Good morning, Autopians! Well, the suggestions keep rolling in, and I have to say, you’ve outdone yourselves. Today is all about failures, as we look at two plastic-bodied two-seaters that just didn’t make the splash their creators thought they would. But they’re both fascinating machines, and well worth a little discussion.
Yesterday’s little Chinese trucks were obviously obviously both overpriced for what are essentially toys for most of us. I know some brave souls actually drive low-speed vehicles around as if they were real cars or something, but most of us are too frightened to become a hood ornament on a Super Duty to do so. If you live in a contained area with no high-speed streets, like a retirement community or something, these could work, but you’re still probably better off with a nice Ford Festiva.
I was surprised by the outcome of the vote on this one. I expected the van to run away with it, due to the lower price and similarity to a kei van. But the Truckall seems to have made use of that cargo capacity to carry away the majority of your votes. Me, I’d take the van, simply because it’s a lot cheaper.
It has happened so many times I think we all have lost count: Someone has a “better” idea for a car, puts together a flashy design, gets some investors, and sets up shop. The lucky ones actually build a few cars, but most of them end up as vaporware, or worse, outright scams. Tucker and Dale versus evil Detroit, I guess you could call it, and Detroit always wins. The ones that do get made often end up forgotten, relegated to used car lots as curiosities, or parked in someone’s back yard after some unobtainium part fails.
These two come from different eras, and have different problems they’re trying to solve, but the wide-eyed optimism is the same. Both have plastic bodies, both have two seats, and both only lasted a couple of years. Let’s check them out.
2011 Think City – $4,377
Motor/drivetrain: 34 kilowatt electric motor, single-speed gear reduction, FWD
Location: Evansville, IN
Odometer reading: 19,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives, or so I assume
This adorable little car is one that almost made it. The Think City (or sometimes Th!nk City) is a front-wheel-drive two-seat electric hatchback, designed by Think Global in Norway with some help from Finnish company Valmet, as well as Ford. It was built in Valmet’s facility for the European market, and – get this – in Elkhart, Indiana for the US market. Yes, that’s right, the band instrument and RV capital of the world also gave us this cute little electric car.
The Think City is front-wheel-drive, powered by an electric motor that puts out 46 horsepower through a 10:1 gear reduction. It’s not much, but it’s enough to get the little car up to highway speeds – just barely. The motor is fed by a 23 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery that recharges from a standard wall outlet. Supposedly it’s enough to give the car 99 miles of range, and recharge overnight.
This little car has only 19,000 miles on its odometer, and hasn’t strayed far from its Elkhart home. But then, it’s a city runabout, tethered to a fairly small geographical region by its short range. It has amber warning lights on the roof, which makes me wonder if it was used for delivering mail or reading electrical meters (which would be ironic) or some similar short-trip official work. It’s well suited to those sorts of tasks.
It’s in OK shape, except for a split seam on the driver’s seat. Its Ford heritage is on display in the interior; I’m pretty sure that’s the same steering wheel and headlight switch my old Focus hatchback had. And by the way, the outside isn’t faded or missing clearcoat – it’s supposed to be a satin finish like that. The body panels are plastic, and molded in color.
1975 Bricklin SV-1 – $7,500
Engine/drivetrain: 351 cubic inch overhead valve V8, three-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Westland, MI
Odometer reading: 40,000 miles
Operational status: Engine runs, hasn’t been driven in a long time
Malcolm Bricklin is a name every gearhead should know. The car-loving entrepreneur is responsible for bringing Subaru to America, keeping Fiat Spiders and X1/9s landing on our shores after Fiat pulled up stumps in 1981, and, well, Yugo. But somehwere in the middle there, he also built his own car, this two-seat coupe: the SV-1.
