May 2015

Joint publication of the New England Fiero Association and Mid Atlantic Fiero Owners Association

FL Fiero Weekend 2015

Submitted by: Gwen Randolph

If it's March, the pilgrimage to Daytona, FL for the Spring Turkey Rod Run & the FL Fiero Weekend is on a lot of Fiero enthusiasts calendars. For anyoneliving in the cold areas of the US, it's also a great time to get away & enjoy a few days in shorts & T-shirts. NEFA & MAFOA members have been at-tending this show for years because the Daytona show, like the Carlisle show that MAFOA has holds each year, has always been one of those shows to attend.

What started out for many of us as a reason to getaway from the cold has evolved after many years into a few days of spending a few days with friends. Checking out all the colorful Fieros is always fun, but it's about the friends made over the years that puts this annual trip on calendars each year.

The weekend this year gave us some beautiful weather & as in past years, many colorful Fieros taking up their annual location on the 4th turn grass area at the Speedway. With activities planned during the weekend there was something to interest everyone.

For those of you who remember & miss Les Sandy,you know that his grandson, Jeffrey, now proudly owns Les's beautiful custom red Fiero. Jeffrey & his family – they live in FL – again attended Day-tona this year showing off that beautiful Fiero. Over many years of attending the FL Fiero Week-end shows we've all watched Jeffrey grow up.

Photo credit: Larry Wheeler

More photos on Page 6

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Macungie – General Motors onDisplay

Sunday, May 3rd, 2015

Macungie Memorial Park, Macungie, PA

The Keystone State Chapter of Pontiac – Oakland Club International is sponsoring the 37th Annual General Motors on Display show.

The show is open to all General Motors cars & trucks which will be grouped by age & body design. Over 200 cars are typically in attendance.This is a show only with no judging or trophies; however, the first 250 registered vehicles will receive a high quality dash plaque. Door prizes will be awarded by drawing. The event also includes a flea market & car corral. Food & musicwill be available at the show.

The featured class this year is the Camaro-Firebird-TransAM. Pre-registration is $8.00 with an April 27th deadline. Registration is $10 day of the show. For more details & to pre-register, use the Keystone Chapter link - Keystone State POCI.

31st Annual All Pontiac and OaklandSpring Car Show

May 17, 2015

PNA Park, 171 North Planes Highway,Wallingford, CT

Sponsored by the Nutmeg Chapter P.O.C.I. &Barberino Nissan. For more info check out

www.nutmegchapterpoci.com

Always a fun show to get together with Fierofriends.

Lititz Spring Fling 2015

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Lititz Springs Park, 24 N Broad St, Lititz, PA

All Fiero owners are welcome! You don't need to be a MAFOA member to attend. The cost for reg-istration is just $5 for club members & $10 for non-members. Everyone is asked to bring a dish &/or something to contribute to the prize table. Registration the day of the show is an additional $5.

The theme this year is Fiero Upgrades & En-hancements. Check Lititz show info for additional information. The fun starts at 8:00 am.

MD Fiero Cruise through BaltimoreCounty

Saturday, May 2, 2015

Hunt Valley Town Center 50 Shawan Road, Cockeysville, MD

Plan to arrive at 9:00 am & look for Dwane (88medium red metallic Fiero GT) near Joe's Crab Shack. The “Hunt Valley Horsepower” (Car & Coffee) meet should be in full swing. You'll have time to check out the cars in attendance & get coffee or a bite to eat at Pete's Coffee or Panera Bread.

We will leave the parking lot at 10:00 am. Our cruise will include a trip through the Loch Raven Reservoir & various roads that you should enjoy. After we leave the reservoir we will head over to Route 147 enjoying some twists & turns, returning to the Hunt Valley Town Center for lunchat Joe's Crab Shack. See this link for what's on the local Joe's Crab Shack menu.

The cruise should last between 2 & 3 hours & cover between 50-75 miles round trip.

