Our Cars--Tyler's Pontiac Fiero
by Chris Hafner on November 25, 2010
Submitted by Daneele Shipman
To really understand the background of this story, we have to go back to when Tyler was 15. He began looking for a car and landed on the Pontiac Fiero. The Fiero was only produced from 1984-1988 and is a two-seat, mid-engined car. This is coming from a Mom's point of view, so I can't explain a lot of the technical reasons behind this fascination, but I do remember him scouring the Internet looking for the perfect deal.
Our entire family made the treck to Fargo, N.D., one day to look at a car. We stopped and looked at it, he drove it a couple of times, and we left to go for supper. The minute we left, he wanted to go back. His heart was set on this red '84 Fiero manual 4-cylinder. His mom’s was not. I gave him all sorts of reasons to not buy this car. First, it didn’t run very well. Second, I asked him where he planned to put his ATV, his snowmobile, or his dirt bike. I told him he needed a truck. Much to my dismay, we went right back and bought that car.
The grin on his face looked like a permanent fixture, and so a Fiero-head was born. He tinkered with this car quite a lot and had the motor out and in a couple of times. This is not something I really paid too much attention to. Tyler was a mechanic, the sort who learned at his Dad’s knee from the time he was old enough to hold a wrench. He was always tinkering with something.
He happened on his next Fiero purchase as a fluke. It was in a field and the owner thought it was blown up. Tyler got it for a steal--$125.00. He got it home that day and after tinkering for just a short while discovered, much to his amazement, that it was a bad spark plug that was causing the car not to run. He told that story to anyone who had ears. There is nothing better than landing on the ultimate “deal.” He even made that spark plug into a key chain.
The first Fiero was sold to Tyler's cousin and the '86 Fiero GT became his daily driver. In this time frame he also bought a parts car. By this time, this Mom was afraid her yard was going to start looking like a junk yard.
Tyler worked on this car off and on, replacing parts here and there as he could. He didn't make a whole lot of progress in getting it in “mint condition,” but Tyler was happy with it nonetheless. That was one thing about Tyler that really stands out to me. He was happy with what he had. Oh, once in a while, he would get frustrated with having “old junk,” but as a whole he enjoyed what he had and there was never any shortage of fun. He was just as satisfied with his 20-some-year-old car as he would have been with a brand new one. That is a lesson we all should take to heart.
Shortly after being admitted to Roger Maris Cancer Center in Fargo, we were told Tyler’s cancer was not responding to any of the treatments and he was terminal. At this point, he was in too much pain to even get out of bed. In one of the last times in the hospital in physical therapy, he was in so much pain he was actually screaming out in agony when he tried to move. We were all feeling completely helpless.
It was about this time that Tyler posted on the Pontiac Fiero Forum asking for some help with parts for his car before he passed. We didn’t even know he did that until after the fact. From there, it was a whirlwind of responses from this car community, from people stretching across the United States. The whole thing beginning with a call from a soldier in Iraq named Andy.
Never in a million years would we have expected the amount of parts, money, and people's time that was offered, and never in Tyler’s wildest dreams did he ever expect to see his baby restored to the state it is in now. We took Tyler home by ambulance ride because we could not get him out of bed, but once we got home his typical determination kicked in and it wasn’t long before he was out of bed and in his wheelchair. I still greatly believe this rapid turnaround was due in large part to his great excitement in seeing his car project. He kept up on all the Internet activity in great anticipation of the day of the build and put quite a lot of time into picking out the color for his car.
We tried to keep that under wraps, but word quickly spread that he wanted Corvette yellow. All of Tyler’s other toys are yellow too--his ATV and snowmobile. Ski-Doo/Bombadier are definitely the favorites and Artic Cat is a swear word in our house, so yellow was not as surprising to us as maybe to others.
Since I'm not a car person, I was amazed that the entire car was in pieces when I arrived. It was scattered everywhere all over Dave and Karen Gray’s autobody shop in Frazee, Minn. Everywhere you looked there was a part and people working like busy bees. The activity was focused, determined, and fast-paced, but everyone was smiling and joking at the same time. The reporters were everywhere. Being able to talk to Andy via satellite feed was tremendous. Tyler thought that was special. None of us expected the plaque prested to Tyler with Tyler’s likeness on it either. In that moment, he wanted to be a regular kid without cancer just hanging out with some fellow Fiero-heads working on a car and these guys gave him that. (Note from Chris: Here's the build thread on the Fiero forum.)