The “SV” in SV-1 stands for Safety Vehicle. In the early 1970s, lots of new vehicle safety standards were proposed. Some, like five-mile-per-hour bumpers, were actually enacted, while others, like a rollover-protection standard that essentially killed off convertibles, never came to be. Bricklin wanted the SV-1 to meet or exceed every proposed standard. The fact that it was a stylish, V8-powered, gullwing-doored coupe was completely coincidental, of course. The early SV-1s were powered by AMC 360 V8s and available with either manual or automatic transmissions, but later cars such as this ’75 model have Ford power, and no manual option.
This SV-1 has been in storage a long time. The seller has revived the engine, but hasn’t gotten any further in the work needed to put it back on the road. It’s complete and intact, but you can expect to have to do a lot of work. Bricklin SV-1s weren’t much above kit cars in terms of build quality. The primer-gray hood is puzzling; like the Think above, SV-1s aren’t painted. The acrylic/fiberglass body panels, a massive source of production problems for Bricklin, were molded in one of five colors, with no paint necessary. I’m not sure why one panel would have been primered, unless it was damaged and someone repaired it using typical fiberglass repair techniques.
What worries me a bit more is that none of the photos in the ad show the doors open. The SV-1 has gullwing doors, which you would think the seller would want to show off. I fear they may not work. The doors are too heavy to open by hand; they’re operated by hydraulic cylinders driven by a failure-prone electric pump. If that pump is shot, it’s strictly NASCAR-style ingress and egress until you find a replacement.
(As a quick aside, I was once in possession of a 1975 Bricklin SV-1 brochure. I went looking for it several years ago, but it seems to have vanished somehwere along the way. I wish I still had it.)
Automotive history is littered with ghosts like these, cars from failed enterprises or defunct companies. Some, like the fabled Tucker 48 (no relation that I know of, by the way) end up in museums, the few remaining examples selling for huge sums. Others, like these two, aren’t so lucky. But that means mere mortals like us have a chance to experience a rare piece of history for a (relatively) bargain price. So which one intrigues you more – the little electric runabout, or the safety-conscious sports coupe?
(Image credits: Facebook Marketplace sellers)
I gave up golf a long time ago, so no need for a golf cart.
The SV-1 is one of those cars that doesn’t seem like it would be too hard to maintain (Ford drivetrain, lots of US parts bin pieces) but has 100% bespoke body panels that will warp over time with no easy way to repair them. As Mark says, the doors are quite heavy and damn near impossible to open without a functioning pump.
So the obvious choice is to get the SV-1, pull the doors off completely, find a way to lift it 6″ and have the coolest dune buggy/safari/mad max vehicle in town.
It will get mogged by this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTmGisAWGIY
A TRUE safari/Mad Max vehicle, made from scrap, and driven in an actual safari!
OK, second coolest.
I don’t want to deal with the mechanical nightmare that a low-production oddball needing restoration brings, so it’s the Think for me.
If I lived in the suburbs, the Think would be a perfect runabout, taking me to the train station and the bakery and using no gas. But for that much money I might as well buy the used Pontiac Vibe that was featured a few weeks back and have more capabilities.
A contemporary auto writer reviewing the Bricklin described the front end styling as a “Saab Sonnet sucking on a cassette tape”. I don’t know if that makes me want the Bricklin more or less, but I definitely prefer it to the generic transportation pod.
Car and Driver called it “a DeLorean being force-fed an 8-track”.
The 3rd gen Sonnet is IMO ugly. I like the first two gens with the rounded front and curvy headlamps. They’ve aged much better, IMO.
If I’m buying a Bricklin, I am not buying that Bricklin. So I think I go with the Th!nk by default. I live adjacent to a retirement community and golf carts are driven everywhere. This would be better than a golf cart.
I’ll take the Bricklin. I’d paint it some crazy color shifting purple and slowly fix what is broken
Think about it.
I do like the Bricklin, someone still drives one to work every once in a while.
That said, putting up the extra money for a better condition example would be far worth it compared to the amount of work to get this back into driving condition. Not to mention the effort to find what I imagine to be parts teetering on the unobtainium cliff at this point.
Um… that’s alright… I appreciate the offers, though.
