September 17, 2019 • 35 mins
Sometimes called the “other” gullwing car, the Bricklin SV-1 was a Canadian-built sportscar with occupant safety as priority one. It was a short-lived experiment with production only lasting a couple of years. Of equal interest is the American businessman responsible for making the car a reality, Malcolm Bricklin.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Car Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios,
How Stuff Works. Hi, and welcome to Car Stuff. I'm
your host, Scott Benjamin, and um, we are back after
about a year and a half off and man, what
(00:21):
a year and a half it's been. And there is
there's been a lot of changes around here. And I
will let you know right now that, um, it is
just me. I'm kind of running this thing solo at
this point. Ben will not be joining me in the
studio today, but I assure you that Ben is still around.
We are not in a fight. We're not We're not
angry with one another or anything like that. And uh,
(00:42):
Ben would love to be here, but um, he has
other obligations that keep him from doing this show at
this point. And uh and completely understandable if you know
what Ben has been up to in the last year
and a half or so. We've both been very busy
and I am happy to be back and doing the
Car Stuff Show again. But again, it's gonna take a
little bit of adjustment on my part doing this solo.
So UM, you know, I'm I'm accustomed to having been
(01:05):
to be able to kind of bounce things off of
and you know, have a decent conversation back and forth
with him. Uh So bear with me a little bit
as we kind of get our feet underneath us here
as we start out this show again. Um again, I'm
really really excited to be back, and I hope that
you appreciate that we're back, and I hope that you
find just as much enjoyment out of the show as
uh as I get in making it for you. I
(01:27):
really enjoy talking to you, and I enjoy this show
so much in the in the topics, and I want
to just carry that forward. I want to continue on
with the Car Stuff tradition. And in fact, if you're
brand new to the show, take a look at our website.
We are on car Stuff show dot com, and take
a look back at our archives. We've got a good
(01:47):
oh gosh, I want to say, almost nine hundred episodes.
You know, Ben and I did this for a long
long time together. We've been recording since about two thousand eight.
We gave it up about a year and a half ago,
and we've got this incredible arc kind of material that
is just a little bit of everything. It's not just cars,
it's not just trucks, it's not just trains, automobiles. It's uh,
(02:07):
it's a little bit of everything. I mean, we we
talked about shriner cars and hearses and circus trains and um,
just all kinds of stuff. So um, you know the
people that are involved in going fast, you know, with
with with automotive racing and just it's a fun show.
Take a look back at archives. I think literally everybody
can find something that they like in our archives, I
(02:29):
promise you. And going forward, I want to continue that,
all right, So I want to get started here. I
guess restarted back into the show with with a topic
that we have touched on in the past, and it
(02:50):
is a unique car. It's a it's a Canadian car
of all things, a Canadian I guess i'll call a supercar.
Maybe it was really short lived, it was not not
quite a hit car, but it has kind of that
look to it. It's the Brooklyn s V one. Now
Brooklyn is a man's name, and Malcolm Brooklyn, and uh,
the SV one stands for Safety Vehicle one. And we'll
(03:12):
talk all about you know, why why they decided to
call it that, and you know, the the importance of
of safety in the design of this vehicle. The overall design. Um.
I have seen exactly one Brooklyn SV one in person
in my life, and that's it. And it was in
a museum. And this happened to be back in I
would say the early nineteen eighties. And you know, my
(03:33):
family lives in Indiana and we had lived in Michigan
for a long time, so driving back and forth in
the very northern part of Indiana is Auburn, Indiana, and
there is a museum. They're called the Auburn Cord Duisenberg Museum.
It is in the factory where they produced the Auburn
Cord Dusenberg cars. And of course there's a lot of
you know, antique automobiles there and you know, some machinery
(03:53):
from the original factory. It's just a it's a really
fascinating building to tour through. And as we're walking through, uh,
there's some other cars there that were you know, donated
by other people or you know, possessions of the museum.
And as we get through, you know, some of the
more classic cars and and you know, the the the
Auburn Corp Dusenberg's. We come around a corner and there's
(04:14):
this really unusual looking vehicle there and it's bright orange,
and it looked very futuristic. You know, of course it
was very angular and and uh strange looking. Had the
doors open, I believe, you know, these these amazing going
doors that we're going to talk about in a moment.
But it was a Bricklyn SV one and it was
in safety orange, and it's just always left an impression
on me as far as the design of the thing
(04:37):
and then the idea behind you know, why it came
to be, like why was this vehicle ever built in
the first place? And there's a there's a really good
story behind it and a fascinating character American entrepreneur. His
name was Malcolm Brooklyn. Um going to talk about some
some interesting side notes about the Brooklyn because there were
some other kind of crazy things that happened around it
(04:58):
that don't normally happen with other Automo beals, like some
special releases, and i'll tell you about those two. We're
gonna talk about some production of this vehicle, the competition
for the vehicle at the time, you know, like you
know what it was kind of paired up against and
what it was all about. Malcolm Bricklin was responsible for
several UH companies that brought automobiles to the United States. Now,
(05:21):
he's an entrepreneur that has his hands and more things
than you can imagine, and probably some stuff that is
very familiar to you, but you might not even know it.
And we'll get to Malcolm's story in just a moment.
But I want to tell you that, you know the
production of the car. You know that I guess maybe
the general specs of the car. Um production years were
from nineteen seventy four until nineteen seventy five, so really
(05:43):
only two years of production, and there were truly only
two model years produced, although there were a very few
cars that were built in nineteen seventy six, just kind
of built with leftover parts. So you know, I'm not
giving anything away to say that. You know, the company
is no longer around, and once it went defunct, there
were some parts left behind the factory. And we've heard
(06:04):
this with many other automobiles that were, you know, highly desired.
You know that there were there were some cars that
were on the assembly line just weren't finished. There were
parts left behind enough to put together a couple of cars,
and that's kind of what they did for nineteen seventy six.
But for the most part, These are nineteen seventy four
nineteen seventy five models, with again a few nineteen seventy
six cars built. There were three transmission options. There was
(06:26):
a three speed torque command automatic which was available in
nineteen seventy four and that was the only year that
that three speed torqu command automatic was available. Then there
was a manual trans that was only in the first
year cars. It was only available in the nineteen seventy
four cars. There was a four speed board Warner T
ten manual transmission, and then there was also in nineteen
(06:46):
seventy five another three speed automatic which was available to
the FMX transmission. So um, again the manual trans was
only available in the first year cars, and that adds
I believe it adds about fifteen hundred bucks if you
have one right now. So, um, that is a a
sought after option on the existing cars. Um it's a
(07:07):
little bit heavy. Um it was around three thousand pounds,
so fairly heavy for the you know, considering that it
had a fiberglass body. Even the doors themselves, I mean
we we will talk about these going doors a little
bit more, but um, the going doors themselves, I think
they each weighed like a hundred pounds or something. So
there were a couple of designers of the car. Now,
now Malcolm didn't necessarily design the car. He had a
(07:28):
lot of the ideas behind the car. But the designers
were named Marshall Hobart and Herb Grass. Now Herb Grass
passed away in two thousand ten, but you may recognize
his name, may or may not. I'm not sure how
familiar are with with automobile designers, but he worked with
George Barris on the original Batmobile and several other vehicles
(07:48):
that were considered you know, show or movie cars. So um.
He also I think there was a tie into Bruce
Myers and the Myers MANX, which was the original doom
buggy design. So you know, there's some some decent heritage
that goes into this as far as you know, the
designers go similar to the Corvette of the day, the
Chevy Corvette of the day, the layout of this car
(08:10):
was it was a front engine rear world drive layouts.
So it had a V eight engine which I think
was originally supposed to be a four cylinder engine. According
to Malcolm's specifications, he wanted a four cylinder engine, so
it's very fuel efficient but believe it or not. I mean,
when you look at the hood, the hood of this thing,
it's so sloped and so angular that you wouldn't think
to be able to fit a V eight under the hood.
