(first posted 8/12/2015) Of all the cars I would expect to see on the way to the subway, I never would have anticipated spotting a Bricklin SV-1. Waking up that morning, I never would have expected to see one of just 2,854 gullwing door-wearing, Canadian-built “safety vehicles”, just two blocks from my apartment! And of all the days to see one, it had to show up on a day I slept in and was running late to work so I couldn’t take any pictures worth a damn!
That’s quite an assortment of newspaper stands! Oh, and there’s a V8-powered sports car behind them. Oh, if only I had had the time to chat to that driver and find out his Bricklin’s story. Fortunately, we at least have some much better pictures from the cohort, courtesy of Curbsider “improbcat”.
As for the Bricklin story itself: Malcolm Bricklin, showman and prolific spender, had spearheaded the importation of the wholly unsuitable Subaru 360 microcar to North America, but he wasn’t content to be a mere importer. He wanted to build! The SV-1 – short for Safety Vehicle 1 – would be a modern, safe sports car costing about as much as a Chevrolet Impala sedan.
The safety goal was achieved in both meaningful and bizarre ways. The SV-1 came only in a range of “safety colors”: red, green, orange, white and “suntan”. A striking fiberglass and bonded acrylic body, penned by Herb Grasse, was wrapped around a steel tube perimeter frame with an integrated roll cage. There were also hefty 12mph bumpers which added considerably to the car’s already long front overhang.
There was no cigarette lighter, as Malcolm loathed smoking. Ironic, because he was often blowing hot air. The interior did, however, feature full instrumentation and suede trim. The latter was also touted as a safety feature. Well, it was grippier than vinyl.
Underneath, the SV-1 utilized AMC Hornet suspension componentry. The front suspension used A-arms and coil springs, while out back sat a live rear axle and leaf springs. Curb weight was 3470 lbs, slightly heavier than a Corvette.
Unfortunately, the Bricklin arrived smack-bang in one of the worst eras for performance. Initially, the SV-1 came with AMC’s 360 V8 with a 4-barrel carbureter and 220 horsepower, mated to a four-speed manual transmission. The next year, the sole powertrain was a Windsor 351 V8 from Ford, with only a 2-bbl carb, 175 hp and the C4 Cruise O-Matic three-speed automatic. The automatic seemed ill-suited for the SV-1’s mission, but according to critics the four-speed manual wasn’t anything to write home about, either. Ford couldn’t obtain EPA certification for a manual transmission 351, and AMC lacked the availability to continue providing its 360 V8.
It took 8.3 seconds to race to 60 miles per hour with the 351, and it took the same amount of time to open and close the 90-pound gullwing doors.
Car & Driver found the Bricklin compared favorably, performance-wise, with the Corvette, but America’s Sweetheart’s was aging and performance was down. The SV-1 was criticized for its uncomfortable and cheap interior, with lumpy seats, tacky materials, awkward seating position, poor visibility and ample interior noise. Motor Trend said the SV-1 wasn’t quite in the Corvette’s ballpark, but all the car’s problems, chiefly its interior, could be easily fixed. But Road & Track was the most critical in their verdict, concluding the SV-1 needed “less creativity and a lot more basic Detroit-style practical automotive engineering, plus a measure of European-style weight saving.”
Therein lay the problem. With Malcolm Bricklin’s desire to make an exotic and distinctive sports car, engineering and performance sacrifices had been made. The gull-wing doors were attention-grabbing, but added excess weight. The money spent on developing them and the acrylic fiberglass body apparently left little money to refine the conventional mechanicals. That they could cobble a Corvette rival out of Hornet mechanicals was admirable, but there were still inadequacies like a live axle that skittered over bumps. Some critics even went so far as to describe handling as “sedan-like”.
Those faults were nothing compared to the SV-1’s Achille’s Heel: poor build quality. Production had proved to be a disaster. Bricklin had set up a factory in labor-hungry St. John, New Brunswick and received considerable provincial funding to the tune of $23 million (over $100 million in today’s money). The plan had been to manufacture 1,000 units per month, but production never even reached half that. A lot of the blame could be levelled on the inexperienced workers who were used to working in mining and agriculture; absenteeism was high, particularly during hunting season. Their new boss probably didn’t endear himself with his extravagant spending as their paychecks were delayed.
Build quality was atrocious. Initial models featured an undersized radiator, resulting in myriad engine fires. The electro-hydraulic system for the doors was prone to burning out. The fiberglass/acrylic bodywork was ambitious, but the technology wasn’t fully developed and consequently the panels warped with alarming regularity. There was also no weatherstripping to speak of, so SV-1s leaked horribly.
