During this decade, weight reduction was one of those issues that needed to be addressed. So General Motors thought of helping out by manufacturing the 1984 Pontiac Fiero, which was comprised of a steel spaceframe and sheet molding compound (SMC) body panels.

For the specifics:

• Main structure – consisted of three basic subframes: front subframe, rear subframe, floorpan. The welding of these subframes was carried out in the early stage of the assembly procedure.
• Other parts – easily connected in one simple process, which covered the drilling of the holes necessary for these parts’ successful connection with the mechanical parts.
• Weld points – a total of 4000 were used throughout the production
• External composite panels – their preparation and assembly were executed in the final stage of the production