(08:31):
But they actually were so very similar to the Corvette
of the day because it was a fiberglass body car
as well sports car. But it had a couple of
different options. There was a three sixty cubean inter engine
that was available from AMC. Again that's a V eight,
and that was in nineteen seventy four, and then from
nineteen seventy five to nineteen seventy six you could get
a three fifty one Ford Windsor engine, which was significant,
(08:54):
you know, significant upgrade I guess from the four cylinder
that they originally thought and I think the prototype originally
came out with I want to say it was a
Chrysler Slant six or something like that. So, um, you know,
this this car went from four cylinder to a six
cylinder all the way up to an eight cylinder and
the performance of the day. I mean, we'll talk about
it eventually, but I think it was very very similar
(09:14):
in performance as well to the Corvette. So kind of
an interesting vehicle. I mean it was definitely a sports car. Again,
fiberglass body, which we'll talk about because there were some
problems with the production of that fiberglass body. It was
created using a vacuum forming process with color impregnated acrylic
which is bonded to those fiberglass body panels. Now, the
colors of the vehicle, um, there were there were only
(09:37):
five colors available and again those were uh these color
impregnated acrylic. And the colors that were available were again
these are all safety colors, so they always say safety
ahead of ahead of them, so it's safety white and
safety orange, UM, safety suntan, safety red, and safety green,
and those were the only colors that you could get
(09:57):
the brick lin in and uh, they were bi This
is a bit strange. This is um a little bit
out of the ordinary. They were built in St. John
New Brunswick in Canada. Now that is east of the
state of Maine on the Bay of Fundy if you're
trying to find uh St. John New Brunswick on the map.
But again, a Canadian car. There were there were some
(10:17):
Canadian cars in his in history. Of course, not many. Uh,
this is one of them, and it didn't last very
long the New Brunswick premier. His name was Richard Hatfield. Uh.
He was the Canadian provincial government, part of the Canadian
provincial government, and they provided financing for this car for
about four point five million dollars to fund this Brooklan car.
And there's a tie ins the United States that is
(10:40):
going to lead to eventually to the downfall this whole thing.
We're still talking about a fairly head the vehicle. Um.
(11:01):
Again I mentioned that these cars were built in St.
John and the province of New Brunswick. Um, but a
company called General Vehicle, which was incorporated in Scottsdale, Arizona,
kind of controlled it and another design group in Livonia, Michigan.
That is going to lead to just a little bit
of a problem for the company in the near future
because um, the problem was Brooklyn was using some of
(11:24):
that some of that money to go and this is
all going to come out a little bit later, but
Brooklyn is using some of that money to fund uh
some of the engineering and development of the car and
as well as the salaries and operations in Phoenix, Arizona,
which is a bit of a conflict of interest I
guess for the for the Canadian government to be funding
(11:44):
something that is actually taking place, UM in Arizona here
in the United States. I do want to talk about
Malcolm Brooklyn and uh and who he was and some
some of the interesting things that he was responsible for.
So you get an idea of the person behind this
(12:05):
vehicle and kind of why it came to be. Now
he's in Malcolm Brooklyn. He was born on March nine nine.
He is still around, He's about I want he's eighty
years old at this point. I guess, um he was.
He's born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and he's an American businessman.
And the way he's described is that he's kind of
(12:25):
an unorthodox businessman. He spent more than six decades with
with numerous prominent failures and successes along the way. I
guess this guy is responsible for over thirty companies. Um.
He's primarily involved in manufacturing and importing automobiles in the
United States. But again, these thirty companies, among them are
(12:47):
some some very interesting ones that I have a feeling
that you have heard of in the past. Now, Um,
of course Brooklyn will talk about that, and and you
know the Brooklyn Motor Company. UM, Malcolm Brooklyn actually sees
that as a bit of a success. And you know,
I understand exactly what he's saying. I mean, a lot
of times you have to fail in order to understand
(13:08):
how to move forward. And I think that's exactly what
he's saying here. Now, Malcolm Brooklyn kind of started his
career back when he was about age nineteen, so a
long long time ago. His father owned a building supply
business back in Orlando, Florida, and uh, and Malcolm took
the opportunity to franchise, uh these these businesses and and
uh and it grew, you know, grew the business. But
(13:29):
eventually there were dozens of lawsuits and judgments against him
and uh, you know, I think the chain eventually fired
file bankruptcy. But again that's just one of the stumbling
blocks along the way. But you know, he already had
kind of this the thiever, the idea that he was
going to uh, you know, become something successful in the
business world. Now, one of the first businesses that I
think you'll you'll find that you recognize that Malcolm Brooklyn
(13:53):
is responsible for bringing to the United States is the
brand Subaru. He brought the brand Subaru to the United States.
That's to get this is the guy that's responsible for it. UM.
You know, after he sold his interest in you know,
the handyman business, Handyman America, he moved back to Philadelphia
and he was kind of exploring this idea of UM
working with a network of gas stations to rent scooters
(14:15):
and you know, the idea that you know, people can
get around town in a much more affordable way than
you know, some of the big gas guzzling cars that
we were using during that time. And so he goes
to Japan to meet with the manufacturer of the Rabbit scooter,
which was Fuji Heavy Industries, and you know, talking to
them about the importation of the scooters. And this is
right when Fuji was just getting out of manufacturer scooters
(14:35):
and and starting to concentrate on an automotive business. And
Brooklyn sees the Subaru three sixty mini car at that point.
Now that the three sixty mini car is a car
that got up to sixty miles per gallon on gas,
and it was of course, it did not have the
federal requirements to be sold here in the United States
at that time, but it did, however, weigh under one
(14:57):
thousand pounds. This car. If you haven't ever seen a
Super three sixty. It's a car that they built from
ninety to nineteen and it was a rear engine city
car and it weighed around right around nine hundred pounds,
and it was built to comply to Japan's K car regulations.
Now that's k k ei. They're still you know, they're
(15:18):
still making K cars. Uh. You know again KI cars.
I think that you know, the requirements have changed dramatically
from about nineteen forty nine up until present day. Uh.
There's minimum requirements for or maximum requirements rather for height
with length UM you know ccs, you know, power output,
that type of thing. There's lots of requirements to the
(15:40):
power output. UM. Suzuki, Mazda, Honda, Subaru, they all make
cars like this. But again, this is a very very
small car that Fuji Industries was building at the time,
and UH and making these these Suparu cars, and Brooklyn
saw a an option here. He said something, you know,
he saw something that was a possibility for the United States,
and so he'd be in to bring suber Us into
(16:02):
the US that were then, you know, they were compliant.
Um or didn't have to be compliant, brother, because they
were still under that one thousand pounds. But he was
able to bring in these cars and the first super
Us into the enter of the U s were from
between nine nineteen sixty nine. Again, these are publicly traded
companies then and uh, you know, it just became well,
as you know, I mean, Super is still around, highly
(16:24):
successful here in the United States. And again Malcolm Brooklyn
is the one who brought these uh into the United States.
He was runresponsible for it. Another company that he brought
into the United States was something called this one. He
might not be familiar with. Its name fast Track F
A S, T R A C. It's all one word.
And in nineteen seventy one he created this franchise called
fast Track, which combined, of all things this is strange
(16:46):
RV sales with shopping center parking lot race courses where
the public could then take you know, one of those
Subaru UM three sixties. You know, there were about nine
hundred of them I think that he he had that
were unsold, uh in one and you could actually race
these on these parking lot race courses. And again it's
combined with r V sales and these cars. And here's
(17:10):
the tie in again with Bruce Bruce Meyers from Myers
Manx the Doom of Doom buggy fame. Uh. They were
modified by him, so you know a little bit a
little bit hopped up, a little bit souped up for
these for these parking lot race courses, which I think
is fascinating. I'd love to find some old film of this,
you know, this happened. Even even photographs would be really cool.
