As we are now in 2021, I find it hard to believe that our club will be celebrating its thirtieth birthday on October 19, 2021. Thirty years! Our club was founded on October 19, 1991 at one of our founding club members' house located in Elgin, IL. We will take a wait and see approach as to how we will celebrate this milestone occasion as the pandemic continues to unfold in 2021.

Our Origins

I was unemployed in August of 1991 due to cut backs and a downturn in the economy. I had two Fieros, no job, and luckily, I was still living at my parent's home. I was out of work from late August through early February 1991. When you have no work to go to each day, you have a lot of time to think. It was during this time in between sending out hundreds of resumes that the thought came to me that I should start a Fiero club in Illinois, but where do you begin? I thought, thought, and thought some more.

One day, during some of my "free time" while riding the bike trail through the local forest preserve near my parent's house, I could not believe what I saw in the parking lot; what I thought was the ultimate Fiero at the time - a yellow '88 GT. The owner was taking some pictures of it as he turned out to be a photographer. Funny, during my own search for an '88 GT before purchasing my white one, I came across this exact car; a yellow GT was my first choice. The problem was getting the car from South Carolina, where it was for sale, up to Chicago. In any case, the owner and I talked and exchanged phone numbers. He was as interested in starting a club for the Fiero as I was. Bruce Chlevin was later to become a Charter Member of NIFE. 

Through the Fiero Owners Club Of America (FOCOA), I had made contact with two other Fiero owners in Illinois, Gary Smith and Jim Corbin, both of whom would also later become Charter Members. After a few telephone conversations with Jim Corbin about starting a Fiero club here in Illinois, Jim suggested I contact "Fiero Phil" Huff who was the President of FOCOA and ask if he would provide me with a list of all of the FOCOA members in Illinois that I could contact them and ask them if they would be interested in starting a Fiero club. It turned out that Jim Corbin was past President as well as the current Newsletter Editor at the time for the Auburn/Cord/Duesenburg Club. Jim knew most everything about cars and car clubs; quite a mentor to someone thinking about starting a brand new car club.

The first "formal" gathering of Chicago area Fiero owners took place on April 28, 1991 at the Tri-State Autocross Event held at the Rosemont Horizon parking lot where five Fieros gathered. This event took place with about one weeks' notice and a list of seven Fiero owners I had met through personal contacts.

Three days later, on May 1, 1991, I received a list of over 70 Illinois members of the Fiero Owners Club Of America sent by "Fiero Phil" Huff. Phil and I had been in contact on several occasions discussing the formation of a Fiero club in the Chicago area. This list of Illinois members turned out to be the cornerstone of what would later become our club. Later in May, the list was divided up to create a chain letter to contact all of the people on the list. I sent a letter to seven people who then sent it to the balance of the names on the list along with a questionnaire asking if they would be interested in forming a Fiero club in the Chicago area. Twenty-seven Fiero owners on this list responded to the questionnaire; quite a positive response.

Another invitation letter was sent out in September of 1991 announcing the first get-together to take place at the home of Jim and Sylvia Corbin in Elgin, IL on Saturday, October 19, 1991 at 11:00am.

October 19, 1991 turned out to be a beautiful, crisp fall day as eleven Fieros gathered on the side yard of the Corbin residence. We all shared our Fiero stories and learned from each other what makes the Fiero so unique. Fourteen people showed up that day. They became the Charter Members of our club. Included were:

1. James W. Hallman

2. Richard and Carol Benanti

3. Bruce Chlevin

4. Jim and Sylvia Corbin

5. Ed Jacobs

6. Jon Kalsmith

7. Paul Ketterer

8. Dave Koesche

9. Todd Tilton

10. Gary and Christine Smith

11. Ron Kowalski

At this "first" meeting, we determined the name of our organization (The Northern Illinois Fiero Enthusiasts), when we would hold club meetings (on Thursday evenings of every other month), where we would meet (The Union Church Of Hinsdale (Charter Member Bruce Chlevin worked there so we would not be charged to use the space!), how often our newsletters would be published (every other month - opposing to the club meeting month), our newsletter's title (Fiero Focus - thanks to our resident photographer, Bruce Chlevin), our club dues ($5.00 per year!), our club's goal (to provide an exchange forum dedicated to the care, preservation, and positive publication of the Pontiac Fiero), and our club officers: President - Jim Hallman and  Secretary - Greg Kocialkowski. Several ideas were suggested for club events as well, including: shopping mall shows, junkyard visits, auto cross events, parades, cruise nights, and road trips. A lot of these still sound familiar, huh?