If you'd like to join in on the fun or you have any questions, email Dwane dajack761@gmail.com. I need a head count for how many to expect & reserve enough seats at the restaurant. I hope to see you on May 2.

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Good Stuff!

Submitted by: Bruce Homeyard

With Carlisle & the Indy 500 coming up in May, I thought I would share what I think is the first great Indy Pace Car picture & a link to Ira Crummy's old website that many Fiero people may never have seen. While I have a poster of this picture, I copied the picture from Ira's website. Check out http://ironduke7.tripod.com/index.htm.

On this site you'll find several links that are of interest to Fiero enthusiasts, such as an RPO list by Paul Vargas, a very good section of articles on Fiero handling, a Fiero coloring book by Ira, & another good section on Iron Duke perfor-mance. Ira no longer has his 84 Coupe, but keeps the sight up. I first saw this site around 2001 after I got my first Fiero,, the 85 GT.

Lou Dias Update

We first highlighted NEFA member Lou Dias& his 1987 Fiero race car in the June 2013Fiero Pride. Check out the video that was

printed in that issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGULd4xUOTs

Fast forward to 2015 & the January 2015issue of MotorHead Magazine,

www.getmotorhead.com, based in Cranston,RI, & the article written about Lou & his

yellow Fiero race car. Check out:http://issuu.com/eedrap/docs/motorhead-

jan2015_web. The article starts on Page 18.

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Fast forward to1995 when I got a call from my ac-countant. Seems my business was doing very good&, as he said, “You need to buy something…like a car.” It was supposed to give me some tax ad-vantage. Not sure I followed that, but my banker agreed. My thoughts went back to the Fiero. The kids were grown for the most part. It was just Janet & me, so I had my first mid-life crisis attack. What about a Fiero? “Great,” “Perfect,” was the response from the accountant & Janet couldn’t ob-ject ‘cause “the accountant said I should do it.” Awesome!

So I re-energized my study of the Fiero. If I’m gonna do this, I want the best. The first words of wisdom was that I should get an ‘88GT. Further research came up with a T-Top. So that’s how I focused my search. I actually found several for sale around New England. After test-driving sev-eral, I realized that my feet don’t comfortably fit the clutch, brake & gas pedals, so a standard shift was out. Plus, the auto transmission was a pre-mium option & I wanted the best. I narrowed in on one in Needham, MA. It seemed to be loaded with options like the pneumatic lumbar seat, whichI had not seen before, but it needed some mostly cosmetic attention. The guy was asking $12k for it. I offered $8k. “Nope, no way,” said the seller. Ithen bumped to $8,500 & told the guy that I’d leave it on the table & if he wanted to sell, give me a call. Two months later I got the call. “My wifetells me I have to get some of these cars out of here, so it’s yours for $8,500 if you still want it.” With my heart fluttering, I casually said, ”yes,” & it was a done deal. I was now the proud owner of

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NEFA Member Spotlight

This month we highlight Ray Paulk, President

I’ve always had a passion for mechanical things….. things I could either build or rebuild to make better. With a degree in Mechanical Engineering, I have de-signed all kinds of stuff throughout my career, from space shuttle engines, plastic injection molding ma-chines, infrared instrumentation, control systems & a lot more. It’s all fun stuff; same skill set, just different applications.

In 1985 I was working on location in Reno, NV. It was the weekend & the factory was closed, so a few of theother engineers & I decided to go to the Reno AirRaces. We were following a 1985 Fiero GT & everyone in the car was clamoring for a look. What a hot car! How could I not have known about this little gem & then reality set in. I had a wife, a mortgage & three young kids at home. I couldn’t even dream of a 2-passenger sports car. It was Grand Caravan time forme. Each kid does have to have their own window you know.

But, the Fiero still intrigued me. I started reading & learning about the car. Man, this car was breaking all the rules.....so much innovation. I followed the devel-opment of the car, reading the reviews, mostly in Pop-ular Mechanics, & seeing it evolve into a world-class sports car. I knew it was out of the question for me what with the kids & all, but it made me proud to see American engineers working to build something so special. Unfortunately my dreams were dashed when it was terminated by GM. The writing had been on theWall for some time, as it was obvious, by the reviews, that the Fiero was becoming a world-class sports car & threatening the Corvette, GM’s All-American flagshipThat was the kiss of death for the Fiero.