Bricklin, strangely as I think it’d be good for an EV Conversion to go with the snazzy style.
Vee-Eight! Vee-Eight! Vee-Eight! Vee-Eight! Vee-Eight! Vee-Eight! Vee-Eight! Vee-Eight!
Your Th!nk is mediocre!
I like the Th!nk more than I should, so I think I’ll vote for that one.
For some top quality Bricklin content, check out the rescue a feller did on ViceGripGarage of one from Florida. If that wasn’t enough, he gave the car to another Youtuber, DDSpeedShop in exchange for a charity donation. Since then, Dan has actually gotten the wreck to run halfway decent, the doors to work, and cleaned up some of it. The basic bones are easy to source and fix. The “Bricklin” parts are of questionable quality and hard to find.
On a side note, I live just north of Elkhart and there are still a few folks using Th!nks as commuter cars. I pass a blue one daily.
Dan had the Bricklin stored at Mortske Repair’s place in South Dakota for a while until he could get the ducks in a row to finish importing it into Canada. Derek had left a bunch of parts and tools in the car, including a receipt for $700-something of parts from an O’Reilly in Florida that Mortske implied was sponsored while Derek said in a youtube comment that they were bought on his company account. Mortske helped himself to almost all the parts and tools out of it, and then slapped a bunch of “I’m so gay I can’t even drive straight” and similar stickers all over the back, including right on the rear panel and bumper instead of just on the glass where it would be easy to scrape off with no permanent damage. Mortske always struck me as a bit of a dick anyway with all his little comments about other youtubers during his videos, but this whole thing was way over the top, in my opinion, and I won’t watch Mortske Repair anymore because of it.
I think the biggest thing these two have in common is that you don’t want to take them more than a few miles away from home.
I really can’t take my think more than 30 miles from home and get back unless I have access to a electrical outlet or charger. It still is probably the most fun car I have had in a while, handles like a go cart.
Majority vote for the weird, broken V8 powered thing, not the weird, functional electric powered thing. This is as it should be. I am glad to be your comrade, comrades!
“As a quick aside, I was once in possession of a 1975 Bricklin SV-1 brochure. I went looking for it several years ago, but it seems to have vanished somehwere along the way. I wish I still had it.”
Did you find $20 after that? Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.
Bricklin. Which I would proudly have painted safety orange.
I love the idea of a mashup of an exotic and a wannabe Volvo safety-focused conveyance.
As a Yugo owner, I’m probably obligated to also own a Bricklin at some point. But not this one. My advice to anyone considering one is, get the nicest one you can possibly find. The build quality will still be horrid, but at least you won’t have sunk untold sums of money into it to make it look that way.
I’ve actually driven a US-spec Think City, a black one like this offering, and to be honest it was a solid litte vehicle, and I liked it. However if you remember, the MSRP on these in 2011 was something like $39,000, which was a big ask for what the car is. My impression of the car was if it had been a lot cheaper, they could have sold a good number of them. I also remember the sight lines being good out of it, and the view out the back was the best I’ve ever had in a car, with that big glass hatch.
As such, I’ve always sort of pined for one, not only as an in-town errand runner, but as a historical artifact that most have forgotten about, if they ever knew about it in the first place. This one is easy, Think all day.
Bricklin for me. No rational reason I just want it
I grew up near someone who owned a Bricklin SV-1, leading me to have an affinity for them. The thing wasn’t fast, but it sounded good, looked out of this world, and each time I saw those doors open I got giddy inside (same logic with the Delorean). It isn’t a wise decision to go with the SV-1, but I still want one.
As much as it’s not my thing, I absolutely get why oddball doors are a holy grail “tuner” modification. They’re just so hard to resist.
Yeah, I’m with you. Practically speaking, vertical doors are simply nothing but problems. But somehow, they make oddball cars seem cool and fascinating (as long as they are factory, not aftermarket).