Our first newsletter was published in November announcing our first club meeting - December 12, 1991. The newsletter was three pages in length and included our first tech tip, which was submitted by Gary Smith (Charter Member) on how to repair the driver's side door manual rear view mirror lever that was already starting to pop out of its place in the door panel back in 1991!

By December 1991, we had 19 paid members and 34 potential members on our mailing list. Paul Ketterer and Cory Anderson volunteered to be our first Activity Directors at our December meeting. Our second newsletter issued in February of 1992 contained our very first Meet A Member, where I was featured.

One of the major milestones that has occurred over the past thirty years was incorporating our club within the State of Illinois. This concept started to take hold when our club was only two years old. It was at the club meeting in July of 1993 that one of our Activity Directors at the time, Charter Member Paul Ketterer, brought in an article entitled "Classic Comments" that he wanted to discuss with the meeting attendees. The subject of this article related to the liability of a club's membership at club events and who is responsible for actions incurred by the club's members. Understanding the importance of liability in this day and age, it was on February 26, 1994 that the NIFE Board Members met with two attorneys' to discuss the Incorporation of our club for liability purposes. This was the first of several discussions to take place. June 16, 1994 is the official date that the Northern Illinois Fiero Enthusiasts became incorporated in the State Of Illinois.

Technology

As our club began to grow, technology grew right along with us. The first newsletters were created using a typewriter; later ones on the first Apple computers.  It was back in 1995 that Paul Vargyas wrote a story in the Membership Update segment of Fiero Focus about a new communication tool used by about 150-200 Fiero enthusiasts called the "Internet"; I am sure we have all heard of this "tool" by now! By 1996, our club moved into the electronic information age when on March 18, 1996 we had the grand opening of our very first website entitled Fiero Focus On Line. With the help of former NIFE Club Member Byron Daugherty, NIFE was one of the first Fiero clubs with a website on the still-young Internet.

In 2007, history was made by NIFE at our November club meeting when we broadcast the entire meeting live over the Internet. With the assistance of NIFE Club Member Tom Griffiths and his Paltalk account, we invited our local club members to test out this broadcast. Members joined in on the meeting, asked questions and were able to be enlightened by the material presented without being physically present.

In 2011 NIFE proudly announced that we were now on Facebook. NIFE joined Facebook to help communicate with its members for up-to-the minute details of club activities going on right as they are taking place. Currently we have over 1,400 followers on our Facebook page.

Innovation

NIFE has been on the forefront of some very innovative ideas over the past thirty years. It was in 1999 that we held the world's first Fiero GT Raffle. We sold 500 tickets at $5.00 each for a chance to win an '86 red GT. All of the tickets sold in a matter of only 45 days. Former NIFE Club Member Gene Keenan was announced as the winner during the drawing, which took place at Fierorama 1999.

The Fiero Raffle idea was such a success that we repeated it in 2001 when we raffled off a bright red '88 GT with T-tops! The low mileage 5-speed Fiero was actually part of the Pontiac display at the 1988 Chicago Auto Show and is documented as the 10th converted T-top Fiero by Cars & Concepts. Former NIFE Club Members Peggy and Carl Anderson were the lucky winners!

Then in 2007 we had a Fiero Raffle that coincided with a Midwest Fiero Clubs promotion. The Fiero used in this raffle was a '85 Sport Coupe with a Quad 4 engine professionally installed by NIFE Club Member Gerry Goodwin.

In 2002, NIFE announced another new innovation, an NIFE cookbook, entitled Fiero Cuisine! My wife, Jenni, and Rich Benanti's wife, Carol (Charter Members), put a lot of time and effort into assembling this extensive, professional-looking cookbook for all of our members to purchase. This book contained over 120 recipes from NIFE club members. Some of the proceeds from the sales of those cookbooks went to the Ronald McDonald House Charities.