But I want to tell you also about a couple
(17:30):
of other things that he was involved in. UM, the
International Automobile Importers, which is UM. This is after Fiat
had left the United States market and market, and UM
he moved to import in nineteen two, the import of
the Fiat X one nine as well as the two
thousand roadster. He renamed them, of course, the burtone and
the Pino fer Era. This is very interesting because you know,
(17:52):
again it's a it's a car that has left the
United States. He decides to bring them back and uh,
and actually they were quite successful. I mean I would
think that a lot of people have seen, you know,
Fiat x X one nine's on the road if if
nothing else, you know, at cars and caffeine event. You know,
it's some somewhere and here's another one that is probably
one that you've heard of, I would think, I would
hope so. And one that we've done a show on
here in the past on car stuff. Malcolm was responsible
(18:15):
for bringing the you go here, and this is happening
right in the early nineteen eighties, so about ten years
after the Brooklyn around nineteen four which was when the
entire Yugoslav car industry produced around UM I think they
produced about a quarter of a million cars, about sixty
though it's roughly about sixty thousand of those cars were exported.
And Brooklyn decided that he was going to meet with
(18:38):
the company that that created these cars that Stava I
think is the name, and and uh he and the
engineers that you know the work with him and along
with you know, other people of note m. Henry Kissinger
UH former U S Secretary of State, UM he and
several other people, you know, these global executives get together
and they create a vehicle that is of course regulated
(19:01):
for the United States, allowed to be imported to the
United States. And he and his engineers suggest get this
six hundred changes to the car made for the US market,
which included at one point one leader four cylinder engine.
UH there were improvements to the anti pollution system, there
were some comfort adjustments, safety devices. Of course, there's a
special carburetor for you know, lead free gasoline that we
(19:22):
used here in the United States at the time. Um. Uh,
you know, just incredible, so that you Go that the
US received, believe it or not. I mean, as much
as everybody groans about the UGO and how awful the
car was, and and truly the car was pretty awful.
Um there were six hundred changes that were made to
the car that came to the US market, so it
(19:43):
was actually a much improved vehicle over what they got
in other markets compared to what we had here. Um now,
I believe it. Again, I keep saying believe it or not,
because it's really hard to believe that all this happened.
But the you Go at the time was the fastest
selling car ever in the United States. It was imported
from Europe. There were one hundred and sixty three thousand
(20:04):
units sold in just three years, and it was actually
the least expensive new cars sold in the United States.
And I would guess that that is why so many
of them sold. Really later, he's still he's still going here, folks,
and Malcolm Brooklyn is involved in so many things. He
was involved in early electric vehicles. I mean we're talking
in the nineteen nineties. So he formed a partnership with
a guy, another guy named Malcolm uh Dr Malcolm Curie.
(20:27):
Now Curie was the former chairman and CEO for Hughes
Aircraft GM Delco and the former Undersecretary of Defense for
Research and Engineering. And the idea was that, you know,
they're trying to win people over to the idea of
UM electric cars, but they're gonna start small. They're gonna
start with electric bikes. Now this is again in nine,
so we're talking about pretty early design electric bikes. It's
(20:50):
not anything like what we see today. Initially they were
built using these these custom aluminum mountain bike frames UM
that were made from a company named zim Marc Corporation
in Malaysia, and they achieved about fifteen to twenty miles
per hour, depending on the size of the rider, and
they had a range of about seventeen miles before it
needed a charge. I believe these had the old UM Yeah,
they did. They had two rechargeable, sealed twelve vote lead
(21:13):
acid batteries. So this is the heavy car batteries that
we think of all the time, and these were I
believe they can. They it straddled the rear wheels, so
it's kind of a big box that was the power
unit for this whole thing. Um they had They did
have some advanced technology for the time. They had halogen headlights,
they had LED tail lights and brake lights. Um. They
had a wireless security remote fob, which I find kind
(21:34):
of interesting. They had LED turn signals and mirrors, and
they had you know, front disc brake. They were pretty
advanced for the time. Again, in the idea didn't really
take off because in nineteen nine they were selling these
bikes for something like you know, the suggested retail price
was around fourteen hundred up to nineteen hundred dollars, depending
on the options that you that you wanted on these bikes.
(21:55):
So these uh, these electric bicycle companies are this this
one in particular folded however it was called. It was
actually called the Electric Bicycle Company was purchased by a
guy named Leaa Coca. Now Lea Coca was the man who,
um was I I guess given the credit for saving
Chrysler Corporation back in the nineteen eighties. So he he
saw some interest in this. He decided that, you know,
(22:16):
maybe there's something to these electric bikes. And Lea Coca,
who I believe, you know, the companies don't no longer exists,
but I don't know if the company is still owned
by him, but um the company was then later renamed
e V Global, and uh, I think it just kind
of dissolved, kind of just went and went nowhere. But
interesting that, you know, Lea Coca ends up tied up
(22:37):
in this, in this whole electric bicycle thing with with
Malcolm Brooklyn. You know, I'm talking a mile a minute
right now about the Brooklyn because I'm really excited about it,
and you know, the guy that brought it here and everything,
and you know, it's just a fascinating history. But before
we end this whole thing, I've got about three more
points that I want to bring up. But before we
get any farther, let's take a word from our sponsor.
(23:03):
The debut with the new car happened around nineteen seventy four,
and there was a couple of There were a couple
of debuts for this thing. One was when it was
actually presented to a gathering of celebrities and potential dealers,
and this was at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas,
Las Vegas, Nevada, in February of nineteen seventy four. And
(23:23):
then there was an official unveiling in the car that
took place at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York,
also in nineteen seventy four, in June, so a little
bit later in that year, but again revealed to celebrities
first and potential dealers before anything. And of course the
automobile magazines got their hands on this thing at some point,
and they found that the performance of the Brooklyn was
found to be just about comparable to the contemporary Corvette
(23:45):
as we talked about before, which was really the only
other two seat V eight you know, um fiberglass body.
However many modifiers you want to put in here, cars
that were put together, and I do have the M
s r P numbers for you now. It was very,
very close to the M s r P of the
Corvette of the day, which I believe was right around
I think it was just a little bit more than
six thousand dollars for uh, the nineteen Corvette, so somewhere
(24:11):
in the six thousand dollar range. So it's a little
bit more, price a little bit more, but again performance
was just about the same. Uh there were I think
I want to say we said it just about three
thousand cars were produced. It's actually closer to uh hundred.
There's about two thousand, eight hundred and fifty four if
you want to be exact, uh, you know, vehicles produced. UM.
(24:31):
Most of those UM had the the eight UM and
again only that first year offered a four speed manual transmission.
So if you've got one with that, that's that's a
factory option. That makes it quite a bit more valuable.
And in fact that it add does add a thousand,
five hundred dollars. If if you've got one that's in
excellent condition, it's worth according to Haggarty it's worth about
(24:52):
twenty four thousand dollars these days. So UM, hang on
to that one. I guess that one in that factory,
the one that I saw, if it is in concourse addition,
which means perfect condition, you know, ready for show, around
thirty five thousand dollars. This is what you can get
for one of these. But most of them I would
bet or in the fair or or less than that
less than fair condition, which puts them right around about
(25:13):
seven thousand dollars again to write about what they cost
brand new back in nineteen seventy four. There were some interesting,
uh features I guess that that distinguished the the SV
one from many many other cars a day. Of course,
it had this you know, radical design. I mean it
looked like a sports car that a supercar really of
(25:35):
the day, and very similar to the Corvette I guess
in shape and size essentially. You know Brooklyn, Malcolm Brooklyn
got most of his ideas put into this vehicle, you know,
the the idea that it was going to be a
safety vehicle. So again SV stands for safety vehicle, and
he applies these standards, you know, far ahead of the
u S regulations. So he did things like, you know,
he had large erothane bumpers, you know, these these energy
(25:56):
absorbing bumpers, you know, crash protection, crash protections anders um.
He he did things like he put in a tubular
steel perimeter frame. He had a roll cage built right
within the frame of the vehicle, the chassis, which was
capable capable of standing you know, high velocity impact without deformation.
