2 seat mid engined commuter car

[MikeDirntRulez]

I don't know.

They already have the Sky and the Solstice.

From a company standpoint, I don't think there's really a big enough market to invest in the R&D and marketing for a mid-engined "economy/sports" car.

They probably figure most car buyers don't really care if it's mid-engined or not. Most of them genuinely don't know the benefits of it. It would be a niche car like the SSR -- which we all know sold so well.

[Bravada]

Actually, that would be a great idea to boost Pontiac. Turn Kappa around, kill Solstice, resurrect Fiero, create a really unique "supercar" one can actually afford to buy and drive daily. Without a folding roof, this could actually be a rather light car with small engines, which could even boost GM's CAFE.

[ogg vorbis]

wow. i forgot about this thread. nice to hear from everyone!

i've heard kappa is dead. it's basically a smaller upsilon (corvette/y) and isn't any lighter. you can squeeze an LSx in it, but it's not as easy as dropping it in a fiero. the fiero was so versatile.

i would prefer a monocoque cab and space subframes. the corvette's torsional stiffness has been around 9000 ft-lb/degree for over a decade, and the lotus evora's is at 17,000!! epoxy bonding would let them use the balsa core composite as a serious structural member, and not just floor closeouts. the corvette has moved so high in price that they should be looking at better but costlier construction methods. kappa could stick around as an affordable sports car.

the biggest gripes with the fiero were its weight, and lack of power steering - it wasn't very female friendly. having a cast iron I4/v6 and automatic don't help. the 2.2 vvt ecotec and electric power steering fix that. it would be a 2400 lb car with plenty of pep and 35+ mpg. i wouldn't mind it being a little taller too (maybe i'm getting old) because i don't like falling into my car. an affordable, high 13 second, 30+ mpg car will sell.

i really like the idea of the turbo 1.4. 40+ mpg runabout.

the original fiero was $10g new. a new fiero should be around $17g. while other compact cars are in that range, they're heavier, and the engine's in the wrong place. gm has done an exceptional job with the new cobalt ss, and that could be an argument against a new mid-engined car.

when you consider 90+% of people still commute alone, a 2 seater doesn't affect anything. and we don't need 200+ hp engines pushing around 3000+ lb of car. a hayabusa motor in a fortwo works very well

[ogg vorbis]

road & track announced in its november issue that vw is very likely to have a boxster based car come out. it will likely be powered by the 1.4 tsi with 170 bhp, and weigh around 2200 lb. doesn't this sound a LOT like the fiero we've been discussing? hmmm.

[Slideways]

If you want to keep this thing cheap, I think you should go with the Fiero/MR2 recipe, namely use fwd drivetrains, but mounted over the rear wheels. Cobalt engine/transaxle in the rear, Kappa suspension in the front. If cars like that replaced the one-and-done Kappa it would soften the blow.

[Raydar]

Personally, I would love to see a new Fiero.
Aside from all the development costs, the problem is still, as it was in the 80s, that it is not feasible to have a platform dedicated to only a "niche" model, such as a two seater. (The Solstice/Sky/Opel GT lines mitigate that a bit, but they're still having trouble selling them.)
Pontiac sold all the Fieros that they could produce, for 84 and 85. After that, the market was saturated and sales plummeted. (Of course, the engine fire recalls and the previously mentioned lack of power steering didn't help any.)
Aside from that, a smaller, lighter two seater, with a smaller engine, could still be seen as a threat to the Corvette, in the eyes of Chevrolet. It is still a widely held belief that Chevy had a lot to do with the plug being pulled on the Fiero in 88. Pontiac was testing a few designs that sent some Chevrolet engineering spies straight into full-blown conniptions.