A 1967 Corvair convertible and a 1986 Pontiac Fiero look like they have nothing in common, until you realize both cars broke from GM’s usual playbook in ways that cost them dearly. Here’s why these two unlikely underdogs deserve more respect than they usually get.
Which one would you like to drive?
On paper, a 1967 Chevrolet Corvair convertible and a 1986 Pontiac Fiero shouldn’t have much in common — they’re separated by two decades, a completely different design era, and about as far apart on the collector-car respect scale as two American cars can get. But look closer and they share one of the strangest traits in Detroit history: both cars broke from GM’s own playbook, and both paid a steep price for it. One was a rear-engined economy car that became a legal battleground, and the other was America’s only mass-produced mid-engine sports car, built by a division not exactly known for exotic engineering. So which one actually deserves more credit for taking the bigger risk?
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The Corvair Was Already Fighting for Its Life by 1967
By the time this convertible rolled off the line, the Corvair’s best days were already behind it. Sales had cratered from more than 230,000 units in 1965 to barely 100,000 in 1966, and 1967 saw fewer than 30,000 built total, a brutal collapse driven largely by safety criticism aimed at the Corvair’s rear-engine, swing-axle design. The 1967 Monza convertible came with a flat-six making 95 horsepower standard, with a 110-horsepower version optional, numbers that were never going to save the car’s reputation but did make for a genuinely pleasant, quirky open-air cruiser. GM was already quietly moving on, pouring resources into the freshly redesigned Corvette, Chevelle, and Chevy II Nova instead.
The Fiero Took the Same Kind of Gamble Two Decades Later
Fast forward to 1986, and Pontiac was running its own version of that same experiment: putting the engine behind the driver in a car built for the masses, not a boutique exotic buyer. The Fiero’s mid-engine layout made it the only mass-produced car of its kind ever built by an American manufacturer, and by 1986 buyers had real options — a 92-horsepower four-cylinder standard, or a 140-horsepower 2.8-liter V6 for drivers who wanted more bite. Pontiac moved nearly 84,000 of them that year alone, proof there was real appetite for an American sports car that didn’t play by the usual front-engine rulebook, even if the Fiero’s reputation would take its own hits before the decade was out.
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