So you know, that was something that was kind of
advanced for the day. Uh. You know, of course it
(26:18):
had you know, the going doors, which I don't know
if it really were safety or more of a design, but, um,
you know, interesting idea behind the whole thing. Um. One
other thing is that the car didn't include any cigarette
lighter or ashtray could because Brooklyn thought that smoking while
driving was unsafe, it was a distraction, so kind of
an early safety idea. And think about the cars of
that day, you know, like the early nineteen seventies. I
(26:40):
have I I had a car that was in nineteen
sixty seven Chrysler Newport and there was literally an ash
tray in every arm rest. There was, you know, an
ash tray for six people in that car, uh, for
every one of them. And of course cigarette lighters you
know as well. Um. It was just a common feature
found in cars, and a lot of people would even
add you know these uh these add on ash trees.
(27:00):
You could buy them at you know, auto parts stores
that had beam bags kind of affixed to the bottom
that you could put in the seat in between if
you needed one, you know, another ash tray. So it
was just a very common feature at the time, and
he just did not include it. Um. Again, I'm excited
about the Brooklyn, I'm excited about being back, I'm excited
about all this. So so I'll quickly go through these
and and we'll move on and we can get to
our next topic. But I want to tell you about
(27:22):
three what I find very interesting facts about the Brooklyn
and the Brooklyn history. And one is that, um, there
were a series that commemorated the historic land vehicles in Canada,
and they issued a Brooklyn stamp on July or June eighth,
and it had a face face value of forty five cents.
It's kind of an item of interest. It's not often
(27:44):
that an automobile is featured on a stamp. I know
what's happened in the past, but um, it's not it's
not all that common. And uh, you know, especially one
that really was only around for a couple of years.
So Canadians obviously have quite a bit of pride in
this vehicle, even though it was a very short lived
um and rightfully so, it's an interesting car. There's so
much really of interest to this and I hope that
it's really just kind of the tip of the iceberg,
(28:05):
and that you will go out and search it and
and really dig into this. But um, the thing that
I find one of the most fascinating is that there
was a Mini Brooklyn um that was launched right in
the middle of production, and there were not many of
these produced. And when I say Mini Brooklyn, I mean
a go kart Brooklyn that you could buy, and you
(28:25):
could only you were only offered one of these if
you were were a Brooklyn owner, if you had a
Brooklyn car, you were given this, uh, this opportunity to
purchase one of these. And I'm holding in my hand
the document the I guess the press notice that says
dear Brooklyn Owners. F W N Associates, Inc. Which is
a company that was a builder of these many automobiles.
(28:47):
They built a lot of different small go carts. So
f W Associates, Inc. The world's largest builder of mini cars,
has arranged to build a limited edition Mini Brooklyn that
will carry person my personalized signature, year and the serial
number that will match the present Brooklyn that you own.
So you could get this car with a plaque attached
that had Malcolm Brooklyn's signature and it matched the serial
(29:11):
number for the very Brooklyn that you bought from the
Brooklyn Car Company, which I think is really cool. So
you'll get this in the same color you know that
you had your car, and it would just be a
mini version, or it could be a different color if
you wanted, I guess, but you could get it in
again the safety colors white, orange, sun, tan, red, or green.
And there's a photo here of a mini Brooklyn park
next to a full size Brooklyn. And the cost of
(29:33):
this of this thing again, this is the cost two
owners was five hundred and fifty five dollars and that
they would ship anywhere in the continental USA. Um. They
were powered by a three uh yeah, three horsepower bricks
and Stratton engine, so it wasn't like a super strong car,
but it had this really cool looking go kart body
on top of it that looked just like your full
(29:55):
sized Brooklyn that you had in your garde potentially. And
here's the thing. Not many Brookland owners took them up
on this opportunity, but around forty seven to forty nine
examples of these are known to exist, and those are
I think those are the only ones that were sold.
That not that there are that many left out there.
So if you happen to come across one of these
and um, you know you want to you want to
(30:16):
part with your or you want to purchase a Mini Brooklyn,
and you find someone that does want to part with one. Uh,
you know it's gonna have the VIN number from someone
else's car. But uh, you know, so be it um.
(30:37):
There was a problem with these, and the problem was
that they were having a hard time during the manufacturing. Uh.
They found that the acrylic resin uh that they first
selected would blister at temperatures as low and as one
hundred and fifty degrees, which is about sixty five point
six degrees celsius. Now you might think, okay, that's a
pretty high temperature. But you know what if you want
one of these and you're in a you know, a
(30:59):
hot environment like here in Atlanta or anywhere where you
know the temperatures get up to about a hundred degrees
ambient temperature, you know that the surface of that temperature
is going to become much much hotter than that. We've
seen problems similar with with with plastic trim on cars.
You know that warp and fade and all that. Well,
the problem with this was that the resin um, which
(31:20):
was able to withstand a higher temperature, was thinner than
the original product, I guess, and it required an extra
layer of fiberglass UM, which also increased the weight and
and Brooklyn had to revert to this original resin so UM.
They also discovered that this ultra violet that ultra violet
light would pass through the acrylic layer, which degraded the
polyester resins that were underneath so UM, you know, those
(31:44):
that were used to bond the acrylic to the fiberglass below.
So they had to really bring it well. They actually
had to bring in an expert in order to figure
this out. And they brought in a guy, a polymer
expert from McMaster University in Hamilton's and he was able
to figure out that um, there was a lack of
adhesion between the acryloc layer and the fiberglass and this
(32:04):
is a problem with all the early production, actually all
of the production Brooklyn's, and they got to figure out
a little bit. I mean, there was still a problem.
But um, according to people that were inside the company,
as many as as much as six of the acryloc
used in the first few months of production was lost
due to failures during the pressing and bonding stage, and
another tem percent was lost due to damage during shipments
(32:28):
of the parts from you know the plant. Um. Uh,
they had a body plant and then they had a
production plant, and and even in the shipping between the plants, Uh,
they lost again another teen percent and due to damage. Um,
they had an integrity test. And this test, this is
something right, So think about this happening in manufacturing today.
(32:48):
You just wouldn't see it. But Uh, Malcolm Brooklyn's father,
his name was Albert Brooklyn, actually thought of an idea
of how to test the parts for integrity. And the idea,
believe it or not, was uh to strike each part
that came out of the press with a seven pound
hammer and if the part didn't delineate or deliminate, rather
it was passed. So each part of the each body panel,
(33:11):
these things was struck with a seven pound hammer in
order to determine if it if it was up to standard.
And um until an acceptable body meth was found I
think in nineteen seventy five, they said, are prior to that,
the losses continued to be around fifteen or twenty five
percent rather of all the parts produced. So, man, what
an expensive operation this was just to get the body
(33:34):
panels together. Um. You know the Brooklyn motor company. Malcolm
Brooklyn actually sees that as a bit of a success,
and he says that one of his quotes here is
that the things that people see as failures are often
the steps to success. I got my fame and power
from the failure of the Brooklyn. Again, I encourage you
to look into the Brooklyn itself, look into Malcolm Brooklyn
(33:56):
and uh and find out what this guy was all about.
It's it's interesting, you know, whether he read with what
he's done or you don't. Um. Either way, I think
you're gonna find that he's a fascinating characters, as most
of the people that we cover in Car Stuff have
been over the years, I hope. So anyways, um, you
know what, folks, I think that about wraps it up
for today. I've got more notes here than I could
ever possibly read, and I've tried to fit as much
(34:18):
in as I possibly could. But uh, you know, for
the first first go around again on my on my
second round here in my second wind, I think we're
doing all right. And you know we're still available online.
You know, we've got all our social social media hookups,
so we are car Stuff hs W on Facebook, Twitter
and Instagram and if you want to go to our website,
which is uh, you know, I recommend you do that
(34:39):
because that's where you can find, you know, all of
our stuff, you know, the previous episodes from two thousand
eight forward up until uh you know was I guess
about two thousand seventeen and then starting again today. UH.
You can go to car Stuff show dot com and
you can find everything that you want there. Anything, it's
all searchable. UM. Hopefully you'll enjoy something that you find there.
I know you will. And again, I just want to
(34:59):
extend a thank you to everyone that has come back
to listen to us and uh and new listeners as well.
