The Bricklin Bombs

It always seemed like a foolhardy venture: Malcolm Bricklin, 36, an unconventional millionaire from Philadelphia who sometimes wore Indian beads, thought he could start an auto-manufacturing business from scratch. To the surprise of many, Bricklin, who had made his original fortune running hardware stores, actually acquired two plants in Canada's New Brunswick province and started making his unconventional Bricklin cars. Now two secured creditors and the New Brunswick government, which had put up more than $20 million in cash and loan guarantees to obtain 67% control of Bricklin Canada Ltd., have placed the company in receivership, closing the plants. Bricklin himself proclaimed last week at a press conference in Toronto that "the Bricklin car will continue to be built in New Brunswick." That sounded like whistling in the dark--especially since Bricklin had already gone into a Scottsdale, Ariz., court to declare himself personally bankrupt.

Safety Cage. Bricklin thought he could succeed by selling a car engineered primarily for safety. The Bricklin had retractable bumpers designed to absorb collisions without damage at speeds up to ten miles per hour, roll bars that made the passenger compartment a kind of safety cage, and gull-wing doors that opened by swinging up and out of the way of oncoming traffic. Those features were expensive: the car's price rose from about $8,000 in 1974 to $10,000 this year. Bricklin tried to give the car flash as well as safety appeal; he made only one model, a sleek sports car.

However, nothing went quite right with the car from the start. The two plants, which employed 600 people, were expected to produce 12,000 vehicles a year; but over the Bricklin's entire production run, beginning in August 1974, they turned out only 3,000 cars--most of them exported to the U.S. One trouble was that the Bricklin's gull-wing doors were electrically operated --and sealed in passengers if the battery ran dead. Some Bricklins arrived at dealers' with missing parts and simply could not be sold. Deliveries to Bricklin's 400 dealers were slow and erratic.

The receiver, Clarkson Co. Ltd., an accounting firm, will determine over the next several weeks whether the company can be reorganized. The odds on the Bricklin car rising Phoenix-like, however, are poor. Bricklin claimed last week to have lined up more than $10 million from new U.S. investors, and earnestly solicited an additional $10 million to $15 million from the New Brunswick provincial and Canadian federal governments. But Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's administration is cutting its budget to attack inflation and is in no mood to boost new spending. New Brunswick's Progressive Conservative premier, Richard Hatfield, is under heavy political fire for putting taxpayers' money into the company in the first place. Malcolm Bricklin is facing the harsh reality that his car is turning out to be something like a new Edsel, which cynics always thought it would be.

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