At our November 2002 Club Meeting our Technical Director, Bill Klicker, had the pleasure of presenting a Fiero "Spotters Guide" presentation focusing on option and body style changes that took place during the years the Fiero was produced. Over 20 NIFE members attended. This club meeting laid the groundwork for what was to become the Enthusiasts Guide To The Pontiac Fiero (EG for short), which has sold over 1,900 copies since being introduced in June of 2005! The EG was introduced at the Dells Run in 2005 and took six months for the NIFE board members to develop by diligently researching all that is known about the Pontiac Fiero from A to Z, so to speak. The end result is a 58-page, 8-1/2"x11" book with over 100 full color images encompassing over fourteen pages. This book contains details on each year of Fiero production and is packed with facts and figures on colors, body styles, engines, and transmissions, along with full spreadsheets of all Fiero option available, listed by model year.

In 2003 at our club display at the World Of Wheels custom car show in Chicago, IL our skinless, "Naked Fiero" made its world debut. This project helped the general public visually see the innovative way the Fiero was designed having removable plastic body panels on a steel space frame.

It was in 2007 as the NIFE Board was continuing to look for new ways to help our club members "Preserve The Excitement" of your Fiero, that we introduced a special license plate program that the State Of Illinois offers called Special Events plates. These plates displayed our own graphic design and are issued by the State of Illinois. They were valid license plates for a period of 60 days which coincided with a special event; our event was Fierorama 2007. We offered this same license plate program in 2008 and again in 2013.

In 2008 we introduced yet another innovation, which was originally in the mind of our Technical Director, Bill Klicker; Fiero playing cards. These cards featured the Fiero logo on the card back and a full color, landscape photo of 52 different Fieros from Fiero enthusiasts across North America! Each photo on the card was captioned with the owner's name, location, and year/model. This project would not have come to be without Bill's initial idea, Mike Kroyer, NIFE Graphic Artist, and Paul Vargyas, Membership Director all of whom spent countless hours to help this project come to fruition! Our second deck of Fiero playing cards were introduced in 2014 based on the sales success of our first deck.

Midwest Fiero Clubs

NIFE was heavily involved in the formation of the Midwest Fiero Clubs (MWFC) - an association of existing Fiero clubs located in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan. This association assisted with the promotion of and participation in Fiero-only events located in the Midwest region to relive "The Excitement" of the Fiero.

This group's formation took place on January 24th, 2004 with its original mission being:

To encourage participation in the Fiero events in the Midwest region

To promote the Fiero in the Midwest region

To celebrate the Fiero's 20th anniversary

As was announced in the July/August 2016 Fiero Focus, the MWFC has now evolved into a Non-Geographical Region of the Antique Automobile Club Of America (AACA); a major accomplishment in and of itself!

Time Off For Jim

How have I kept up the energy needed to keep going over these twenty-five years? One word, sabbatical! Two times over these past many years, once in 2003 and a second time in 2015 I have taken some time away from as much of the responsibilities of the club as I can to regroup and watch the club function without myself at the helm. Of course, I could only do this with the help of our club's board members. Each time I have stepped away, I have come back with a renewed enthusiasm to keep our club moving forward.

At our January 2003 club meeting, as a complete surprise, the NIFE Board Members had a plaque made up for me that read, "Presented To Jim Hallman For Outstanding Leadership As President And Founder Of The Northern Illinois Fiero Enthusiasts". I was touched! Let it be known that when I am asked what I consider one of my greatest accomplishments in my life thus far, I say, "I am the Founder of the largest, most successful social club for the Pontiac Fiero in the world with over 300 enthusiasts". I get excitement out of giving our membership something to be excited about - the Pontiac Fiero. If we do not continue to positively promote the Fiero, future generations will not know that Fiero means "Proud".

In the early years after the Fiero's demise, it received a lot of negative publicity at events that our club participated in; most predominately comments about the dreaded Fiero engine fires. From our club's beginning in 1991, our goal has been to positively promote the Pontiac Fiero. It took from 1991 until 2010 to begin to change the public's perception of the Fiero. In the President's Message of the November/December 2010 Fiero Focus I wrote, "Looking back on the events we had planned this past summer, a consistent theme flowed through them all. The public is remembering the Fiero in a positive way. I recall hearing stories of Fieros "they used to own" of "how much fun they had in their friend's Fiero growing up". Many compliments were received on our Fieros of "how good they still look after all of these years". As the Fiero is now categorized as an "antique", from what I heard this summer, we are doing a good job of promoting our club's goal of being dedicated to the care, preservation and positive publication of the Pontiac Fiero. Keep up the good work!"