I'm I'm really excited about this new venture and UH
looking forward to many many more episodes with you. Thanks again.
(35:20):
Car Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How
Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Car Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios,
How Stuff Works. Hi, and welcome to Car Stuff. I'm
your host, Scott Benjamin, and um, we are back after
about a year and a half off and man, what
(00:21):
a year and a half it's been. And there is
there's been a lot of changes around here. And I
will let you know right now that, um, it is
just me. I'm kind of running this thing solo at
this point. Ben will not be joining me in the
studio today, but I assure you that Ben is still around.
We are not in a fight. We're not We're not
angry with one another or anything like that. And uh,
(00:42):
Ben would love to be here, but um, he has
other obligations that keep him from doing this show at
this point. And uh and completely understandable if you know
what Ben has been up to in the last year
and a half or so. We've both been very busy
and I am happy to be back and doing the
Car Stuff Show again. But again, it's gonna take a
little bit of adjustment on my part doing this solo.
So UM, you know, I'm I'm accustomed to having been
(01:05):
to be able to kind of bounce things off of
and you know, have a decent conversation back and forth
with him. Uh So bear with me a little bit
as we kind of get our feet underneath us here
as we start out this show again. Um again, I'm
really really excited to be back, and I hope that
you appreciate that we're back, and I hope that you
find just as much enjoyment out of the show as
uh as I get in making it for you. I
(01:27):
really enjoy talking to you, and I enjoy this show
so much in the in the topics, and I want
to just carry that forward. I want to continue on
with the Car Stuff tradition. And in fact, if you're
brand new to the show, take a look at our website.
We are on car Stuff show dot com, and take
a look back at our archives. We've got a good
(01:47):
oh gosh, I want to say, almost nine hundred episodes.
You know, Ben and I did this for a long
long time together. We've been recording since about two thousand eight.
We gave it up about a year and a half ago,
and we've got this incredible arc kind of material that
is just a little bit of everything. It's not just cars,
it's not just trucks, it's not just trains, automobiles. It's uh,
(02:07):
it's a little bit of everything. I mean, we we
talked about shriner cars and hearses and circus trains and um,
just all kinds of stuff. So um, you know the
people that are involved in going fast, you know, with
with with automotive racing and just it's a fun show.
Take a look back at archives. I think literally everybody
can find something that they like in our archives, I
(02:29):
promise you. And going forward, I want to continue that,
all right, So I want to get started here. I
guess restarted back into the show with with a topic
that we have touched on in the past, and it
(02:50):
is a unique car. It's a it's a Canadian car
of all things, a Canadian I guess i'll call a supercar.
Maybe it was really short lived, it was not not
quite a hit car, but it has kind of that
look to it. It's the Brooklyn s V one. Now
Brooklyn is a man's name, and Malcolm Brooklyn, and uh,
the SV one stands for Safety Vehicle one. And we'll
(03:12):
talk all about you know, why why they decided to
call it that, and you know, the the importance of
of safety in the design of this vehicle. The overall design. Um.
I have seen exactly one Brooklyn SV one in person
in my life, and that's it. And it was in
a museum. And this happened to be back in I
would say the early nineteen eighties. And you know, my
(03:33):
family lives in Indiana and we had lived in Michigan
for a long time, so driving back and forth in
the very northern part of Indiana is Auburn, Indiana, and
there is a museum. They're called the Auburn Cord Duisenberg Museum.
It is in the factory where they produced the Auburn
Cord Dusenberg cars. And of course there's a lot of
you know, antique automobiles there and you know, some machinery
(03:53):
from the original factory. It's just a it's a really
fascinating building to tour through. And as we're walking through, uh,
there's some other cars there that were you know, donated
by other people or you know, possessions of the museum.
And as we get through, you know, some of the
more classic cars and and you know, the the the
Auburn Corp Dusenberg's. We come around a corner and there's
(04:14):
this really unusual looking vehicle there and it's bright orange,
and it looked very futuristic. You know, of course it
was very angular and and uh strange looking. Had the
doors open, I believe, you know, these these amazing going
doors that we're going to talk about in a moment.
But it was a Bricklyn SV one and it was
in safety orange, and it's just always left an impression
on me as far as the design of the thing
(04:37):
and then the idea behind you know, why it came
to be, like why was this vehicle ever built in
the first place? And there's a there's a really good
story behind it and a fascinating character American entrepreneur. His
name was Malcolm Brooklyn. Um going to talk about some
some interesting side notes about the Brooklyn because there were
some other kind of crazy things that happened around it
(04:58):
that don't normally happen with other Automo beals, like some
special releases, and i'll tell you about those two. We're
gonna talk about some production of this vehicle, the competition
for the vehicle at the time, you know, like you
know what it was kind of paired up against and
what it was all about. Malcolm Bricklin was responsible for
several UH companies that brought automobiles to the United States. Now,
(05:21):
he's an entrepreneur that has his hands and more things
than you can imagine, and probably some stuff that is
very familiar to you, but you might not even know it.
And we'll get to Malcolm's story in just a moment.
But I want to tell you that, you know the
production of the car. You know that I guess maybe
the general specs of the car. Um production years were
from nineteen seventy four until nineteen seventy five, so really
(05:43):
only two years of production, and there were truly only
two model years produced, although there were a very few
cars that were built in nineteen seventy six, just kind
of built with leftover parts. So you know, I'm not
giving anything away to say that. You know, the company
is no longer around, and once it went defunct, there
were some parts left behind the factory. And we've heard
(06:04):
this with many other automobiles that were, you know, highly desired.
You know that there were there were some cars that
were on the assembly line just weren't finished. There were
parts left behind enough to put together a couple of cars,
and that's kind of what they did for nineteen seventy six.
But for the most part, These are nineteen seventy four
nineteen seventy five models, with again a few nineteen seventy
six cars built. There were three transmission options. There was
(06:26):
a three speed torque command automatic which was available in
nineteen seventy four and that was the only year that
that three speed torqu command automatic was available. Then there
was a manual trans that was only in the first
year cars. It was only available in the nineteen seventy
four cars. There was a four speed board Warner T
ten manual transmission, and then there was also in nineteen
(06:46):
seventy five another three speed automatic which was available to
the FMX transmission. So um, again the manual trans was
only available in the first year cars, and that adds
I believe it adds about fifteen hundred bucks if you
have one right now. So, um, that is a a
sought after option on the existing cars. Um it's a
(07:07):
little bit heavy. Um it was around three thousand pounds,
so fairly heavy for the you know, considering that it
had a fiberglass body. Even the doors themselves, I mean
we we will talk about these going doors a little
bit more, but um, the going doors themselves, I think
they each weighed like a hundred pounds or something. So
there were a couple of designers of the car. Now,
now Malcolm didn't necessarily design the car. He had a
(07:28):
lot of the ideas behind the car. But the designers
were named Marshall Hobart and Herb Grass. Now Herb Grass
passed away in two thousand ten, but you may recognize
his name, may or may not. I'm not sure how
familiar are with with automobile designers, but he worked with
George Barris on the original Batmobile and several other vehicles
(07:48):
that were considered you know, show or movie cars. So um.
He also I think there was a tie into Bruce
Myers and the Myers MANX, which was the original doom
buggy design. So you know, there's some some decent heritage
that goes into this as far as you know, the
designers go similar to the Corvette of the day, the
Chevy Corvette of the day, the layout of this car
(08:10):
was it was a front engine rear world drive layouts.
So it had a V eight engine which I think
was originally supposed to be a four cylinder engine. According
to Malcolm's specifications, he wanted a four cylinder engine, so
it's very fuel efficient but believe it or not. I mean,
when you look at the hood, the hood of this thing,
it's so sloped and so angular that you wouldn't think
to be able to fit a V eight under the hood.
