Vehicle Description
Company history
The SV-1 was the creation of Malcolm Bricklin. Prior to his
Bricklin, built in New Brunswick, Canada, with a loan from the
Canadian government, Bricklin is noted as the first businessman to
import the Subaru brand into the U.S. in 1968. The Bricklin Canada
assembly plant was located in the Grandview Industrial Park in
Saint John, New Brunswick, at 150 Industrial Drive. A separate
facility to produce the bodywork was in Minto, New Brunswick.
With the support of New Brunswick premier, Richard Hatfield, the
provincial government provided $4.5 million of financing. The
government believed that this money would be used to cover expenses
incurred to begin the production of cars, when in fact it was used
for the engineering and development of the car as well as salaries
and operations of the Phoenix-headquartered company.
Prototypes, design
The SV-1 was the creation of American entrepreneur Malcolm
Bricklin, known in the industry for establishing Subaru of America
prior to building the SV-1, and for importing Zastava cars to North
America under the Yugo name afterwards.
Bricklin wanted to build a small, affordable sports car with
gullwing doors. ? Power was to come from a four-cylinder engine
from Opel. Bricklin entrusted design of a road-going
proof-of-concept car to Bruce Meyers, but responsibility for the
design soon transferred to Marshall Hobart. Dick Dean built the
car, which was complete by December 1972. This car became known as
the Grey Ghost. When completed the car had a six-cylinder Chrysler
Slant-6 engine instead of a four. Other features included a rear
suspension from a Datsun 510, a braking system that drew parts from
Opel, Datsun and Toyota, and a tilting steering wheel from a
Chevrolet.
In 1972 the Bricklin Vehicle Corporation began working with Herb
Grasse Design and AVC Engineering to redesign and re-engineer the
car. Three prototypes were built with assistance from AVC. AVC
engineer Tom Monroe would later join Bricklin as Chief
Engineer.
Design of the production SV-1 was done by Herb Grasse, a graduate
of the ArtCenter College of Design who had earlier been employed by
both Chrysler and Ford. Grasse had also worked with George Barris
on the conversion of the 1955 Lincoln Futura show car into the
television Batmobile.
It is claimed that Grasse opted to use the same taillamp units
fitted to his personal DeTomaso Pantera for the Bricklin. These
Carello units were also used on cars from Maserati and Lamborghini,
but originally appeared on the Alfa Romeo 2000 Berlina.
The first of the original three prototypes became known as the Red
Car. While some references say that it, like the Grey Ghost, had a
Chrysler slant-6 engine, pictures exist of a Bricklin identified as
the Red Car with an Argentine-sourced version of the Kaiser/Jeep
Tornado inline six-cylinder engine from an IKA-Renault Torino
installed. All subsequent prototypes had V8 engines. As many as
eight prototypes were eventually built.
Manufacturing
The E.M.C. Company consulted on the plastic bodywork and built some
prototype parts.[20] Toolmaker Visioneering Inc. produced the
master patterns for the molds using their new CNC equipment. E.M.C.
expected to supply both the large panel press as well as a complete
set of water-cooled cast aluminum molds for the 22 body-parts
required for the Bricklin, but ultimately Bricklin only bought the
press from E.M.C., opting to use epoxy molds for their
bodywork.
Bricklin experienced persistent problems with the composite
acrylic/fiberglass body panel technology. The acrylic resin first
selected would blister at temperatures as low as 150 �F (65.6 �C).
A substitute resin able to withstand higher temperatures was
thinner than the original product, requiring an extra layer of
fiberglass in the panel and increasing weight, so Bricklin reverted
to the original resin. It was also discovered that ultraviolet
light could pass throu
