have built the car in the first place, with the later fastback-looking body and either a turbo quad-4 or an LQ1 to kick it with some cool 80’s GM engine style, preferably in a really garish 80’s looking color like white but again that’s just my odd, odd style.
I was wondering what happened to all the Fieros. I thought they broke in half and burst into flames. Kit cars. Whodathunk. I need to pay more attention, I guess.
Vegemite Oreos? I’d try them once.
Oz does have Oreos, and if you look carefully, you see they are made in Indonesia. Therefore, I don’t buy them. Check Nabisco products on the shelf at the local Woolies, they all come from China, therefore …
Nabisco used to make products in Australia, but I don’t think they ever made Oreos here?
Safe trip Swade!
Gripen: Kraft does make Vegemite here in Oz. Don’t know what everyone sees in the stuff myself, but then I not originally Australian so perhaps that explains it? Come to think of it, I never liked Marmite when I was a kid either!
As Saabseller states, we have the oreos but they are not very popular here as other companies also make similar, and better tasting in my opinion. Arnotts Tim Tams are the big biscuits here. For those that are unatitiated they are to rectangle bicuits with cream in the middle and smothered in chocalate.
There’s a stereotype of Americans I think you’ve probably all heard and I think that Oreos may have contributed to that.
Oreos are very good. It probably has to do with all the trans-fat they have in there (or the high fructose corn syrup exclusive to Oreos made in the U.S. and Canada. Everywhere else they’re made sugar is used). I’m guessing the Canadian Oreos Swade had are much better quality than Indonesian or Chinese-made ones in Oz. Maybe that’s why they’ve never taken-off in Australia. If they were as good as they are in N.A. everyone down under would look like Americans!
i love those White Fudge Dipped oreos
yum.
Oreos are my drug. I used to to do real drugs, and then I stopped because that’s stupid, and now I just eat Oreos with milk pretty much constantly, and I’m a thin little guy.
I don’t like the Fat America stereotype…We have a lot more fat people, but we aren’t all fat.
You say “The Wheel Arches were “hideously high” so you modified them to fit the baby wheels? Huh?? The point of those openings was to put aftermarket wheels on so it looks and handles ever-so-slightly more like a Lambo instead of a toy.
Fieros were/are the sign of everything wrong with GM in the 1980’s. A good/great concept so mildly and poorly executed that it was destined for failure. Imagine if the Fiero had made 200 hp as a base configuration, had four-wheel discs and a stiff chassis? (Oh, and it would to avoid catching fire at the drop of a hat and go more than four-five months between visits to the dealership.) It would have been a hit of monumental proportions! As it was, it was a hit with kids and divorced women that owned every Michael Bolton album on cassette.
And, the plastic body panels faded so quickly and unevenly that here in the South every Fiero over about two years old looked as if the owner had ordered replacement panels in the wrong color.
Again, great concept, poor execution. And it wasn’t a bad-looking car at all.
Oh, and I can skip the Oreos even though they are good. Much more of a Fudge Stripe man.