(08:31):
But they actually were so very similar to the Corvette
of the day because it was a fiberglass body car
as well sports car. But it had a couple of
different options. There was a three sixty cubean inter engine
that was available from AMC. Again that's a V eight,
and that was in nineteen seventy four, and then from
nineteen seventy five to nineteen seventy six you could get
a three fifty one Ford Windsor engine, which was significant,
(08:54):
you know, significant upgrade I guess from the four cylinder
that they originally thought and I think the prototype originally
came out with I want to say it was a
Chrysler Slant six or something like that. So, um, you know,
this this car went from four cylinder to a six
cylinder all the way up to an eight cylinder and
the performance of the day. I mean, we'll talk about
it eventually, but I think it was very very similar
(09:14):
in performance as well to the Corvette. So kind of
an interesting vehicle. I mean it was definitely a sports car. Again,
fiberglass body, which we'll talk about because there were some
problems with the production of that fiberglass body. It was
created using a vacuum forming process with color impregnated acrylic
which is bonded to those fiberglass body panels. Now, the
colors of the vehicle, um, there were there were only
(09:37):
five colors available and again those were uh these color
impregnated acrylic. And the colors that were available were again
these are all safety colors, so they always say safety
ahead of ahead of them, so it's safety white and
safety orange, UM, safety suntan, safety red, and safety green,
and those were the only colors that you could get
(09:57):
the brick lin in and uh, they were bi This
is a bit strange. This is um a little bit
out of the ordinary. They were built in St. John
New Brunswick in Canada. Now that is east of the
state of Maine on the Bay of Fundy if you're
trying to find uh St. John New Brunswick on the map.
But again, a Canadian car. There were there were some
(10:17):
Canadian cars in his in history. Of course, not many. Uh,
this is one of them, and it didn't last very
long the New Brunswick premier. His name was Richard Hatfield. Uh.
He was the Canadian provincial government, part of the Canadian
provincial government, and they provided financing for this car for
about four point five million dollars to fund this Brooklan car.
And there's a tie ins the United States that is
(10:40):
going to lead to eventually to the downfall this whole thing.
We're still talking about a fairly head the vehicle. Um.
(11:01):
Again I mentioned that these cars were built in St.
John and the province of New Brunswick. Um, but a
company called General Vehicle, which was incorporated in Scottsdale, Arizona,
kind of controlled it and another design group in Livonia, Michigan.
That is going to lead to just a little bit
of a problem for the company in the near future
because um, the problem was Brooklyn was using some of
(11:24):
that some of that money to go and this is
all going to come out a little bit later, but
Brooklyn is using some of that money to fund uh
some of the engineering and development of the car and
as well as the salaries and operations in Phoenix, Arizona,
which is a bit of a conflict of interest I
guess for the for the Canadian government to be funding
(11:44):
something that is actually taking place, UM in Arizona here
in the United States. I do want to talk about
Malcolm Brooklyn and uh and who he was and some
some of the interesting things that he was responsible for.
So you get an idea of the person behind this
(12:05):
vehicle and kind of why it came to be. Now
he's in Malcolm Brooklyn. He was born on March nine nine.
He is still around, He's about I want he's eighty
years old at this point. I guess, um he was.
He's born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and he's an American businessman.
And the way he's described is that he's kind of
(12:25):
an unorthodox businessman. He spent more than six decades with
with numerous prominent failures and successes along the way. I
guess this guy is responsible for over thirty companies. Um.
He's primarily involved in manufacturing and importing automobiles in the
United States. But again, these thirty companies, among them are
(12:47):
some some very interesting ones that I have a feeling
that you have heard of in the past. Now, Um,
of course Brooklyn will talk about that, and and you
know the Brooklyn Motor Company. UM, Malcolm Brooklyn actually sees
that as a bit of a success. And you know,
I understand exactly what he's saying. I mean, a lot
of times you have to fail in order to understand
(13:08):
how to move forward. And I think that's exactly what
he's saying here. Now, Malcolm Brooklyn kind of started his
career back when he was about age nineteen, so a
long long time ago. His father owned a building supply
business back in Orlando, Florida, and uh, and Malcolm took
the opportunity to franchise, uh these these businesses and and
uh and it grew, you know, grew the business. But
(13:29):
eventually there were dozens of lawsuits and judgments against him
and uh, you know, I think the chain eventually fired
file bankruptcy. But again that's just one of the stumbling
blocks along the way. But you know, he already had
kind of this the thiever, the idea that he was
going to uh, you know, become something successful in the
business world. Now, one of the first businesses that I
think you'll you'll find that you recognize that Malcolm Brooklyn
(13:53):
is responsible for bringing to the United States is the
brand Subaru. He brought the brand Subaru to the United States.
That's to get this is the guy that's responsible for it. UM.
You know, after he sold his interest in you know,
the handyman business, Handyman America, he moved back to Philadelphia
and he was kind of exploring this idea of UM
working with a network of gas stations to rent scooters
(14:15):
and you know, the idea that you know, people can
get around town in a much more affordable way than
you know, some of the big gas guzzling cars that
we were using during that time. And so he goes
to Japan to meet with the manufacturer of the Rabbit scooter,
which was Fuji Heavy Industries, and you know, talking to
them about the importation of the scooters. And this is
right when Fuji was just getting out of manufacturer scooters
(14:35):
and and starting to concentrate on an automotive business. And
Brooklyn sees the Subaru three sixty mini car at that point.
Now that the three sixty mini car is a car
that got up to sixty miles per gallon on gas,
and it was of course, it did not have the
federal requirements to be sold here in the United States
at that time, but it did, however, weigh under one
(14:57):
thousand pounds. This car. If you haven't ever seen a
Super three sixty. It's a car that they built from
ninety to nineteen and it was a rear engine city
car and it weighed around right around nine hundred pounds,
and it was built to comply to Japan's K car regulations.
Now that's k k ei. They're still you know, they're
(15:18):
still making K cars. Uh. You know again KI cars.
I think that you know, the requirements have changed dramatically
from about nineteen forty nine up until present day. Uh.
There's minimum requirements for or maximum requirements rather for height
with length UM you know ccs, you know, power output,
that type of thing. There's lots of requirements to the
(15:40):
power output. UM. Suzuki, Mazda, Honda, Subaru, they all make
cars like this. But again, this is a very very
small car that Fuji Industries was building at the time,
and UH and making these these Suparu cars, and Brooklyn
saw a an option here. He said something, you know,
he saw something that was a possibility for the United States,
and so he'd be in to bring suber Us into
(16:02):
the US that were then, you know, they were compliant.
Um or didn't have to be compliant, brother, because they
were still under that one thousand pounds. But he was
able to bring in these cars and the first super
Us into the enter of the U s were from
between nine nineteen sixty nine. Again, these are publicly traded
companies then and uh, you know, it just became well,
as you know, I mean, Super is still around, highly
(16:24):
successful here in the United States. And again Malcolm Brooklyn
is the one who brought these uh into the United States.
He was runresponsible for it. Another company that he brought
into the United States was something called this one. He
might not be familiar with. Its name fast Track F
A S, T R A C. It's all one word.
And in nineteen seventy one he created this franchise called
fast Track, which combined, of all things this is strange
(16:46):
RV sales with shopping center parking lot race courses where
the public could then take you know, one of those
Subaru UM three sixties. You know, there were about nine
hundred of them I think that he he had that
were unsold, uh in one and you could actually race
these on these parking lot race courses. And again it's
combined with r V sales and these cars. And here's
(17:10):
the tie in again with Bruce Bruce Meyers from Myers
Manx the Doom of Doom buggy fame. Uh. They were
modified by him, so you know a little bit a
little bit hopped up, a little bit souped up for
these for these parking lot race courses, which I think
is fascinating. I'd love to find some old film of this,
you know, this happened. Even even photographs would be really cool.
