A Bricklin SV-1 in Florida.
Malcolm Bricklin is a name you should know in the automotive industry. He brought Subaru to America in 1968, which after a rocky start, makes some of the best reviewed, safest, and just generally good cars on the road. He left Subaru to start his own car company in the mid 1970s, closed it, imported Fiats for a while, brought Yugoslavian cars to the US, and more recently tried to bring Chinese vehicles from the company Chery over here. He specialized in bringing car companies over here while they still built crap, but if Subaru's any indication, the man is capable of success.
He didn't "bring over" the Bricklin. After selling his stake in Subaru, which had begun to leave its crap phase, Mr. Bricklin decided he wanted to build his own car, which was built from 1974-1976.
The SV-1 - which stood for "safety vehicle" - looked great on paper. The car was made of dent resistant fiberglass-acrylic body panels, the same principle as a 1990s Saturn. The acrylic skin held one of five colors, reportedly those most visible on the road - Safety White, Safety Red, Safety Orange, Safety Suntan, or Safety Green- and was molded to the fiberglass. There was no paint - if the color faded, a simple wax job would restore it to its showroom look. Unfortunately, in practice, it was crap - temperature changes did weird things to the car's body. Gullwing doors, like a modern Lamborghini, were also used. These could crap out as well, with the system strange and complex to 1970s mechanics and the doors prone to failure. This could trap occupants inside - not exactly befitting of a "safety vehicle"!
The vehicles were powered by a Ford V8 making 175 horsepower; some of the early 1974 models had an AMC V8 making 220 horsepower. It was considered a challenger to the Corvette at this time - my 2011 Honda Accord V6 makes 271 horsepower, so that's how far we've come - but some of the reviews of the time pointed out that the build quality could tend toward the crappy side.
Ah, what the crap, here's some 1970s pictures of the Bricklin factory.
The SV-1 - which stood for "safety vehicle" - looked great on paper. The car was made of dent resistant fiberglass-acrylic body panels, the same principle as a 1990s Saturn. The acrylic skin held one of five colors, reportedly those most visible on the road - Safety White, Safety Red, Safety Orange, Safety Suntan, or Safety Green- and was molded to the fiberglass. There was no paint - if the color faded, a simple wax job would restore it to its showroom look. Unfortunately, in practice, it was crap - temperature changes did weird things to the car's body. Gullwing doors, like a modern Lamborghini, were also used. These could crap out as well, with the system strange and complex to 1970s mechanics and the doors prone to failure. This could trap occupants inside - not exactly befitting of a "safety vehicle"!
The vehicles were powered by a Ford V8 making 175 horsepower; some of the early 1974 models had an AMC V8 making 220 horsepower. It was considered a challenger to the Corvette at this time - my 2011 Honda Accord V6 makes 271 horsepower, so that's how far we've come - but some of the reviews of the time pointed out that the build quality could tend toward the crappy side.
Ah, what the crap, here's some 1970s pictures of the Bricklin factory.
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