I’ve always wondered why sliding minivan-style doors aren’t a thing for oddball car doors…seems both fairly exotic looking but still do-able.
Right, like the new Toyota Crown SUV that has sliding doors. Maybe the minivan stigma overcomes the practicality of sliding doors? Or maybe it is the impracticality of vertical doors that makes them aspirational?
1954 Kaiser Darrin
https://www.usatoday.com/videos/money/cars/2016/10/29/89748992/
Thank you
I thought of the KD immediately as well
This is amazing – I had no idea. I was kinda thinking the BMW Z1 roadster as the closest thing, but this is even better.
There was one parked in the rental semi detached parking lot near my school. The guy who drove it looked exactly like Disco Stu. Man, the 70s were a weird time…..
I did always like how the Bricklin always looked like a sketchy homebuilt kit car, despite being a factory built vehicle priced at $10,000 ($55,000 inflation adjusted), or like $3200 more than a Corvette coupe at the time
My daily round-trip commute is about 16 miles; perfect for the Th!nk. As annoying as it’d be to buy it and then trailer it the 300 miles to Chicago, we’d take the City.
I was all set to vote for the Bricklin, which I loved when I was eight years old, but it feels like it needs too much.
If you buy it, though, LS-swap it and say nothing.
I visited the Th!nk HQ in Oslo and drove a City around 20 years ago. Nice experience. So that one for me.
I could actually use the city for my occasional 3 mile trips to the grocery store. Would easily fit in the garage around some of our junk. The brick would probably remain a brick until my wife got tired of waiting for me to get around to it and sold it while I wasn’t paying attention.
99 miles range on 23 kWh is kind of terrible, considering the car’s small size and low mass. It’s aero sucks, which is why this is the case.
I’d take the Bricklin. A white Bricklin did make an appearance in “Hobo with a Shotgun” after all, and I’d argue Rutger Hauer’s finest role(even if Blade runner is a film I like even more).
Hobo With A Shotgun is bananas! Rutgers Hauer chews the scenery like it was made from ham laced with cocaine.
I love his speech given to the infants in the nursery.
The flamethrower on the school bus!!
That actually seems like pretty damn good efficiency for its day, assuming that’s average/combined at 232 Wh/mi. It came out (according to Wikipedia) in 2008, so fairly ancient tech by todays standards, and even a new Model 3 LR sees about 227 Wh/mi average, while something like a 2017 Model X sees more like 350+ depending of course on conditions, trim and wheels, etc, but for its day, that’s actually not bad at all.
Put another way, the original Fiat 500e from 2016 had a larger battery at 24 kWh and only had an 84mi range according to the EPA, and was nearly a decade newer, and smaller
The EV1 was even better. While the Th!nk City was only capable of 68 mph, the EV1 got about 150-160 Wh/mile at a steady 70 mph. The Th!nk City is also a ton lighter than the Model 3. If the Th!nk City had the EV1’s aero, it would almost be a 100 Wh/mile car.
The 500e probably had even worse aero, and was half a ton heavier than the Th!nk.
The Th!nk’s low mass is exemplified by its numbers. The same can be said for its poor aero efficiency.
Ooh yeah I forgot to look at weight and the EV1’s numbers. That’s a very valid point given the Think is barely 2200 lbs and can’t do highway speeds. I’d still argue for its era and relatively small amount of funding compared to the EV1 with the weight of GM behind it, it’s not as bad as I would expect. But at $36k MSRP post recession for those kind of figures… yikes. As a used project I’d be curious to see what a more modern drivetrain and battery swap could do for it, but that’s probably not worth the effort
“Hitcher” was my first exposure to Hauer, I guess the first one is the most traumatizing.
The obvious choice for a petrol-oriented gearhead is obviously the Bricklin.
It looks like all it really needs is a deep detailing, fluid changes, and some new replacements for all the rubber containing items like seals, tubes and belts.
Bricklin!!! Why? Because I make terrible decisions, that’s why!
That is your constitutional right, and you should be proud to exercise it.