Bricklin SV-1

More old school..

The Bricklin SV-1 was a gull-wing door sports carassembled in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. The body panels were manufactured in a separate plant in Minto, New Brunswick. Manufactured from 1974 until early 1976 for the U.S. market, the car was the creation of Malcolm Bricklin, an American millionaire who had previously founded Subaru of America. The car was designed by Herb Grasse. Due to Bricklin’s lack of experience in the auto industry, coupled with the funding problems , the Bricklin factory was not able to produce vehicles fast enough to make a profit. As a result, only 2,854 cars were built before the company went into receivership, owing the New Brunswick government $23 million.

The model name (SV-1), stood for “safety vehicle one”. The original idea for the BricklinSV-1 was a safe and economical sports car, but due to the added weight of the safety features, the car was inefficient and simply a safe sports car. The Bricklin was designed for safety with an integrated roll cage, 5 mph bumpers, and side beams. The body was fibreglass with bonded acrylic in five “safety” colours: white, red, green, orange and suntan. The cars had no cigarette lighter or ashtray. Non-smoker Malcolm Bricklinbelieved it was unsafe to smoke and drive. The Bricklin is the only production vehicle in automotive history to have powered gull-wing doors, that opened and closed at the touch of a button, as standard equipment. (The later DeLorean DMC-12’s gull-wing doors must be operated manually.)

The first Bricklin concept car, latter dubbed Grey Ghost, was built by Bruce Meyers ofMeyers Manx dune buggy fame in California. Its initial powerplant was a Valiant Slant Six.

Herb Grasse Design Work

In 1972 Herb Grasse, the designer of TV’s original Batmobile, built three Bricklin styling models to interest banks and other potential investors in the gull-wing safety sports car. The eventual full prototypes one, two, and three were a collaboration by BricklinVehicle Corporation; Herb Grasse Design; and AVC Engineering.

Technical Specifications

Power came from a 360 cu in (5,899 cc) AMC 360 V8 for 1974. Later cars used a 351 cu in (5,752 cc) Ford Windsor V8. A high-performance V8 was chosen so that in case of an impending accident, the power of the V8 was enough for the owner to pull away from the potential accident. Performance figures rated favorably against the contemporary Corvette, which most auto magazines used as a point of comparison. The front suspension used A-arms and coil springs, while the rear used leaf springs on a live axle. For the 1974 model year, 772 cars were produced, 137 of which had four-speed manual transmissions. All 1975 and 1976 cars had automatic transmissions. So in 1974 there was a choice of only type of transmission and color. Then in 1975 you only had a choice of color.

In an attempt to reduce production costs, Bricklin attempted to bond fibreglass to acrylic plastic—something the plastics industry had not perfected at the time—resulting in a high failure rate and high production costs (some panels cracked while still in their molds). The acrylic fiberglass body was ahead of its time. It soon became obvious thatBricklin’s claims of a “high performance safety car” were made for advertising. Another problem they had with the car was that it constantly overheated over a period of driving. They had a single scoop in the 1974 model and believed that it wasn’t allowing enough air in, so in 1975 they added a double scoop to help solve the problem. To this day that problem still exists, so most owners switched to a larger radiator. Also contributing to the company’s decline was Bricklin’s tendency to assign inexperienced family members to executive positions on his Board. It is believed that fewer than 1120 Bricklin cars still exist.