Continued from Page 4.......NEFA Member Spotlight

a Fiero! Naturally I was all over it, fixing all sorts of little stuff. The bumpers needed to be painted as there were several silver dollar sized chips that had flaked off.The former owner said he had it painted, but the paint-er obviously didn’t know to make the paint flexible. All in all, I was having fun with my new toy.

About this time I had found out about Fiero clubs & the“cult” following that the Fiero had. I joined MAFOA & my wife & I decided to go to our first Fiero event. It was the National Fiero Show hosted by FOCOA in Wil-liamsburg, VA. A pretty risky venture for the first “shake-down” cruise, but the trip was great, & we found the Fiero, although small from the outside, was avery comfortable touring car.

Our introduction to the Fiero community was when we drove into the hotel parking lot, about 9:00 pm. There were Fieros & Fiero people all over the place. I dis-tinctly remember Penny Schlag shouting down from the2nd floor balcony with, “I like your car” & “Who are you?” “We’re going to the lounge, so come on over.” It just kept getting better & better.

I joined a few more clubs, but MAFOA was my favorite.One club I joined was FOCONE (Fiero Owners Club of New England). Although geographically better for us, FOCONE seemed to lack the steam to really make it. In1999, FOCONE was dying. The enthusiasts were there, but the heart wasn’t. I felt that someone needed to dosomething, but whatever was to be done couldn’t have the baggage of the old club. As a member of the BOD for MAFOA, I approached the board with the concept ofa new New England club, building off the MAFOA Platform & that we could share a newsletter. That fall

& spring I worked in consult with the MAFOA BOD on the format for the new club & a new regional club & created by-laws handling all the rules, regulations & what ifs. On March 10, 2000, I invited all the Fiero en-thusiasts I knew, 29 of them, to join me at Bob Parker’sKick Hill Farm to launch the new NE Fiero club. Every-one joined & we left with a new club, 30 founding members, a new BOD & adopted by-laws. After the initial meeting, suggestions were made for a name & later the logo. Hence the birth of the New England Fiero Association.

Flashback again to 1984…..I tend to be a workaholic, immersing myself into my job & whatever interests me.In ’84 my doctor told me I needed something to relievestress, something to distract me from my work. I start-ed collecting Matchbox Models of yesteryear. Anyone who knows me, knows I can’t do anything half way. I built my collection to one of the top ones in the US, butby 1990, the hobby had changed, the fun was not there anymore, so I sold the collection. In 1996, with my new interest in the Fiero, I was in WalMart & saw my first yellow Hot Wheels Fiero…..Cool! Of course, I bought that one & several more. I found a few other variations so picked up those too. That was the start. After all, it’s a Fiero & how many Fiero toys can there be, but the hook was being set. Since then I have beencollecting, documenting & reselling Fiero toys. AlthoughI’ve never counted them in total, I think I have around 700 unique Fiero toys, definitely the largest collection of Fiero toys in the world. If you want to know anythingabout a Fiero toy, just ask.

My other passion is documenting Fieros, in particular, the T-Tops, as they are the most rare version of all Fieros. Although there have been some stabs at docu-menting the T-Tops in the past, I created a database for the Pontiac Fiero T-Top Registry, where I data log the T-Top Fieros we find, & decipher the RPO codes so that we know how each one was built & hence deter-mine the rarity of the options. Remember how I liked my car when I found it because it seemed to have a lotof options? Well, so far, of the 368 Fiero T-Tops I have fully documented, out of 1252 factory T-Tops ever made, mine is one of only 3 with every premium fac-tory option.

If you have a T-Top Fiero & it is not included inthe database, please contact me at:

http://www.fierottop.com/.