But I want to tell you also about a couple
(17:30):
of other things that he was involved in. UM, the
International Automobile Importers, which is UM. This is after Fiat
had left the United States market and market, and UM
he moved to import in nineteen two, the import of
the Fiat X one nine as well as the two
thousand roadster. He renamed them, of course, the burtone and
the Pino fer Era. This is very interesting because you know,
(17:52):
again it's a it's a car that has left the
United States. He decides to bring them back and uh,
and actually they were quite successful. I mean I would
think that a lot of people have seen, you know,
Fiat x X one nine's on the road if if
nothing else, you know, at cars and caffeine event. You know,
it's some somewhere and here's another one that is probably
one that you've heard of, I would think, I would
hope so. And one that we've done a show on
here in the past on car stuff. Malcolm was responsible
(18:15):
for bringing the you go here, and this is happening
right in the early nineteen eighties, so about ten years
after the Brooklyn around nineteen four which was when the
entire Yugoslav car industry produced around UM I think they
produced about a quarter of a million cars, about sixty
though it's roughly about sixty thousand of those cars were exported.
And Brooklyn decided that he was going to meet with
(18:38):
the company that that created these cars that Stava I
think is the name, and and uh he and the
engineers that you know the work with him and along
with you know, other people of note m. Henry Kissinger
UH former U S Secretary of State, UM he and
several other people, you know, these global executives get together
and they create a vehicle that is of course regulated
(19:01):
for the United States, allowed to be imported to the
United States. And he and his engineers suggest get this
six hundred changes to the car made for the US market,
which included at one point one leader four cylinder engine.
UH there were improvements to the anti pollution system, there
were some comfort adjustments, safety devices. Of course, there's a
special carburetor for you know, lead free gasoline that we
(19:22):
used here in the United States at the time. Um. Uh,
you know, just incredible, so that you Go that the
US received, believe it or not. I mean, as much
as everybody groans about the UGO and how awful the
car was, and and truly the car was pretty awful.
Um there were six hundred changes that were made to
the car that came to the US market, so it
(19:43):
was actually a much improved vehicle over what they got
in other markets compared to what we had here. Um now,
I believe it. Again, I keep saying believe it or not,
because it's really hard to believe that all this happened.
But the you Go at the time was the fastest
selling car ever in the United States. It was imported
from Europe. There were one hundred and sixty three thousand
(20:04):
units sold in just three years, and it was actually
the least expensive new cars sold in the United States.
And I would guess that that is why so many
of them sold. Really later, he's still he's still going here, folks,
and Malcolm Brooklyn is involved in so many things. He
was involved in early electric vehicles. I mean we're talking
in the nineteen nineties. So he formed a partnership with
a guy, another guy named Malcolm uh Dr Malcolm Curie.
(20:27):
Now Curie was the former chairman and CEO for Hughes
Aircraft GM Delco and the former Undersecretary of Defense for
Research and Engineering. And the idea was that, you know,
they're trying to win people over to the idea of
UM electric cars, but they're gonna start small. They're gonna
start with electric bikes. Now this is again in nine,
so we're talking about pretty early design electric bikes. It's
(20:50):
not anything like what we see today. Initially they were
built using these these custom aluminum mountain bike frames UM
that were made from a company named zim Marc Corporation
in Malaysia, and they achieved about fifteen to twenty miles
per hour, depending on the size of the rider, and
they had a range of about seventeen miles before it
needed a charge. I believe these had the old UM Yeah,
they did. They had two rechargeable, sealed twelve vote lead
(21:13):
acid batteries. So this is the heavy car batteries that
we think of all the time, and these were I
believe they can. They it straddled the rear wheels, so
it's kind of a big box that was the power
unit for this whole thing. Um they had They did
have some advanced technology for the time. They had halogen headlights,
they had LED tail lights and brake lights. Um. They
had a wireless security remote fob, which I find kind
(21:34):
of interesting. They had LED turn signals and mirrors, and
they had you know, front disc brake. They were pretty
advanced for the time. Again, in the idea didn't really
take off because in nineteen nine they were selling these
bikes for something like you know, the suggested retail price
was around fourteen hundred up to nineteen hundred dollars, depending
on the options that you that you wanted on these bikes.
(21:55):
So these uh, these electric bicycle companies are this this
one in particular folded however it was called. It was
actually called the Electric Bicycle Company was purchased by a
guy named Leaa Coca. Now Lea Coca was the man who,
um was I I guess given the credit for saving
Chrysler Corporation back in the nineteen eighties. So he he
saw some interest in this. He decided that, you know,
(22:16):
maybe there's something to these electric bikes. And Lea Coca,
who I believe, you know, the companies don't no longer exists,
but I don't know if the company is still owned
by him, but um the company was then later renamed
e V Global, and uh, I think it just kind
of dissolved, kind of just went and went nowhere. But
interesting that, you know, Lea Coca ends up tied up
(22:37):
in this, in this whole electric bicycle thing with with
Malcolm Brooklyn. You know, I'm talking a mile a minute
right now about the Brooklyn because I'm really excited about it,
and you know, the guy that brought it here and everything,
and you know, it's just a fascinating history. But before
we end this whole thing, I've got about three more
points that I want to bring up. But before we
get any farther, let's take a word from our sponsor.
(23:03):
The debut with the new car happened around nineteen seventy four,
and there was a couple of There were a couple
of debuts for this thing. One was when it was
actually presented to a gathering of celebrities and potential dealers,
and this was at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas,
Las Vegas, Nevada, in February of nineteen seventy four. And
(23:23):
then there was an official unveiling in the car that
took place at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York,
also in nineteen seventy four, in June, so a little
bit later in that year, but again revealed to celebrities
first and potential dealers before anything. And of course the
automobile magazines got their hands on this thing at some point,
and they found that the performance of the Brooklyn was
found to be just about comparable to the contemporary Corvette
(23:45):
as we talked about before, which was really the only
other two seat V eight you know, um fiberglass body.
However many modifiers you want to put in here, cars
that were put together, and I do have the M
s r P numbers for you now. It was very,
very close to the M s r P of the
Corvette of the day, which I believe was right around
I think it was just a little bit more than
six thousand dollars for uh, the nineteen Corvette, so somewhere
(24:11):
in the six thousand dollar range. So it's a little
bit more, price a little bit more, but again performance
was just about the same. Uh there were I think
I want to say we said it just about three
thousand cars were produced. It's actually closer to uh hundred.
There's about two thousand, eight hundred and fifty four if
you want to be exact, uh, you know, vehicles produced. UM.
(24:31):
Most of those UM had the the eight UM and
again only that first year offered a four speed manual transmission.
So if you've got one with that, that's that's a
factory option. That makes it quite a bit more valuable.
And in fact that it add does add a thousand,
five hundred dollars. If if you've got one that's in
excellent condition, it's worth according to Haggarty it's worth about
(24:52):
twenty four thousand dollars these days. So UM, hang on
to that one. I guess that one in that factory,
the one that I saw, if it is in concourse addition,
which means perfect condition, you know, ready for show, around
thirty five thousand dollars. This is what you can get
for one of these. But most of them I would
bet or in the fair or or less than that
less than fair condition, which puts them right around about
(25:13):
seven thousand dollars again to write about what they cost
brand new back in nineteen seventy four. There were some interesting,
uh features I guess that that distinguished the the SV
one from many many other cars a day. Of course,
it had this you know, radical design. I mean it
looked like a sports car that a supercar really of
(25:35):
the day, and very similar to the Corvette I guess
in shape and size essentially. You know Brooklyn, Malcolm Brooklyn
got most of his ideas put into this vehicle, you know,
the the idea that it was going to be a
safety vehicle. So again SV stands for safety vehicle, and
he applies these standards, you know, far ahead of the
u S regulations. So he did things like, you know,
he had large erothane bumpers, you know, these these energy
(25:56):
absorbing bumpers, you know, crash protection, crash protections anders um.
He he did things like he put in a tubular
steel perimeter frame. He had a roll cage built right
within the frame of the vehicle, the chassis, which was
capable capable of standing you know, high velocity impact without deformation.
