This Mashup Of Fiero And Motorcycle Is All Of The Right Kinds Of Wrong

The difference between madness and genius is often hard to define. We find this conundrum with motor vehicles at times, especially those born out of backyard ingenuity, the work of men and women who do not ask “why?” but instead “why not?” There might be no better example than this than a remarkable mashup that combines a motorcycle with Pontiac’s only mid-engine vehicle ever. Yes, today we’re gonna dig into the phenomenon of the Fiero Trike.

Maybe You Should Just, You Know, Get A Car?

I’ve honestly never seen the appeal of “trikes.” However, I do see their place in the world and reason for existing. The most common trikes are motorcycles (mostly Harleys) with a pair of driven rear wheels. They look a bit like giant tricycles – hence the term – and simply cannot corner in any way like a two-wheeled bike, but they do give the wind-in-the-face V-twin experience to riders with mobility limitations or stability concerns that would prevent them from enjoying a two-wheel configuration. There’s no putting a foot down at stoplights or laying one down. You also can get a trunk in back for a little bit of extra cargo room.

Still, that additional luggage space isn’t much considering you’re now getting something with the footprint of a Smart Car. All that additional size and weight don’t help performance, but they sure increase the cost. Base prices for the various models range from around $35,000 to a whopping $55,000; enough to buy something fast with a roof on it.

Also, despite all the mass in back, the trike makes you straddle the hot, loud motor; this is obviously part of the appeal to some buyers but it’s not a logical design. However, to get a “logical” trike requires some seemingly illogical work.

How Does This Work With The Slug Bug Game? Half A Slug?

To make a trike function with the least amount of noise, vibration and harshness you’d want the engine in back, especially if two-thirds of the wheels are there. Over the years, backyard builders that didn’t want to spend absurd bucks on a factory Harley trike decided to make their own with readily available parts: the front end of an old motorcycle and the back end of a sawed-in-half Volkswagen Beetle. With all of the drivetrain behind the rear seat, it made perfect sense. I mean, sort of.

This concoction gave you flat-four power and even space for additional seating, cargo, and stereo equipment in the case of the one below.

Back in the day when most of these things were made, Volkswagen Beetles were ubiquitous, cheap, and disposable things often sacrificed for kit cars or creations such as trikes.

Over the last decade or so, however, the number Beetles on the road has become low enough that surviving examples are now collectible classics that are too valuable to mutilate. Trike builders, like kit car makers, needed to find another victim to cause permanent damage to. It appears that they found one.

Fier-NO

Think about it: what is the go-to car today for making a fake Lamborghini or Ferrari? That’s right: the much-maligned Pontiac Fiero. Produced from 1984 to 1988, the car’s removable plastic body panels make it an ideal choice for those who want a mid-engined sports vehicle to reskin as an exotic car.

What’s even better (or worse, depending on your viewpoint) is that, like the Beetle, the Fiero has all its drivetrain behind the seats. Plus, the fuel tank is located dead center between those front (and only) seats, so there’s no need to relocate it or run the motor off of the absurdly small gas tank of the welded-on motorcycle front end.

Here’s one with an immense amount of new, convoluted bodywork ahead of the Fiero cabin:

Usually the rear window is removed to form a “roll hoop” in back, and the Fiero’s trunk behind the engine is retained.

With the 2.8 liter V6, you’d get a fair amount of power. Look out! The dude below appears to have at least two more Plastic Fantastic Pontiacs ready to go under the knife!

Steering inputs via handlebar are transferred to the fork by rather convoluted longitudinal “tie rods.”

You can find a wide variety of interpretations of the Fiero trike for sale online. My guess is that every single one of them that exists is for sale since the owners drive it a few blocks and say, “yeah, I’m done.”

Some have taken the more minimalist approach by chopping off all of the Fiero’s upper bodywork:

I’m not a fan of this choice of modification, but to each his own. Also kind of odd seeing what I assume to be the radiator behind the diamond-pattern grille on the right side of the rider.

Some think that a Honda Goldwing is more of a car than a motorcycle, so maybe this combination with an old Fiero makes perfect sense?

Fieros are actually pretty rare cars to be splicing up, but I’m surmising that most of those that received the trike treatment had front clips that ended up on the losing side of a collision with a tree. At least I’d hope that.

Recently, a Fiero trike has surfaced on Facebook that is probably the most well done that I’ve seen, and my “well done” I mean like a steak so burnt it rocks on the plate. Regardless, it seems to have succeeded in one area that the stock Fiero did not.

One Of The “Plus Two” Is The Driver

The Fiero ultimately failed in the marketplace due to a number of factors, not the least of which being the common GM trait of releasing and selling a ton of an unfinished, underdeveloped product and then paying the price with reputation, even as the later examples are much more fully resolved. However, another thing that GM was well aware of was that purely two-seater cars are market death. In the eleventh hour of the Fiero’s life, Pontiac made a one-off two-plus-two example to see if this might fix that issue, but the proportionally distorted car’s terrible rear seats mooted the idea.

However, it seems that one trike builder found their own solution to the passenger capacity problem. This one for sale creates a sort of MC Escher illusion with the ship’s-bow-style front made up of Fiero panels that culminate in a motorcycle fork complete with windshield.

As with most Fiero trikes, the driver sits on a motorcycle seat mounted to what was once the Fiero’s center console (over the central fuel tank); the automatic gear selector sits dead center in a location that appears to threaten the manhood of a male driver in the event of a collision (thankfully you probably won’t live to feel any pain).

The existing Fiero gauge cluster sits ahead of the driver.

What makes this Fiero trike extra special is a two-person saddle. Combined with the two existing Pontiac seats that the builder left in place, this is one Fiero that could be a real “2+2.” Mind you, it also appears that the asses and knees of the console-mounted driver and passenger would be in the face or on the laps of those sitting in the stock Fiero seats.

Still, why nitpick? This trike builder has made a McLaren F1 for a fraction of the cost, and even added one more person than that overpriced hypercar, right? You even get a decent-sized trunk:

Truth be told, this now-for-sale yellow example has been kicking around for some time now; whether or not it’s worth the $8000 asking price is open to opinion, but at around a fifth of the price of a new Harley trike it seems like a bargain.

Dreams, Beer, And Sawzalls Don’t Mix

These things might look like bad AI fabrications come to life, but you can laugh all you want. The owner of that yellow Fiero trike can enjoy the great outdoors with wind-in-your-hair fun with three of their close friends or family. Yeah, they had better be close.

I do wish these people would choose something else to destroy in the process of making these absurd concoctions. Besides, everyone knows that a three-wheeler vehicle with a single front wheel is terrible for cornering. Somewhere there are a bunch of sawed-off Fiero noses and motorcycle rears we could turn into something really strange with the wheels in the right places.

Top graphic image: Facebook Marketplace