The Return Of Malcolm Bricklin
by Vince Daliessio
Malcolm Bricklin is an entrepreneur who first came to prominence in the late 60's as the US importer of what became known as the Subaru 360;
He agreed to distribute the $1300 minicar after Fuji Heavy Industries sold off a production line for a scooter that Bricklin had just acquired distribution rights to.
It was a TERRIBLE little 2-stroke car, that returned 66 mpg but could only muster 0-60 in a somnambulic 37 seconds (no doubt accompanied by a horrible, thrashing racket and clouds of blue Castrol smoke).
After selling out his Subaru interest in 1971, he started a new company, and built his own car - the Bricklin SV-1;
...powered at first by an AMC 360 V-8, then, when supply problems hit, a Ford 351 Windsor. He had managed to talk the provincial government of New Brunswick, Canada into backing his scheme, which nonetheless went bankrupt in 1975.
Bricklin continued in the car business, importing FIAT Spiders and X-1/9s into the US. These cars are also legendary. Ahem.
When next we meet Malcolm in 1985, he has signed a deal with the government of Yugoslavia to import to the US a version of the old FIAT 124 (the tooling for which was probably given away, it was so worn out).
Dubbed the Yugo, it was to serve as a cheap, reliable car at the low end of the market, selling for around $4000, which as it turned out was about $4000 too much for the obsoletely - designed and apallingly -assembled vehicle (which, I should point out, was being built in a decrepit Serbian factory owned by the Stalinist Yugoslav government, in the middle of a civil war).
After this venture failed, Bricklin continued throughout the 90's to try to find cars he could profitably import into the US, without a lot of success.
His latest venture is a plan to import cars built in China by Chery Automobile Co. Ltd., owned by the Chinese government. See a pattern here?
Best of luck to him - I just hope that somehow, the US government doesn't end up financing this venture.