As you may know, I'm also the Membership Director of NEFA. I’m still passionate about collecting & docu-menting the Fiero toys & am still finding more Fiero T-Tops to add to the Registry, but my biggest thrill is still driving my Fiero & enjoying the camaraderie of my Fiero friends.

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Continued from Page 1......FL Fiero Weekend 2015

Jeffrey is now 15 & has his driver's permit. I asked him if he had driven the Fiero yet & he said, “Yes, in aparking lot, but that his dad had allowed him to drive the Fiero onto the Daytona show field for the show this year.” I think Jeffrey may have caught the Fiero bug because I saw a smile on his face.

NEFA members Greg & Turid Murid always make thetrip from upstate NY

Photo credit: Gwen Randolph

Les's grandson, Jeffrey

Photo credit: Gwen Randolph

MAFOA member Larry Wheeler's Spooky

Photo credit: Gwen Randolph

Photo credit: Larry Wheeler

Photo credit: Larry Wheeler

What's Happening – 2015 May 2, 2015 - MD Fiero Cruise through Baltimore County - For further info contact Dwane Jackson at dajack761@gmail.com. This is an official MAFOA event.

May 3, 2015 - GM Show at Macungie - MAFOA members attending. For further info see Page 2 or contact Tom Derr at tom6derr@yahoo.com.

May 15, 2010 - The Freysinger Cup Challenge Spring Meet - Mechanicsburg, PA A joint event with the Mid Atlantic Fiero Owners Association & Keystone State Chapter of P.O.C.I. A judged Car Show, dealer test drives & tech session. Hosted by Freysinger Buick, Mazda. Contact: Tom Derr of MAFOA (717) 763-5748 tom6derr@yahoo.com or see the official KSC website www.kscpoci.org for registration form.

May 17, 2015 - 31st Annual All Pontiac and Oakland Spring Car Show – Wallingford, CT. Sponsored by the Nutmeg Chapter P.O.C.I. & Barberino Nissan at PNA Park, 171 North Planes Highway, Wallingford, CT. For more info check out their website www.nutmegchapterpoci.com.

May 24, 2015 - MAFOA Spring Fling at Lititz – For further info see Page 2 or contact Tom Derr at tom6derr@yahoo.com

June 13, 2015 - 40th Annual Gettysburg Region AACA Meet at the Latimore Valley Fairgrounds about 7 miles south of Dillsburg, PA.

June 14, 2015 - 22nd Annual Buick, Pontiac, GMC Car Show at Anheuser-Busch Brewery, 221 Daniel Webster Hwy, Merrimack, NH. Hosted by Tulley Dealerships, Minuteman Chapter, BCA & Nor-Eastern Chapter Pontiac Club. 8am – 3pm, dash plaques, trophies, raffles, food, DJ. $10 registration day of show. Any questions call: Larry Legor at 617-913-8961 or call Hal Lund at 781-864-5665.

June 27 -Save the Date! Fieros at Carlisle @ the GM Nationals, Carlisle, PA Fairgrounds - For further info contact Tom Derr at tom6derr@yahoo.com.

August 8, 2015 – Save the Date! Annual NEFA Swap Meet - The Fiero Store, Manchester, CT. More information to come. A great day to swap, trade and enjoy meeting other Fiero enthusiasts. Don't miss this fun day.

August 9, 2015 – Main Street Car Cruise, downtown Putnam, CT. 10:30 am – 5:00 pm. The streets shut down to accommodate hot rods, classics & antique autos. Stroll the streets. Check out the antique shops & have lunch at one of the restaurants. Enjoy the music. A fun day enjoying the car hobby with other like-minded car enthusiasts.

September 18 & 19, 2015 - Run For The Hills – The Georgia Fiero Club has invited all of us for their 20th anniversary cruise. This year they return to Helen, GA and a run at the “Tail of the Dragon.” All informa- tion can be found on this Pennock's link – http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/095037.html.

