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Michigan floods from breached dams consume Pontiac Fiero collection

“WeÂ’ve never had an event like this,” Michigan's city manager Brad Kaye said in a Detroit News story. "What we're looking at is an event that is the equivalent of a 500-year flood." Kaye is referencing the catastrophic flood that occurred in central Michigan this week after heavy rainfall was compounded by two breached dams on the Tittabawassee River. Reports say the flooding forced evacuation of up to 10,000 residents, swallowed entire towns, and destroyed thousands of properties. No casualties have been reported, according to the Detroit Free Press, but car enthusiasts will be sad to learn a Pontiac Fiero shop and collection called Forever Fieros was decimated by the natural disaster. The Tittabawassee River is located about two hours, or roughly 140 miles, north of Detroit. It starts 20-30 miles further north and flows southeast as a tributary to the Saginaw Bay Watershed. Along the way, the Tittabawassee is held up by several dams, including the Edenville dam that failed and the Sanford dam that was breached during torrential downpours. According to NPR, the federal government took away the Edenville dam's license in 2018 and suggested it could not last through a major flood. Unfortunately, that prediction was proven accurate.  Forever Fieros is located in Sanford, Michigan, which is just below Sanford Lake, which is created by the Sanford dam. So when the Edenville dam north of Sanford broke, water from Wixom Lake flooded Sanford Lake, and a berm next to the Sanford dam was overwhelmed, according to MLive. Technically the dam did not fail, but the end result was the same: an entire town underwater. The Tittabawassee reportedly crested at 35 feet, or 10 feet above flood level and 1.1 feet higher than the previous record set in 1986. According to The Drive, the man in charge of Forever Fieros, Tim Evans, had time to attempt to save his vehicles from floodwater. He reportedly moved about 12 cars to a street that doesn't typically flood, but the water level was simply too high for that to matter. A floating pole barn also reportedly struck and damaged the  Forever Fieros building.  Worsening the situation is the fact that Evans was planning to hold an auction to sell many of the Fieros. As seen on Industrial Bid, he planned to sell 12 Fieros, Fiero GTs and a Fiero Formula, ranging from 1984 through 1988. The lots included a 1984 pace car, a Lamborghini Countach kit car, and a Fiero Cosworth Pontiac Super Duty 16-valve DOHC engine.

Lutz says GM was working on 5th-gen Pontiac GTO

Bob Lutz was one of the forces behind bringing the Holden Monaro to the United States, as the ill-fated Pontiac GTO in 2004. And while that car received critical acclaim, it was a sales disappointment. Now, Road & Track is reporting that our suspicions were correct - Pontiac was working on a two-door, G8-based coupe before it was shuttered.
In that R&T article, which is no longer available online, Lutz explained that the new GTO would solve many of the issues found in the original. Car Advice speculates that the new model would have look like a rebadged version of the Holden Coupe 60 Concept from 2008, a conclusion we also came to.
That car would have been a big departure from the 2004 to 2006 GTO. It has an extremely long hood and short rear deck, with an almost fastback roofline and a wide greenhouse with a tall beltline. The wheel arches were very pronounced, and the chin and rocker panel splitters gave it a race-ready look. Would it have been enough to make the GTO work in the US? We think it might of, but it looks like we'll never know.

Vitruvian Energy crowdfunding to make EEB, a trashy biofuel

When sewage is treated at a wastewater treatment facility, biosolids are the byproduct. After being separated from the water, biosolids are usually sent to a landfill or incinerated. That doesn't mean that they're without value, however. Vitruvian Energy has created a process to make a usable fuel out of this human waste product, and while the source is pretty gross, it is undeniably abundant, and the results are much cleaner. EEB can be made for less than $4 a gallon. In a process that Vitruvian Energy claims is energy efficient, biosolids are femented and introduced to a type of bacteria to create PHA plastic. Reacting the PHA with ethanol creates the ethyl-3-ethoxybutyrate (EEB) biofuel. Vitruvian says EEB can be blended up to 20 percent with gasoline or diesel without any engine modifications. This lowers the carbon footprint of the fuel it's blended into, and serves to oxygenate diesel, leading to fewer harmful emissions. EEB can also be made using other organic waste products, such as corn stover, rice straw and distillers grains. EEB can be made for less than $4 a gallon and isn't subject to the maddening market fluctuations and international politics of fossil fuels. Furthermore, EEB's carbon footprint is 70 percent less than that of fossil fuels. Vitruvian also sees potential for EEB to be used on its own to power vehicles or burned to produce electricity for the grid. So far, Vitruvian Energy has used grants from the California Energy Commission and National Science Foundation to develop EEB, and has tested the fuel in a Pontiac Solstice at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Now, Vitruvian is wants to test EEB on a larger scale in the real world in order to prove EEB's viability to interested parties in the wastewater treatment industry. In an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, Vitruvian Energy hopes to raise $200,000 to build a prototype EEB production line and to run a test vehicle for a year on an EEB-diesel blend on the streets of Seattle. Donors can score some interesting perks such as shirts and bumper stickers that say "Get Clean with Poopaline." Learn more about EEB in the video and press release below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.