During our 35th Anniversary Show planning meeting in October at the Pontiac Oakland Museum in Pontiac IL, Museum Director Tim Dye mentioned that much Fiero materials had been donated but that he has not had the chance to go through and organize it. Midwest Fiero Clubs President and Historian Fred Bartemeyer Jr. offered to help. So this past Friday club members from Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa helped Tim sort through many of the documents donated to the museum library.
The museum is home to both the museum’s library, as well as the Pontiac Oakland Club International’s library. So much care was taken to make sure materials from the various source were not mixed. There was many interesting items discovered. National and local Fiero club publications going back to the early 90’s, internal GM publications, lots of Press Kits for the various Fiero launches, and many brochures from aftermarket performance part and kit car manufacturers.
We also came across some very interesting slides, including the prototype for the 86 1/2 fastback and a slide showing the one blue 85 GT made. Much of the donations had come from enthusiasts that donated their personal collections or from clubs that had disbanded. The most interesting documents though were from former GM executives that included many internal communications regarding the Fiero program. These included letters between Pontiac and AutoFab, the company that did much of the work on GM prototype cars in the 80’s. There are also some interesting proposals that were made to keep the Fiero program going.
Once we started going through this treasure trove of documents I think it may have turned into a night at the museum if we could have stayed. Needless to say we will be going back with a scanner to copy many of the documents. It was great to be able to help the museum organize its important collection of Fiero documents, and hopefully will help any researchers in the future.
Look for information from this visit to be included in future Fiero Focus magazine articles, in updates to NIFE’s Fiero Enthusiast Guide, in articles on this website, and in POCI’s Smoke Signals Magazine (edited by Museum Director Tim Dye).
