1988 Pontiac Fiero Gt Coupe 2-door 2.8l on 2040-cars

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GM Design shows what could have been and what might be

We periodically like to check in with GM Design's Instagram account to see what they're cooking up. Even better is when we catch a glimpse of an alternate history of what legendary designers from The General's past were thinking, though those ideas may not have made it into production. This week, for example, the account posted some illustrations from George Camp, whose career at GM spanned nearly four decades, from 1963 to 2001. One of the renderings is of what appears to be a 1971-72 Pontiac GTO Judge, but with two headlights instead of the production unit's quad beams. The rear departs from the canonical version most dramatically, with a massive integrated wing. Other bits that didn't make the production cut include large side vents, a gill-like side marker and rectangular intakes below the headlights that wouldn't be out of place on a modern design today. Amazingly, from what we can make out of the date, it appears that the drawing was done sometime in 1965, which makes it quite prescient.           View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by GM Design (@generalmotorsdesign) There's also a very aerodynamic interpretation of a Corvette ZR-1. To our eyes it splits the difference between the 1986 Corvette Indy concept and a fourth-generation F-body Pontiac Firebird, so perhaps parts of Camp's work on this sketch did make it into physical form. There's also a radical sports car concept from May 1970 that resembles the Mazda RX-500 concept from the same year, a Syd Mead-looking Cadillac coupe, and an Oldsmobile with a cool take on the company's trademark waterfall grille and elements of the Colonnade Cutlass at the rear. Other recent posts include a FJ Cruiser-like off-road EV, a sleek coupe with the Chevy corporate grille, and a rendering of a Silverado-esque pickup that looks far better than the current production version.           View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by GM Design (@generalmotorsdesign) It's pretty easy to lose hours in the account, but it's always fascinating to see GM's visions of what could have been and what might be. Related Video:

There's a 'Knight Rider' movie in development

James Wan, who has directed films from the first "Saw" to "Aquaman," with "Furious 7" in between, and produced even more projects, is producing a new Knight Rider movie according to a report in Deadline. Just in case there's a reader who doesn't know, Knight Rider was one of the seminal trio of iconic-car shows from the 1980s, along with "The Dukes of Hazzard" and "Miami Vice." The series lasted 90 episodes that ran from 1982 to 1986, following the crime-fighting exploits of Michael Knight, a man who crusaded for justice after being shot in the face. Billionaire Walton Knight hired Michael to work with the Knight Foundation, where Michael helps develop the Knight Industries Two Thousand, a Pontiac Trans-Am with AI that can talk, drive more than 200 miles per hour, and could teach MI6's Q Branch about gadgetry. Collider described David Hasselhof's Michael Knight as "crimefighter by trade and wearing-a-leather-jacket-with-no-shirt-underneath innovator by hobby." The show made such an impression that there was a series spinoff called "Code of Justice," two TV movies in 1991 and 1994, a convention called KnightCon, and a series reboot on NBC that lasted for one season from 2008 to 2009, as well as stores full of action figures and models and literature, YouTube fan-made trailers and movies, and this wacky German-dubbed short "Knight Rider" film starring Hasselhoff. We don't know anything about the new movie's plot yet, other than that it's set in the present. T.J. Fixman, better known for now as a video game writer who worked on franchises like "Ratchet and Clank" and "Resistance: Fall of Man," has been attached to write, with a mandate to keep "the anti-establishment tone of the original." With matters still early in development there's no telling when the movie will hit theaters, and Wan's probably got his hands busy with the new MacGuyver reboot for CBS, anyway. Now that there's already been a Knight Industries 2000 and 3000, that gives us plenty of time to imagine — in a world where 200-mph hypercars powered by everything sprout like weeds and even Cannonballers are using military-like equipment — what would a Knight Industries Four Thousand possess? And would it be called KIFT? Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Junkyard Gem: 2009 Pontiac G3

Things weren't looking so rosy for Pontiac Division in late 2008, as The General had troubles of its own that culminated in Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June of 2009. Meanwhile, the Solstice and G8 had failed to revive Pontiac's youthful "excitement" image. Naturally, this seemed like the ideal time to put Pontiac badges and a new grille on the Chevrolet Aveo (itself a rebadged Daewoo Kalos) and call it the G3 (in the United States) or the G3 Wave (in Canada). Sales were not brisk, to put it mildly, and the 2009-only G3 has become one of the rarest modern Pontiacs in the junkyard world. The announcement of Pontiac's demise came in the spring of 2009, with the very last Pontiac-badged vehicle built being either a G3 or a Vibe (since those cars were really Daewoos and Toyotas, respectively, the true final Pontiac was the 2010 G6). The Aveo itself disappeared after the 2011 model year, replaced by an updated Kalos design known here as the Chevrolet Sonic. As a result of the GM bankruptcy, termination of the Pontiac brand, a nasty worldwide recession, and the preference of American vehicle shoppers for trucks or at least truck-shaped cars, few knew the G3 existed and fewer still thought to buy one. This is only the second G3 I've managed to find in a car graveyard, and I've been searching diligently.  So, it's a Junkyard Gem in the historical sense, not in the sense of being the kind of car you'd want to take to your 20th high school reunion. That said, it has power windows, air conditioning, and a CD player— pretty nice stuff for a dirt-cheap econobox from a decade back. And look! An AUX jack for your iPod or early-model smartphone. I drove dozens of cheap rental cars for my job with the 24 Hours of Lemons Traveling Circus during the late 2000s, and very few had this feature; until about 2013 or so, you had to travel with your own CDs or one of those horrible wireless FM modulators if you wanted to listen to anything other than the radio in a non-high-roller rental car. Under the hood, a 106-horse Daewoo Ecotec displacing 1.6 liters. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. If there were any television commercials for the G3, I guarantee that they weren't as fun as this one— set in the California high desert, of course— for the SKDM Kalos.