Auto Trends

1975 Bricklin SV1 (Safety Vehicle 1)-

I guess some folks could have gotten a clue by the name Brick-lin, that this supposed sport scar was not quite a nimble on its feet as the smooth talking car’s creator, Malcolm Bricklin would have liked us all to believe it was. Many folks have tried to compare this with the slow corvettes, due to its high price range, but it was not quite as performance oriented.

To this, Bricklin would just say something like, “Well, it is not supposed to be fast, it is supposed to be safe.” And if you are among the school of slow is safe, then maybe he was right. But the car was more than just slow, it featured gullwing doors, which was supposed to be easier to exit. No ashtray or lighter… to keep people safe and healthy. And it was made of a hard plastic outer shell that could resist dents and scratches.

What truly made this thing a brick, was the hundreds of pounds of excess steel that went into the reinforced compressible bumpers. To help pull this behemoth across the finish line, Bricklin called for the help of Ford. More specifically, the Ford 351 Windsor. The Windsor rumbled at idle, just like an American muscle car should, but when the foot was floored and the two-barrel carburetor was set loose, the Bricklin shot off like a sloth snoring in the trees.

A typical quarter mile run with the Bricklin would be near the 17 second mark at around 80 mph. If you get a strong rear wind on a clear day, the Bricklin could reach the top speed of 118 mph. 4,000 rpm was about the engines peak breathing capability, as the lowly two barrel was unable to feed the 351 cubic inch engine much more fuel beyond that point unfortunately.

1981 DeLorean DMC-12-

The best quote we have ever heard from a customer who was describing the DeLorean is, “Like a Ferrari, only slow and boring…” This just about sums up the DeLorean in as few words as possible. Like the Bricklin, the DMC-12 had gullwing doors, original styling, brick-like performance, but more than all this, it had a starring role in a 3 featured movie blockbusters, Back to the Future, which is where its main fame could be said to have been claimed.

Instead of the plastic body parts, DMC went all out and sprung for classy stainless steel. This also made the car relatively rust and scratch proof… but if you had any major damage, you couldn’t just slap some bondo on it and call it the day.

The biggest shortcoming of the DeLorean was the engine. The movie tried to cover this up by dubbing the sound of a V-8 over the wimpy whine of the actual 2.8 liter V6. The cars designer, John DeLorean had envisioned a small displacement sports car with no less than 200 horsepower, which would have been livable.

Instead, John settled on 170 horsepower to make life easier on him. What he hadn’t considered in his figurings was the power robbing inconvenience of emission regulations and catalytic converters, which ended up tearing the engine down to around 128 horsepower. This put the DeLorean in the 0-60 snore range of 9 to 10 seconds. And thus a car with so much potential, was snubbed and left as a Corvette appetizer…