The $3500 idea had also blown out to a $9780 reality thanks to production costs. This meant the SV-1 was actually priced higher than the Corvette, to the tune of a whopping $3,000. That was a huge chunk of change extra for a car with worse build quality and slightly inferior dynamics, even if it did look pretty.
On September 25, 1975, Bricklin Vehicle Corp failed. Creditors swooped in and armed guards were placed on site at the St. John factory to prevent looting. The initially enthusiastic New Brunswick government, led by Premier Richard Hatfield, had refused to extend an extra $10 million to the troubled company, and production ceased entirely. Malcolm Bricklin also declared bankruptcy.
Consolidated Motors bought up the unfinished SV-1s, completing assembly and titling and selling them as 1976 models. Fortunately, the sports car’s quirky charm had endeared it to enthusiasts and a dedicated fan community quickly coalesced. Terry Tanner was one such fan who was an engineer at Bricklin Motors. He formed Bricklin International, a club providing parts and servicing still active today. And although the SV-1 is a famous failure, it has also inspired documentaries, a musical and even appeared on stamps and coins.
Malcolm Bricklin’s track record with cars is dubious at best. The importation of the Subaru 360 was ill-conceived, the launch of Yugo was a fiasco and his more recent attempts to import Chinese cars have gone nowhere. But the SV-1 is such a colorful and charming failure of a car, poorly-built but full of character. It added a little bit of [safety] color to our automotive landscape.
Related Reading:
Automotive History: Yugo in America
Fantastic find William. The road to perdition is paved with good intentions or something like that. Was that coin widely circulated or just a limited edition collectible?
The CA$2 “Toonie” is the largest denomination coin in wide circulation (since 1996).
The Canadian Mint produces a wide variety of collectible coins – see: http://www.mint.ca
That Bricklin coin is not a toonie ($2) it is a $20 coin. A limited edition collectible I’m sure. I never even knew they made them till now.
best description I’ve read of its appearance is “looks like it’s gobbling up an 8-track cassette.”
a cross between a TR7 and a 2005 Mustang
I grew up in Saint John (notice how it’s not abbreviated, since that will result in much yelling from the locals) and live about 2 hours away from there now.
There are still Bricklins here and there and I see the odd one at car shows. The CC effect is strong, since I was actually telling my wife yesterday about a white Bricklin with the 351W that is for sale locally. She said no, despite the $5k price tag.
Actually, a quick search reveals 3 of them for sale within a couple of hours’ drive of here. One white, one orange, and one gold.
There were two at the Atlantic Nationals car show in Moncton this year.
Oddly, the Bricklin wasn’t the only gullwing-door 2-seater safety car to emerge from the early 1970s. BMW created an experimental car called the BMW Turbo in 1972 (shown below, with its creator, Paul Bracq).
The design similarities are striking; I assume that Bricklin borrowed copiously from the BMW concept (just a guess, as I’m not an expert on either car). Ultimately BMW built only a handful of these safety cars to show off to the press, but some general design ideas, without the safety emphasis, eventually migrated to the M1.
Now we know were Deloreon got the idea from and made it better…….
Take me back to 1975 Doc!
The BMW M1 is a beautiful car; The De Lorean DMC a bit less so and the Bricklin SV-1 less attractive still. It is interesting to see what a company with BMW’s greater resources (and they weren’t as great in the early 1970’s as they are today) could come up with versus De Lorean and Bricklin’s efforts.
The turbo 4 in the M1 was a sweet set-up in the early 70’s I suppose. I was just a school boy then but I did have a 1:43 scale model of the car (orange of course). I wonder how much ‘sweeter’ it would have been if BMW put its 6 cylinder motor in the car.
My father had a 1974 BMW 3.0 sedan. I got my provisional driving permit in 1975 and I can tell you from personal experience the Bimmer’s performance was phenomenal for the time.
A turbo 4!? In ///M1!? Where did you get such info from?
The sole engine was 3,453 cc M88/1 DOHC I6. That later modified version M88/3 made into E24 ///M6 (aka ///M635CSi) and E28 ///M5.
Is their any real, practical benefit to gullwing doors? IIRC, the only thing they were good for was watching scantily-clad women trying to get in or out with any modesty. It’s fascinating how two of the biggest automotive hustlers who ever lived were so drawn to the gullwing door gimmick, and the only other manufacturers who were interested were the Germans.
I would imagine that the biggest detriment would be getting out in the event of a rollover. To that extent, it’s surprising that the whole concept hasn’t been outlawed decades ago. Of course, maybe it was superseded by the whole ‘scissor’ door thing that was a fad for a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3unuXQEXNis
FF to 1:04
Here’s one exit advantage of gullwings.
> the only other manufacturers who were interested were the Germans.
Don’t forget the Italians (Lamborghini), though I guess those are “scissor” doors.