It's The People

It is the people that make up our club, not the Fieros. I have met so many Fiero owners in the thirty years I have been involved with NIFE. Casual acquaintances, lasting friendships, people I have met just once have all made my involvement with NIFE worth the amount of time I spend making it the best Fiero club I can. Over the years, I have seen it time and time again; members who occasionally attend events suddenly volunteer to help out with a project or become a NIFE Board Member, or join the Fiero Focus Magazine Team, and their enjoyment of the Fiero community grows ten-fold. The energy they have is conveyed to others, which is what keeps our club vibrant, alive, and ever changing. 

A perfect example of this took place back in 2012. The feature article in the January/February 2013 Fiero Focus was quite interesting and helps us better appreciate what being connected with a car club like ours is really all about. Ken Nagel, one of our NIFE Board Members, was in need of an engine to get his Fiero back on the road, but was short of funds to do so. Fellow club member, Bill Cisna, offered to Ken, with no strings attached, his "old" V6, after he finished a V8 swap, to help out a fellow club member. Then, several club members gathered together at V8 Archie's shop to help Ken with the engine swap! What a great story this turned out to be; one club member offering to help out another club member in need.

Another example was back in September of 1993 when I received a phone call from a potential member who was referred to our club by Harold Hooton of the Fiero Memorabilia Museum in Adrian, MI. I was asked to help him purchase his first Fiero. He was interested in a '88 Fiero GT after reading several articles on the collectability of this car. On September 18, 1993, we both went together to look at a bright red '88 GT with forty-eight thousand miles on it and, after a thorough once over and test drive, we both decided it was the right car to buy. This new Fiero owner's name was none other than Paul Vargyas and most of you know the rest of Paul's story!

Twenty-two members attended our club meeting in December of 1993; our largest gathering to that date. One of those in attendance was none other than Elmer Schild a local Fiero parts guru and mechanic extraordinaire! Elmer was able to solve numerous members' Fieros illnesses during the later portion of that meeting. Also at this meeting, I was presented with a NIFE club jacket that was purchased with contributions from over forty club members! A club member at the time, Eunice Riemer, and Charter Member Rich Benanti organized this endeavor behind my back. What a Christmas gift! I still wear that jacket with pride to this very day thanks to all of the members who contributed to this gift for me!

Membership

Having started with only eleven members in 1991, by February 1993, membership hit the 50 mark; the word was getting out! Our membership climbed to 100 on July 19, 1994; just 34 months since our founding. In Paul Vargyas' Membership Update article in a 1996 issue of Fiero Focus, it was noted that at the end of 1995, our membership stood at 185, up 69 percent from the end of 1994, where it was 109 members. Paul also listed a very small group of eight members with something new called an email address! On October 22, 1996, our 200th paid NIFE member was signed up. This milestone made us the third largest Fiero club in the world at that time. Our membership expanded to eighteen states and included a member in Germany!

To continue getting the word out about our growing club, in 1997 a membership drive was undertaken using a list of names and addresses purchased from the Illinois Secretary Of State's office. This list consisted of over 3,000 names of Fiero owners of '86 - '88 Fieros in the counties of Cook, DuPage, Will, Lake, and Kendall. Membership Director, Paul Vargyas, organized several "mailing meetings" to send out a membership information sheet and a membership application to each of these 3,000 registered owners. This turned out to be quite an extensive and expensive feat, but the results and publicity we received were well worth the effort! By May 1997, forty new members had already joined our club as a result of the mailing. Also, in May 1997, our website was already viewed by over 7,000 visitors. Our website was turning into an excellent vehicle to promote membership in our club.  

On June 22, 1997, NIFE grew past the 300 member milestone for the first time. Sixty-one new members had thus far responded to our mass mailing effort. Amazingly, by August, we surpassed the 350 mark! After beginning 1997 with 200 members, it was announced in our November 1997 Fiero Focus that our membership had grown to 390; almost doubled in one year!