September 27, 2015 - 32nd Annual All Pontiac and Oakland Fall Car Show – Wallingford, CT. Sponsored by the Nutmeg Chapter P.O.C.I. & Barberino Nissan at PNA Park, 171 North Planes Highway, Wallingford, CT. For more info check out their website .

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ClassifiedsFieros:

1988 PONTIAC FIERO GT - Fully Restored - $8000. East Falmouth, MA. 115,300 miles. 10,000 on new engine. Blows cold a/c, p/w, p/m, sunroof. No rust issues. Never driven in snow/salt. Check out full description & pictures & contact information @ http://boston.craigslist.org/sob/cto/4677746302.html or http://fieropride.com/. 10/14

1985 Fiero SE - 59k original miles. Automatic. Located in York, PA. Telephone: 317-657-6777.

Parts:

Mirror Control Repair Plate - Reinforcement backing plate repairs broken-out remote control bezel on driver's door mirror. Kit includes easy to follow instructions, plate, extra bezel nuts, & two extra door panel clips just in case you break one. $9.00 covers kit & shipping. Tom Derr @ (717) 763-5748 or tom6derr@yahoo.com.

Coil overs & 2.5 alternator - a pair of rear coil over springs taken off a 88 Fiero. May fit other years. Manufacturer unknown. Great shape. $100 for the pair. Picture provided if interested. Also, 100 amp alternator for a 87-88 Fiero 2.5. AC Delco reman - brand new - in box with fan & pulley attached. Sells new for $125+. Will take $80. Contact Andrew @ Fieroworks@comcast.net Milford, NH.

Koni adjustable Shocks & Struts – Removed from an 88 Formula. Struts & adjustment tool look great. They are probably 10 years old & have about 10,000 miles on them. The front shocks do NOT look as good. They are two different styles also. Pictures available. Make me any offer. Contact Roger@fieropride.com. 2/15

Fiero Toys, Literature & Collectibles:

Fiero Toy Box - Are you interested in Fiero collectibles? Ray Paulk has over 500 unique Fiero toys in his personal collection and tons of toys in inventory, but don't expect cut rate prices as most Fiero toys are rare and hard to find. If you are interested you can contact Ray at Ray@RaytheRealtor.com.

Over 2,000 items cataloged - Dealer Brochures, Owner's Manuals, Workshop Manuals, Magazines, Pamphlets, Models, Die Cast, Pull-back Fieros, Slot Cars, Matchbox, Hot Wheels, Body parts, wheels, sunroofs, ash tray covers, many steering wheels, consoles. Tom Derr @ (717) 763-5748 or tom6derr@yahoo.com.

Cleaning out extra Fiero items - Mint copy of "The Fiero Press Guide" by Thomas Bonsall. Only time the book was opened was when the author autograph it. Sells at Barnes & Nobles for $125 without signature. Would like $100. Also a Pontiac Fiero windbreaker, size XL in new condition. It was either a dealer item or I gotit at GM school – seller worked for a Pontiac dealer - when the 1986 GT's first came out. It's unworn, olive green. Seller can send pictures. Would like $75. Email Matt Turner @ Matthew.Turner@peak-ryzex.com.

NEFA Merchandise & Apparel

Polo shirts with the NEFA logo embroidered on the left front. Nice quality shirts at a reasonable price. You may have seen a few members wearing these shirts. Check out the TC Promos website and use the drop down button for colors and size options http://tcpromos.com/shop/private-store.

Check out the NEFA website http://fieropride.com/ and click on the NEFA Merchandise button to view the NEFA T-shirts for size & colors available or the NEFA window sticker for your Fiero at $1.00 each. And don't forget the NEFA pint glasses. Just the right size for your favorite cold beverage.

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Repair/Painting:

.

Company owned &operated by Andrew

Virzi, NEFA'sTreasurer

Do you have something Fiero related tosell or have a Fiero related service you

want to advertise? This is the place. Sendyour contact information to:

Gwen (NEFA) @ pran@cox.net

or

Jen (MAFOA) @ Jennifer.G@fieropride.com.

The FieroPride goes out to a wideaudience.

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