So you know, that was something that was kind of
advanced for the day. Uh. You know, of course it
(26:18):
had you know, the going doors, which I don't know
if it really were safety or more of a design, but, um,
you know, interesting idea behind the whole thing. Um. One
other thing is that the car didn't include any cigarette
lighter or ashtray could because Brooklyn thought that smoking while
driving was unsafe, it was a distraction, so kind of
an early safety idea. And think about the cars of
that day, you know, like the early nineteen seventies. I
(26:40):
have I I had a car that was in nineteen
sixty seven Chrysler Newport and there was literally an ash
tray in every arm rest. There was, you know, an
ash tray for six people in that car, uh, for
every one of them. And of course cigarette lighters you
know as well. Um. It was just a common feature
found in cars, and a lot of people would even
add you know these uh these add on ash trees.
(27:00):
You could buy them at you know, auto parts stores
that had beam bags kind of affixed to the bottom
that you could put in the seat in between if
you needed one, you know, another ash tray. So it
was just a very common feature at the time, and
he just did not include it. Um. Again, I'm excited
about the Brooklyn, I'm excited about being back, I'm excited
about all this. So so I'll quickly go through these
and and we'll move on and we can get to
our next topic. But I want to tell you about
(27:22):
three what I find very interesting facts about the Brooklyn
and the Brooklyn history. And one is that, um, there
were a series that commemorated the historic land vehicles in Canada,
and they issued a Brooklyn stamp on July or June eighth,
and it had a face face value of forty five cents.
It's kind of an item of interest. It's not often
(27:44):
that an automobile is featured on a stamp. I know
what's happened in the past, but um, it's not it's
not all that common. And uh, you know, especially one
that really was only around for a couple of years.
So Canadians obviously have quite a bit of pride in
this vehicle, even though it was a very short lived
um and rightfully so, it's an interesting car. There's so
much really of interest to this and I hope that
it's really just kind of the tip of the iceberg,
(28:05):
and that you will go out and search it and
and really dig into this. But um, the thing that
I find one of the most fascinating is that there
was a Mini Brooklyn um that was launched right in
the middle of production, and there were not many of
these produced. And when I say Mini Brooklyn, I mean
a go kart Brooklyn that you could buy, and you
(28:25):
could only you were only offered one of these if
you were were a Brooklyn owner, if you had a
Brooklyn car, you were given this, uh, this opportunity to
purchase one of these. And I'm holding in my hand
the document the I guess the press notice that says
dear Brooklyn Owners. F W N Associates, Inc. Which is
a company that was a builder of these many automobiles.
(28:47):
They built a lot of different small go carts. So
f W Associates, Inc. The world's largest builder of mini cars,
has arranged to build a limited edition Mini Brooklyn that
will carry person my personalized signature, year and the serial
number that will match the present Brooklyn that you own.
So you could get this car with a plaque attached
that had Malcolm Brooklyn's signature and it matched the serial
(29:11):
number for the very Brooklyn that you bought from the
Brooklyn Car Company, which I think is really cool. So
you'll get this in the same color you know that
you had your car, and it would just be a
mini version, or it could be a different color if
you wanted, I guess, but you could get it in
again the safety colors white, orange, sun, tan, red, or green.
And there's a photo here of a mini Brooklyn park
next to a full size Brooklyn. And the cost of
(29:33):
this of this thing again, this is the cost two
owners was five hundred and fifty five dollars and that
they would ship anywhere in the continental USA. Um. They
were powered by a three uh yeah, three horsepower bricks
and Stratton engine, so it wasn't like a super strong car,
but it had this really cool looking go kart body
on top of it that looked just like your full
(29:55):
sized Brooklyn that you had in your garde potentially. And
here's the thing. Not many Brookland owners took them up
on this opportunity, but around forty seven to forty nine
examples of these are known to exist, and those are
I think those are the only ones that were sold.
That not that there are that many left out there.
So if you happen to come across one of these
and um, you know you want to you want to
(30:16):
part with your or you want to purchase a Mini Brooklyn,
and you find someone that does want to part with one. Uh,
you know it's gonna have the VIN number from someone
else's car. But uh, you know, so be it um.
(30:37):
There was a problem with these, and the problem was
that they were having a hard time during the manufacturing. Uh.
They found that the acrylic resin uh that they first
selected would blister at temperatures as low and as one
hundred and fifty degrees, which is about sixty five point
six degrees celsius. Now you might think, okay, that's a
pretty high temperature. But you know what if you want
one of these and you're in a you know, a
(30:59):
hot environment like here in Atlanta or anywhere where you
know the temperatures get up to about a hundred degrees
ambient temperature, you know that the surface of that temperature
is going to become much much hotter than that. We've
seen problems similar with with with plastic trim on cars.
You know that warp and fade and all that. Well,
the problem with this was that the resin um, which
(31:20):
was able to withstand a higher temperature, was thinner than
the original product, I guess, and it required an extra
layer of fiberglass UM, which also increased the weight and
and Brooklyn had to revert to this original resin so UM.
They also discovered that this ultra violet that ultra violet
light would pass through the acrylic layer, which degraded the
polyester resins that were underneath so UM, you know, those
(31:44):
that were used to bond the acrylic to the fiberglass below.
So they had to really bring it well. They actually
had to bring in an expert in order to figure
this out. And they brought in a guy, a polymer
expert from McMaster University in Hamilton's and he was able
to figure out that um, there was a lack of
adhesion between the acryloc layer and the fiberglass and this
(32:04):
is a problem with all the early production, actually all
of the production Brooklyn's, and they got to figure out
a little bit. I mean, there was still a problem.
But um, according to people that were inside the company,
as many as as much as six of the acryloc
used in the first few months of production was lost
due to failures during the pressing and bonding stage, and
another tem percent was lost due to damage during shipments
(32:28):
of the parts from you know the plant. Um. Uh,
they had a body plant and then they had a
production plant, and and even in the shipping between the plants, Uh,
they lost again another teen percent and due to damage. Um,
they had an integrity test. And this test, this is
something right, So think about this happening in manufacturing today.
(32:48):
You just wouldn't see it. But Uh, Malcolm Brooklyn's father,
his name was Albert Brooklyn, actually thought of an idea
of how to test the parts for integrity. And the idea,
believe it or not, was uh to strike each part
that came out of the press with a seven pound
hammer and if the part didn't delineate or deliminate, rather
it was passed. So each part of the each body panel,
(33:11):
these things was struck with a seven pound hammer in
order to determine if it if it was up to standard.
And um until an acceptable body meth was found I
think in nineteen seventy five, they said, are prior to that,
the losses continued to be around fifteen or twenty five
percent rather of all the parts produced. So, man, what
an expensive operation this was just to get the body
(33:34):
panels together. Um. You know the Brooklyn motor company. Malcolm
Brooklyn actually sees that as a bit of a success,
and he says that one of his quotes here is
that the things that people see as failures are often
the steps to success. I got my fame and power
from the failure of the Brooklyn. Again, I encourage you
to look into the Brooklyn itself, look into Malcolm Brooklyn
(33:56):
and uh and find out what this guy was all about.
It's it's interesting, you know, whether he read with what
he's done or you don't. Um. Either way, I think
you're gonna find that he's a fascinating characters, as most
of the people that we cover in Car Stuff have
been over the years, I hope. So anyways, um, you
know what, folks, I think that about wraps it up
for today. I've got more notes here than I could
ever possibly read, and I've tried to fit as much
(34:18):
in as I possibly could. But uh, you know, for
the first first go around again on my on my
second round here in my second wind, I think we're
doing all right. And you know we're still available online.
You know, we've got all our social social media hookups,
so we are car Stuff hs W on Facebook, Twitter
and Instagram and if you want to go to our website,
which is uh, you know, I recommend you do that
(34:39):
because that's where you can find, you know, all of
our stuff, you know, the previous episodes from two thousand
eight forward up until uh you know was I guess
about two thousand seventeen and then starting again today. UH.
You can go to car Stuff show dot com and
you can find everything that you want there. Anything, it's
all searchable. UM. Hopefully you'll enjoy something that you find there.
I know you will. And again, I just want to
(34:59):
extend a thank you to everyone that has come back
to listen to us and uh and new listeners as well.
I'm I'm really excited about this new venture and UH
looking forward to many many more episodes with you. Thanks again.
(35:20):
Car Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How
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