That night I don’t think Tyler slept at all. He had some friends stay the night and was up at the crack of dawn. The reason I mention this is because prior to this Tyler had been sleeping in to mid-morning and it would take a couple of hours before he was ready to get out of bed. Not that morning. He was up and out of bed in no time flat. We waited anxiously in the high school parking lot and had to laugh when the theme song forOverhaulin’ started playing with the fog. Overhaulin’ was one of Tyler’s favorite shows.
After that day, excitement shifted to putting in the new engine. Tyler drove the car after the build weekend, but he was having a hard time keeping it running. Again, I am not a mechanic and cannot tell you exactly what those problems were, but it was enough that he was worried about driving it and getting stranded. To an average boy his age, that would be no big deal, but we couldn’t chance it with him in his condition.
Stuart Restad had visited Tyler at our home before the build weekend and visited with Tyler about working on putting in a new motor for him. He took him for a drive in his wife’s Fiero, which had the same motor he was offering to put in. Tyler was enamored of the power. What is it with boys and fast cars? There was the concern something wouldn’t go just right and the car would be put out of commission until it was too late. Everything at this time in our lives centered around the fact that time was quickly slipping away from us.
Fortunately, all went smoothly. Tyler and his Dad Jay spent quite a lot of time over at Stuart’s shop with the motor swap crew watching the progress. Again, I’m sure Tyler would have liked nothing more than to just get up and start wrenching, but he took sitting on the sidelines with a good attitude and a smile. Once the motor swap was done, Tyler was on the road. He took his friends out for drives and put on about 200 miles before he died and enjoyed every last second. There were days when he had the car parked on our front lawn so he could just see it out the window, like an old friend.
Shortly before he died, Jay put NOS in for him, which had always been a dream of Tyler’s. Sadly, the last day Tyler got to drive his car the NOS didn’t work. He didn’t care, though. He just drove that car as fast as it would take him up and down the tar by our house. I could hear the motor from our yard.
Some might say it was irresponsible of us to let Tyler drive. He was after all on a constant drip of narcotics, and in fact the state of Minnesota took his license away. If he had gone off the road and died in that car, I would have had no regrets. He was doing his best to enjoy the things he loved and never got bitter about the limitations his life had suddenly left him with.
A couple of weeks before Tyler passed away, the importance of his car faded. He still liked to talk about it, but you could tell it was time to focus on other things. Jay worked on the NOS to get it functional, but Tyler never got to try it out. This is something Jay thinks about a lot. We lost him on Feb. 14, 2010. My daughter Cassie said Tyler got the best Valentine’s Day present of all--he got to meet Jesus.
The First Annual Tyler Shipman Memorial Car Show was held July 24 in Frazee, coinciding with the town’s annual Turkey Days festival and the Frazee all-school reunion. We were more than a little surprised when the idea first was brought up for a memorial car show in Tyler’s name. To see it actually come to fruition was something that I cannot put into words. It helped us have a good thing to look forward to, a way to honor and remember our son, and a way we feel will keep his memory alive in years to come. It was a tool in our grieving process and has allowed us to become a part of a community of people we will be honored to call friends for the rest of our lives.
After the car show, this Mom finally “got it.” I started to understand how people love these cars and was officially bitten by the Fiero bug. I bought my own a few weeks ago--a 1985 Fiero SE manual. I would like to think that Tyler has sent a little of his car madness my way. I am totally enamored of the Fiero community and the cars. For me, it has been a way to connect with a part of Tyler’s life that I didn’t experience with him when he was alive. While I wish I could go back and discover the fun he had with these cars with him, it does makes me feel connected to him now in a way that nothing else has.
We continually hear from members of the Fiero community about how inspiring Tyler was to them. While I agree my son was more than awesome, what they don’t realize is Tyler’s Toy wasn’t just about Tyler. Tyler’s Toy is a symbol of how good people can make a difference. Tyler’s Toy is a symbol of hope, selflessness, and perseverance. Tyler was a good kid; not a perfect kid, but he was our kid. He was kind, generous, smart, funny, and a friend to many. He was loved and will be missed. His legacy to us is not a car but all the memories of a life well-lived. The Fiero community's legacy to our family is not a car, but the knowledge that everyday heroes are all around us and we have been privileged to be able to meet some of them and call them friends.
--Daneele Shipman
