Tuesday 25th June 1974

The Bricklin SV-1 was introduced to the public in Livonia, Michigan, US. The model name SV-1 was an acronym for “safety vehicle one”. The original idea for the Bricklin SV-1 was a safe and economical sports car, but due to the added weight of the safety features, the car was inefficient and simply a safe sports car. The Bricklin was designed for safety with an integrated roll cage, 5 mph (8.0 km/h) bumpers, and side beams.[citation needed] The body was fibreglass with bonded acrylic in five “safety” colours: white, red, green, orange and suntan.[citation needed] The cars had no cigarette lighter or ashtray “to discourage smoking”. A non-smoker, Malcolm Bricklin believed it was unsafe to smoke and drive. The Bricklin is the only[citation needed] production vehicle in automotive history to have factory powered gull-wing doors that opened and closed at the touch of a button as standard equipment. (The later DeLorean DMC-12’s gull-wing doors operate manually, and the Tesla Model X’s rear doors are referred to as falcon-wing doors rather than gull-wing due to the extra hinge.).

The Bricklin factory was not able to produce vehicles fast enough to make a profit. As a result, only 2,854 cars were built before the company went into receivership, owing the New Brunswick government $21 million, and less than 3,000 cars were built.