In March of 1998, Paul Vargyas tabulated the total number of Fieros our membership collectively owned. The grand totals at the time represented 513 Fieros! Of this total, 250 were the GT model with the 1987 model year having the highest representation.

We are currently the largest Fiero club in the world. Over these many years our membership continues to remain consistent, despite a normal attrition of almost 20 percent per year. We have recently signed on member #1980! It is amazing that since 1991, NIFE has had close to 2,000 Fiero owners become members!

As of the time of this writing, three of our Charter Members are still current members (Jim Hallman, Rich and Carol Benanti, and Paul Ketterer) and thirty-seven of our current members have been renewing their membership for over twenty years!

Fiero Focus

As mentioned previously, the name of our club's publication "Fiero Focus" was coined by Charter Member Bruce Chlevin back on October 19, 1991. In the early days, Fiero Focus was far from being a called a "magazine"; it was a newsletter. It was created using a couple sheets of copy paper and mailed out to our members. The evolution of Fiero Focus began in May 1994 when my old Apple Word Processor Computer was set aside as former NIFE Club Member Byron Daugherty used his own computer skills to add life, photos, and graphics to our once humble newsletter format. By the November 1994 issue, another format change advancement was announced. Instead of being an 8-1/2"x11" stapled-in-the-corner style, we began using an 11"x17" magazine style fold format for a polished, more professional look! Further evolutions were made with the March 1998 issue when glossy paper was introduced to allow for easier readability and then again in the January/February 2000 issue when a full color cover was introduced.

Over the years, many, many (too many to list all of them!) features and articles have been enclosed within the pages of Fiero Focus. One of our longest running features so far first appeared in our March 1995 issue when Paul Vargyas wrote an article entitled "Fiero Values - What Is Your Fiero Worth". This has since become an annual publication that is used by many club members and Fiero owners around the world as a guide to estimate the current value of Fieros for sale and Fieros for purchase. Some of the other article long-running series included Christopher Sass' Tech Corner (1995 - 2002), Bartemeyer's Bits (started in 2007), Gick's Garage (2008 - 2012), and Dr. Detail (2010 - 2015); all of which reinforced the credibility of content for Fiero Focus.

One of the more unique features was a brainstorm from former NIFE Member Byron Daugherty who in 1995 came up with an idea to print scale-size side portraits of the three Fiero body styles (Coupe, SE, GT Fastback) alongside the various aftermarket wheels that were available for the Fiero. This feature was called the "Try It Before You Buy It Guide To Aftermarket Wheels For Your Fiero". The idea was you would cut out the different aftermarket wheel options and place them over the side view images of your Fiero body style so you could "see" what your Fiero looked like before you plunked down your cash to purchase the wheels; quite a novel idea! This feature created quite a buzz within the Fiero community at the time!

Fiero Focus has earned more than its share of awards over the past 25 years, for it was in 1996 when NIFE announced that Fiero Focus was the recipient of its very first Golden Quill Award from Old Cars Weekly Magazine for the high quality and content of our newsletter. Our magazine has consistently earned this prestigious award every year since 1999! Earning it once is an accomplishment. Earning it year after year shows consistent improvement. This accomplishment is not by my own doing, but by all of the club members who have helped out over these many years!

To free up some of my time that was being consumed by each Fiero Focus issue, a Fiero Focus team concept was introduced in 2003. This idea for a team was introduced to divvy up the responsibilities for formatting and writing articles, as well as thinking further into the future to preplan issue's feature articles, allowing for more detail and concepts to be prepared ahead of time. The Fiero Focus Magazine Team originally consisted of six members, who meet every other month. This team concept is still in existence to this day. You can read much more about the origins of the Fiero Focus Magazine Team in an article that was originally printed in the January/February 2003 issue of Fiero Focus that we have added to our website located at www.fierofocus.com

On November 18, 2004 Fiero Focus was awarded a Silver Award at the International Automotive Media Award (IAMA) ceremony which took place in New York. Fiero Focus was entered in the "Best Single Issue: Newsletter - More Than 8 Pages" class. Other award recipients included such notable periodicals as Car And Driver Magazine, Automobile Magazine, and the Chicago Tribune. It was quite an honor to receive this award of such magnitude for our club's magazine. Our club was now being exposed to the big leagues in automotive media! The IAMA awarded Fiero Focus for four consecutive years through 2007.

