The fact "Fiero" sounded an awful lot like "fire" only worsened the association. Not particularly, no. In total Pontiac sold 370,168 Fieros in its five model years, 1984-1988. By comparison ...

Thus, in 1984, the plastic-bodied Pontiac Fiero, which means "very proud" in Italian and "fierce" in Spanish, was released for $7,999, and by the end of the year, nearly 137,000 were on the road.

The Malaise Era is an infamous period in automotive history that was not kind to General Motors or its customers, for that matter. A few famous flops occurred in the late 1970s and 1980s ...