The upcoming Tesla Model X SUV is supposed to have gullwing doors, but only in the back. Seems silly to me to have them on an SUV. You won’t be able to open them in some parking garages.
As a coworker pointed out to me today, you also won’t be able to put a roof rack on top of a Model X. For what Tesla was trying to accomplish with the gullwing doors (large access to the rear seats without long doors that will hit adjacent vehicles in a parking lot) they should’ve gone with sliding side doors…. but then it would’ve been decried as a minivan.
The gullwing doors on the original Mercedes 300SLR/300SL were a functional necessity. With the wide and high tubular space frame chassis, they were the only way to create an opening large enough for a human to fit through.
I’m not aware of any other implementation that’s not strictly cosmetic.
Cutaway view…
Bare chassis
Found one of these in a junkyard full of antique cars and did an article for CC. New Caney Texas of all places. There were at least two Deloreans in the same little town. Never know where something is going to wind up.
Interesting car that I knew little about when new. I do think I have seen a couple at East Coast drag strips.
Not surprising given that the premier restoration shop for DeLoreans is in Humble. They own all the original engineering drawings and the world’s largest stash of parts.
When I moved from Porter to Kingwood in ’03 there was even a kid who delivered pizzas in a DeLorean.
Good read on a once polarizing but now forgotten car. I knew it was hawked as a safety car, but didn’t know about all the other elements that went into its inevitable failure. Still, it’d be a quirky underdog of a car for someone who wanted to stand apart from the herd.
Bricklin and Delorean both have similar stories how they conned local gov’t (that were in depressed job atmospheres) into giving them millions in the hope of creating new jobs. Just like a Ponzi scheame or Direct Marketing you have to find more and more customers to keep the conn going and the Bricklin and Delorean were not good enough to keep customers buying. Ad the fact the owners of both companys lived high on the hog while line workers were shafted makes me think very little of both cars.
I think John DeLorean was at least trying. He gave up a gold-plated job at GM to found DMC. His own hubris got the better of him though.
Both companies suffered from a flawed business model, that people who buy sports cars shop on the basis of safety. I don’t know about Bricklin, but in DeLorean’s case, they got some R&D funding from an insurance company.
There’s some debate on whether Delorean’s magnanimous departure from GM was completely voluntary, or he quit because he was on the verge of being fired for malfeasance. He might have been smoother with a tad bit more skill than Bricklin, but I think that they were still two peas in a pod. In fact, Bricklin’s slightly lesser lack of polish might have been what keeps him nowhere near the financial ruin Delorean managed to get himself into. IOW, Delorean’s higher rise than Bricklin meant his fall was much steeper and deeper.
It’s worth noting that Delorean died in 2005, still deeply in debt and reportedly living off the charity of one of the few wealthy friends who hadn’t deserted him long before. Bricklin, ever the charismatic hustler, is still alive and kicking.
Already regarded as an oddity when I read about it as a child in the 80’s, still an oddity 25 years later. A very fascinating oddity though! I wonder how different it might have been if they had given it less weight and more power…
Also very cool to see a Bricklin and a Delorean in the same photo. Though the wire wheels on that SV-1 are *completely* wrong for the car!
All of these years I had heard of Malcolm Bricklin, but I really knew nothing about him. Then I read “The Yugo”, written by Jason Vuic, and I quickly came to the conclusion that he was a crook!
I’m old enough to remember seeing commercials for the Subaru 360 on Los Angeles television. The Bricklin car hit the market when I was in high school, but I don’t recall seeing more than one or two.
One thing that has not been touched on here is the Bricklin’s powered doors. Not only was the system that raised and lowered them prone to failure…If the car lost power or the door system failed the only way out was through the back hatch…
i’ll say one thing for bricklin, he’s got style. when he was starting up visionary vehicles he rented this very fancy tribeca townhouse to be his headquarters. the tenant after him was damon dash, the hiphop mogul.
http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2012/01/1872-remnants-of-no-172-duane-street.html
Wow, fewer than 3,000 of these were made? This is by far the rarest car I have ridden in. I have no idea what might be in second place…
When I was a kid, probably 8 or 9 years old, I was lucky enough to get to ride in a Bricklin. A small used car dealership at the north end of Provo Utah had one proudly on display at the front of their lot, in bright safety orange and with the gullwing doors up. My Dad and I were so captivated by it that we stopped to take a good look. I was a big fan of the DeLorean at the time, and I just fell in love with the Bricklin. I think it was a 1975 model with the Ford V8.
The salesman was kind enough to take me for a ride around town in it, even though I was so short at the time I could barely see out the window because of the low seating and high belt line. I haven’t seen another Bricklin since. Thank you to the salesman for having the time and patience for this car obsessed young kid.
I did a whole writeup on a derelict Bricklin in my town, complete with pictures. Maybe one day I’ll get around to actually submitting it.