The evolutions and creativity continued when in 2008 a new logo for Fiero Focus magazine was introduced. Then in 2010 Fiero Focus was expanded from 16 to 20 pages in length to allow printing more pictures, adding more regular features, and providing for more Fiero related information than any other publication.

In 2012, a unique, original idea that was first proposed during a Fiero Focus planning meeting made it to print; a 3-dimensional color back cover; it was a Fiero Focus first! We actually supplied a very simple, paper-based set of 3D glasses for club members to view the back cover in 3D in all its glory. It is very rewarding to see so many creative ideas for covers, articles and artwork come out of the Fiero Focus planning meetings representing a lot of brainstorming sessions!

The November/December 2015 issue of Fiero Focus celebrated its 150th issue. We have come a long way since 1991 and are dedicated to continue providing our members with the best Fiero based publication was possibly can.

Events

Our club is bound together by the events in which we participate. There are two events that have been part of our club's activities almost since inception. The first year NIFE participated in the Dells Run hosted by the Fiero Fanatics of Wisconsin was back in 1993, when eight NIFE club member's Fieros gathered for fun and excitement in the Wisconsin Dells (the event was founded in 1992). Five years later in 1998 our participation climbed to over 28 Fieros. Most recently in 2019, we again had 37 club members' Fieros participate in this event with a total of 59 Fieros in the show; almost half of the participants were members of NIFE. This certainly says a lot about this event and the good times we have catching up on our relationships with our Fiero friends.

Since the Fall of 1995, our club has annually held a "Fall Color Tour". Traditionally, this is the last outdoor driving event of our club's activity season. This title was coined by Charter Member, Rich Benanti during a hiking expedition at White Pines State Park in Morris, IL. Every year since, we have travelled to a scenic spot within a one-day's drive of Chicago. Whether it was Starved Rock, Galena, IL, Richmond, IL, the back roads of southern Wisconsin, many miles have been driven to help us enjoy our friendships and our Fieros!

While these two events have certainly stood the test of time, many other events have come and gone. How many of these do you remember?

Twin Lakes Fiero Fest in Paxton, IL

Orphan Car Picnic in Aurora, IL

V8 Archie Open House

World Of Wheels club display at McCormick Place in Chicago

Fiero Owners Club Of America's annual Fiero Festival (the last one took place in 2003 in Osage Beach, MO)

Fieros At Auburn car show in Auburn, IN

Anniversaries of the introduction of the Fiero: 20th in Pontiac, MI in 2003; 25th in Pontiac, MI in 2008; 30th in Indianapolis, IN in 2013; 35th in East Peoria, IL in 2018

Of all of the events we have conducted over these past thirty years, one of most fun has been the Open House events at V8 Archie's workshop. This event first took place in 1998 where over 40 club members participated. Life is about dreaming of the future while enjoying the past. A lot of club members have delved into the world of the V8 Fiero. The power, that exhaust note sound uniquely identifying itself as a V8; what could make your Fiero more perfect?

You could tell Archie loved being in the spotlight during these open houses. The laughter, the tears, the visions, and the realities were all part of these events. Many a time Archie had an unveiling of something new at these events.  Were you there for the debut of the GT4T, the Fino and Finale, scissor doors, the latest chop-tops? All dreams that became realities for many of us.

Another special event was Pontiac Tribute Day which was held on Tuesday, June 1, 2010. The purpose of this event was to celebrate the excitement that GM provided all of us since 1926 when the Pontiac name badge was formed. As you recall, the Pontiac model was discontinued in April of 2009 as a result of GM's bankruptcy. Rather than sulk in the loss of this once famous brand, NIFE decided to celebrate all that Pontiac was. Through Internet forums, websites, magazines, and through Pontiac's seen around town, we got the word out about this day of tribute. From Star Chief to Fiero, from GTO to G8, we invited all owners of any Pontiac model to drive their Pontiac and enjoy it on June 1, 2010.

