2020 has sucked for all of us. It's been especially bad for C, he shared, "2020 has been the worst year of my life. I was diagnosed last year with testicular cancer, which had spread to my lymph nodes. Back in March I started feeling pain in my lower back which grew so excruciating that I could not sleep. I ended up in the hospital on morphine and Oxycodone to relieve it. The tumors were infringing on my nerves by that point and I soon lost the ability to walk. I have been out of work ever since.

My car, a 1988 Pontiac Fiero GT, had quit running on me back in December. The distributor had gone. I tried to install a new one myself in February, when I was still capable, but I got the timing wrong, so I had it towed sometime later. It was fixed but I had a new problem. The mechanic told me the transmission was shot and it still wasn't driveable. That was right before my condition started to deteriorate.

I met a man on FB, Joel Stup, who gave me a replacement transmission at no cost. However it couldn't be installed because the frame of my car had rust-rotted so badly that it wouldn't hold the trans. I was looking at $5000 to rebuild the frame and the mechanic and my family told me that I should just scrap the car. By that time I had undergone radiation and lost all of my hair. I didn't know how to get disability through my work, so I ran out of money for a while and my car sat over at the lot all summer. To top it off, my roommate, who had plans to join the army, told me in June that she was moving out. I was out of work and disabled, and I was looking at either moving back to Alabama to live with my grandmother or moving to Arizona to live with my mom, both of which meant giving up my car. I felt overwhelmed and very depressed, and even though I was able to find another roommate, I still had no idea what to do about my car.

When I told Joel about my problem and he told me to contact Gary Pickardt. After explaining my situation to him and taking some pictures of the car, he told me that he could get me an 88 roller and move everything over. I was willing to spend my entire collection of silver and gold to pay for the job, but he called me up and told me what he and his family/friends planned to do with it, rebuilding the entire car onto the donor chassis and fixing anything that was wrong with it in the process, and not to worry about a payment. What they cared about was helping a fellow Fiero-owner who is in need, and saving another car. Nobody has ever done anything like this for me before and I can't thank he and his people enough."

On the weekend of October 30-November 1, a build team will be convening in the Gilbert Garage in Oley, PA for one last major Fiero project - giving C his car back, literally one piece at a time. This story touches the Gilbert-Goss family particularly close because on July 21 of this year, they lost their beloved husband, father and grandfather, Jim, to a battle with pancreatic cancer. Jim, himself, was also a survivor of testicular cancer and we can think of no better way to give back to a member of the Fiero community one last time in a garage that has seen so many Fiero restorations and so much Fiero fun over the last 21 years.

Thank you to all who helped make this dream come true! Check out the supporters of this project here.