In the meantime, nice writeup.
Back in the 1980s, I saw one of these at a car show. The interior looked like it was home-built (now that I think about it, the Pantera interior struck me in a similar fashion). I also remember seeing these cars in the local classifieds for relatively little money.
I never knew that the same guy was responsible for the Yugo on our shores. I looked at a new Yugo during college at a new-car dealership during the late 1980s. Couldn’t even believe it. The interior lever for the hood latch cable was already broken and hanging underneath the dash.
Thanks for this.
I remember when both cars were featured in “the magazines”; and I remember being so disappointed in each of them. I craved “sports cars”, had an unhealthy fondness for Lotus Europas, and realized immediately that both the Bricklin and the De Lorean were each HOPELESS TURDS.
What did not occur to me until reading this article was how similar Bricklin and De Lorean (the men) were.
“Safety Vehicle” never fooled me. The thing was marketed as a “Safety Vehicle” because any mention of “sports” or “performance” would have brought down the wrath of the corrupt Insurance Industry; and for that matter the NHTSA. Remember the “Safety Vehicles” proposed by American Government? 5,000 pounds of battering-ram, “Uber-Volvos” paid for with tax dollars and authorized by the doofus running the agency.
How different was the ad copy for the Pontiac Fiero, marketed as a “Commuter car” because the era was marked by CAFE nonsense, a corrupt Insurance Industry, and Government that still disapproved of nimble, agile vehicles. Everyone saw a mid-engine, (grossly-underpowered) “sports car”, but we could all pretend it was just another econo-penalty-box–wink, wink, nudge, nudge. “Safety Car” or “Commuter Car”, it was all smoke-and-mirrors to avoid looking politically-incorrect.
Political-correctness was the true downfall of each of these vehicles. They overestimated the market–folks who want sports cars don’t care about political-correctness. They want an honest sports car. Offending their intended customers with this veneer of “Safety” or of “Commuter”, or installing a world-class pile-of-crap V-6 or the worst I-4 in the American market doomed the sales prospects from the beginning.
The Fiero concept was pushed as a sporty-looking “commuter car” less because of insurance companies or NHTSA and more to get approval from GM management and a pass from Chevrolet who wanted to keep the Corvette “America’s only sports car”.
I used to walk past an organge SV-1 every lunch hour when going to Market Sq. from Saint John High, it was parked in the same daily lot as a GTO Judge.
Interesting cars, with an interesting, and sordid history. It was a very polical car
Joel
I used to enjoy seeing this one in South Pasadena with some frequency when we lived there. Photo is from 2014.
Just horrid looking, like a blown up version of some Fischer-Price toy car. Kudos to jz78817, it looks like its choking on an 8 track tape. was Malcolm the sole person working on the design? Couldn’t find a better boat anchor than a 360 from AMC, lets throw that 351 dog that Ford has in this thing. This thing didn’t have to be killed, it was done before the first one rolled off the line. The main lesson to be learned from DeLorean and Bricklin was that corporation thievery doesn’t work to well in a fully exposed market place with lots of choices. Now pharmaceuticals, insurance, banking and politics, that’s another story.
I’m guessing you haven’t owned or driven an AMC 360 4-barrel. They were/are very capable engines! (And I do drive one, and it is stock, powerful and untouched 51 years after leaving the AMC engine plant!) Granted, all ’74 engines-with the possible exception of a Pontiac SD455-were bogged down by pollution control issues. But a 360/4 barrel AMC was every bit the equal of a 350/4 Chevy, Pontiac, Buick or Olds back in the day; as well as most 351 Fords.
Yeah, but you have to hand it to Bricklin. Charismatic auto guys like DeLorean and Iacocca have long been pushing up daisies while Bricklin continues to scam and fleece to this day.
Given the AMC underpinnings, lets throw in vacuum wipers and trunnion suspension.
I recall back in 1978 while visiting friends in Scottsdale, AZ I read in the local paper that the Scottsdale police department had received 2 Bricklins on loan a few years earlier for help with durability testing (and some PR). The 2 cars are fitted with lights and siren but never seen much real action since they were so impractical.
As a matter a fact those publicity pics shown above are very familiar. The desert pics where taken in and around the Scottsdale, Cave Creek and Sedona areas. The one with the fountain is at Fountain Hills which at the time laid claim to having the “world’s tallest fountain.”
About a year later I moved here and took some pics of my newlly transplanted ’77 Camaro at the same fountain location only my timing was off. They only turn it on for 15 minutes every hour throughout the day… bad timing on my part. Only the fountain base can be seen behind the car in the lake, no water spray.
Nice to see one! I see the cross street sign says West 171st Street. Are we looking at Amsterdam Avenue?