The final stats from the website that was used to gather and publicize events related to this day had over 8,200 hits, over 915 Pontiac owners who represented over 1,100 Pontiacs from 45 different states and 6 locations outside of our borders! There were 13 different Pontiac Tribute Day events listed on this website including one that took place in South Australia. Our Art/Web Director, Mike Kroyer, spent numerous hours managing this website!

Why do I feel this event is worthy of mentioning in the 30-year history of our club? Simply because it was a Fiero club that gathered Pontiac owners across the world to celebrate all that the Pontiac brand means to them. It was amazing to experience the impact this event had on the Pontiac marque; all started by a Fiero club based in northern Illinois!

Fierorama

A NIFE's 30th anniversary article would not be complete without mention of our club's annual highlight event of the year, Fierorama. The cover of our March 1996 issue of Fiero Focus was graced with a brand-new word being introduced to the Fiero community - Fierorama. This event began as a one day, Fiero only event where participants were judged in classes based on mileage not just overall condition. The only difference, however, was that our first Fierorama was only open to NIFE members so we could get our get our feet wet putting on our own car show, so to speak. A quote from the March 1996 Fiero Focus stated, "We wanted to be different. We want to reward you for keeping your Fiero looking great while you drive it!" This was the basis for having the show; we wanted to see just how many of our club members would bring their Fiero to this event. To top it off, Fierorama was, and still is, a free event to NIFE members.

Do you remember back in 2001 when Bill Wildt's Motorsports Unlimited cable TV show came to Fierorama? Bill did an excellent job of interviewing many of the participants and presenting an informative, well rounded introduction to the world of stock, custom, and modified Fieros. The 59-minute presentation had its premiere in Chicago in late October 2001 and traveled the Midwest cable circuit over the next several months.

Fierorama 2001 took place on Sunday, September 9th. Who would have known what was to occur just two days after on Tuesday, September 11, 2001; a day that changed our generation's world as we now know it.

A big Fierorama highlight took place in 2005 when we celebrated our tenth Fierorama. In addition to this Fierorama being the first one to offer commemorative T-shirts, we had the honor of hosting FIVE GM Fiero prototype cars during the show. These included: the first Fiero ever built, Indy Pace Car #2, the Blue PPG pace Car, the Turbo Fiero GT "Porsche Eater", and the 1990 GTA prototype. This would end up being one of the last times all of these prototype Fieros would be publicly seen together as part of GM's collection. It was through the relationships of NIFE Club Member Fred Bartemeyer, Jr. that this came to be. Thank you, Fred!

In 2015, we celebrated the 20th edition of Fierorama with "challenge coins" which were given away in lieu of dash plaques. These solid metal coins were engraved with the celebratory 20th anniversary Fierorama logo on one side and our club's logo on the flip side; they were quite the hit. In these past twenty years, Fiero owners have come from Canada, Florida, Pennsylvania, and California to join in on the fun we have celebrating our Fieros, and more importantly, our friendships!

Conclusion

As a young 24-year-old Fiero enthusiast back in 1991, I really did not envision that our club would remain as successful as it has become over these past thirty years. We have all grown together, stuck together, and accomplished a lot together over the years.  Many members have come and gone, but many more have stayed with us, continuing to renew their memberships from year to year. I feel we are doing an excellent job of "Preserving The Excitement" as a club. I feel that in each of the past thirty years we have met our club's goal of "providing an exchange forum dedicated to the care, preservation, and positive publication of the Pontiac Fiero"; but, I can tell you our goals were not accomplished by me, they were accomplished through the time and effort of all of our board members who have served over these past many years and the Fiero Focus Team Members who have served, both past and present, as well as all of the members who have volunteered in any way, shape, or form during the past thirty years. With this said, let us begin the next thirty years of the Northern Illinois Fiero Enthusiasts!

I am lucky to have such interested and knowledgeable members to work with on both the Board and the Fiero Focus Magazine Team. We are all blessed to work so well together. If I had the opportunity to do it all over again, I would be happy to, and I don't think I would change much. Being a part of the foundation of NIFE has helped me grow, learn, manage projects, and develop friendships that will last a lifetime. What more could someone ask for in this world that God created for us?

Keep Fiero-ing,