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Junkyard Gem: 1984 Pontiac Fiero with supercharged 3800 V6 swap

Like the Corvair, the Vega, and the Citation, the Pontiac Fiero was a very innovative machine that ended up causing General Motors more headaches than happiness, and Fiero aficionados and naysayers continue to beat each other with tire irons (figuratively speaking, I hope) to this day. The General has often proved willing to take the occasional big gamble and huge GM successes in engineering prowess (including the first overhead-valve V8 engine for the masses and the first real-world-usable true automatic transmission) and marketing brilliance (e.g., the Pontiac GTO and related John DeLorean home runs) meant that the idea of a mid-engined sporty economy car (or economical sports car) got a shot from the suits on the 14th floor. Sadly, the Fiero ended up being the marketplace victim of too many issues to get into here, and The General pulled the plug immediately after the 1988-model-year suspension redesign that made the Fiero the sports car it should have been all along. But what if the plastic Pontiac had never suffered from the misery of the gnashy, pokey Iron Duke engine and had been built from the start with a screaming supercharged V6 making way better than 200 horsepower? The final owner of today's Junkyard Gem sought to make that very Fiero, by dropping in one of the many supercharged 3.8-liter V6s installed in 1990s and 2000s GM factory hot rods. The first Fieros came out in 1983 for model year 1984, and the only engine available that year was the Iron Duke 2.5-liter four-cylinder, which generated its 92 horsepower with the full-throated song of a Soviet tractor stuck in the freezing mud of a Polish sugar-beet field. The 2M4 badging stood for "two seats, mid-engine, four cylinders," just as the numbers in the Oldsmobile 4-4-2 once represented "four carburetor barrels, four-speed manual transmission, dual exhaust." This car is a top-trim-level SE model, which listed for $9,599 (about $24,200 today). The no-frills Fiero cost just $7,999 that year, making these cars far cheaper than the only other reasonably affordable new mid-engined car Americans could buy at that time: the $13,990 Bertone (aka Fiat) X1/9. The Toyota MR2 appeared in North America as a 1985 model with a base price of $10,999 and promptly siphoned off the car-buying cash from a bunch of potential Fiero shoppers.

Junkyard Gem: 1991 Pontiac Grand Am LE with Quad 4 Engine

GM introduced the N-Body compact platform with the Oldsmobile Calais and Pontiac Grand Am for the 1985 model year and continued building N-based cars through 1998. Most of these cars weren't interesting from an enthusiast standpoint, but a handful rolled off the assembly line with raucous DOHC Oldsmobile Quad 4 engines and manual transmissions, and those cars were plenty of fun. Here's a 1991 Grand Am with that rare setup, photographed in a self-service yard in California's Central Valley. The base engine in the 1991 Grand Am was the 110-horsepower, 2.5-liter pushrod Iron Duke, an engine that might have been fine on a Romanian tractor in 1953 but had no place on an American street car as the 21st century approached. Fortunately, GM started bolting the modern 2.3-liter DOHC Quad 4 engine into 1988 cars, and this was a proper four-cylinder. The Quad 4 ran a little rough and uncivilized, and it had its share of reliability problems, but you could rev the piss out of it and it made good power. In 1991, this engine was rated at 180 hp. That made this 2,592-pound sedan pretty quick. Unfortunately, the slushboxization of America had progressed with depressing rapidity during the 1980s, and by 1991 most Grand Am buyers — even the ones who opted for the Quad 4 — chose the automatic transmission. That didn't happen with this car, though — it boasts a rugged Getrag 5-speed instead of the happiness-amputating three-speed automatic. Yes, that's the kind of odometer reading you'd expect to see on an Accord or Maxima from this era. Someone loved this car and took care of it. Here we see an interesting mix of 1980s and 1990s car-radio technology. CD players in cars were still costly luxury items in 1991, seldom seen in affordable cars like the Grand Am, while 1980s-style slider-style EQ controls were on the way out. This Delco unit straddles both decades nicely. I seek out Quad 4-equipped cars during my junkyard travels, and I have photographed quite a few: this '89 Cutlass Calais, this '90 Cutlass Calais, this '90 Grand Am, this '91 Quad 442, this '93 Achieva SCX, and this '98 Cavalier Z24. It's a shame that Buick never put the Quad 4 in the Reatta, which was a fine car ruined by a somnolent and obsolete V6. The music in this ad is even more early-1990s than Crystal Pepsi. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

This Hoonigan mechanic's twin-turbo Trans Am is wonderful

What do you drive when you work on rally machines for a living? Probably a Subaru WRX, and that's what Gregg Hamilton had for a while until working on his car felt too much like his day job. So when he moved from New Zealand to the US to work for Ken Block (with a few stops along the way) he bought something entirely different. This is Gregg's 1979 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. It's a throwback to another time, but it's anything but stock. It has that magic combination of a big V8 with a manual transmission and rear drive, just like the tin-top racers Gregg watched in his Kiwi youth. He bought it sight unseen from its previous owner in Alabama, and has been tinkering with it ever since. There's something about the flared wheel arches and the classic Firebird gold-striped black livery that has us smitten. Scope out the six-minute clip above from Petrolicious and see if you don't fall for Gregg's Pontiac as well.