WEBVTT - The Worst Cars of All Time 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:15.080 Be there and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:17.200 I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio, and I 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:22.239 love all things tech and this is gonna be a 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:25.239 fun episode. Now, I am not much of a car guy, 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:29.240 so I really don't do that many episodes about cars, 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:32.440 even though cars aren't clearly tech. You know, I've done 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:35.360 a few about car companies, and I've done a few 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:38.479 about specific technologies that are car related, and a couple 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:41.440 that are focused on specific cars, including one that we'll 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:44.800 mention in this list. Uh, and I've done some on 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.199 autonomous cars as well. But I thought it might be 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:49.120 fun to do a round up of some cars that 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.680 have a reputation, you know, a bad reputation. So this 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:55.760 episode is dedicated to cars that frequently pop up on 0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:00.200 the worst Cars of All Time lists. Some of these 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.360 cars are thought of as the worst because of their reliability, 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:07.600 or rather there the lack of reliability, some because the 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:11.520 company that made them famously backed the wrong horseless carriage 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:13.920 and subsequently went out of business. And I should add 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:19.440 this is just a a sampling, if you will. An 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:24.160 amuse bush of the worst cars of all time, and 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:29.320 they're not necessarily the worst worst because there are tons 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.600 of different lists, right. I didn't select these cars myself. 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:37.600 What I did was I went through lists like goliath 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:40.480 dot COM's the twenty five Worst Cars of All Time, 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:44.959 otto wise is ten Worst Cars Ever, made, The Drive's 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:48.160 article the ten Worst Cars of All Time, time dot 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:52.240 COM's article the fifty Worst Cars of all Time, and 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.639 an Edmond's list called fifty Worst Cars of All Times. 0:01:55.640 --> 0:02:00.160 So I used all these lists to curate a small 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:04.000 selection of vehicles that just weren't good for one reason 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:07.000 or another. And I am not ranking these either. These 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.400 are not in no particular order, because the whole concept 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:14.840 of worst is at least partly subjective. In fact, there 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.240 are some cars that are on this list that other 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.760 people who wrote the other lists say that that car 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:23.440 gets a bad rap, it's really not that bad. So 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:29.200 there's no there's no metric I can hold up that says, okay, definitively, 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.640 this car is the worst one. And also, you know 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.079 where they put cars on on their rankings changes a lot. 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:39.120 Some lists have the Ford Pinto taking the top or 0:02:39.639 --> 0:02:41.480 or bottom honors. If you want to look at it, 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:43.960 that way and others will put it somewhere in the middle. 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:47.400 So we'll actually start with the Ford Pinto because it 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:51.120 does pop up on a lot of lists. Just know 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.600 that these bad cars appear in no particular order, but 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.760 we will begin with the Ford Pinto. This car is 0:02:57.760 --> 0:02:59.880 one I remember hearing jokes about when I was a kid, 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:04.440 because Ford made these cars between nineteen seventy and nineteen 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:07.680 eighty and I was also made between nineteen seventy and 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:12.160 nineteen eighty. Uh. The Pinto was meant to fill a 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.280 niche in the North American market. It was the first 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:20.680 subcompact car that Ford produced in North America. So for 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:25.200 those not familiar with American car classifications, it behooves us 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:27.720 to go through what those are really quickly so we 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.000 just understand what we're talking about. So on the smallest 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:35.200 end in America, you've got what are called many compact 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:39.560 cars M I, n I compact cars that includes stuff 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:44.080 like the Chevrolet Spark or the Fiat five. Those are 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:48.160 roughly equivalent to what would be called a segment mini 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:52.320 cars in Europe. Now, if you go slightly larger than that, 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:56.960 you have subcompact cars that includes the Pinto or the 0:03:57.000 --> 0:04:01.120 Ford Fiesta. Then you go up another level and you 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:03.800 are now at compact cars. This would include cars like 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:07.520 the Honda Civic or the Toyota Corolla. Then when you 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.440 go a little bigger, you get to mid sized cars 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:14.240 that include stuff like the Toyota Camry and the Volkswagen Passat. 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:19.440 And finally you have large cars like the Chevrolet Impala 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:24.440 or the Cadillac c T five. So it's really in 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.760 size that we're talking about. And there are other terms 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:29.880 that can be pop. You know, it can be used 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:33.000 in addition to these or in replacement of these, like 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:36.400 you might hear mid sized luxury like a midsized luxury 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.520 sedan or a full sized luxury car, but you get 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:43.719 the idea, like, these are the classifications that came out 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:45.440 of the United States e p A, which is the 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:49.960 Environmental Protection Agency, and it defines these specific classes of cars. 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:54.520 So you know, a car fits these based upon specs 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:57.719 that the e p A drew up. And typically the 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:00.520 e p A uses the interior vaul lume of a 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:05.440 car to determine its classification. So you could theoretically have 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:10.040 a really big car has very small interior volume, and 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.960 arguably you could say it's not a large car, even 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:17.160 though the exterior would be quite large. But that's how 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:22.360 e PA defines size for vehicles. Anyway, the car companies. 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:24.800 Oh and by the way, that applies to cars, I'm 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:28.080 not talking in that sense about things like SUVs and trucks. 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.080 That's that's slightly different. But I had to you know, 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:33.800 draw the lines. I can actually talk about the bad cars. 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.760 So anyway, car companies would market subcompact cars as being 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:41.159 more economical in their fuel consumption. Because you gotta remember 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:44.520 this is after the seventies where we had some oil 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:49.400 crises that drove up cost of gasoline. There were gas 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:53.760 shortages around the United States and the seventies, So the 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.599 cars of the past, which were real gas guzzlers, you know, 0:05:57.720 --> 0:05:59.800 we're talking about some cars that would get less than 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.960 ten miles to the gallon. That was looked at as 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:07.640 being a seriously bad and wasteful thing by the time 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.240 you get to the late seventies in the early eighties, 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:15.039 so there was this move towards economy having cars that 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:19.480 are less uh, you know, of a gas guzzler. So 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:22.880 it wasn't always the case that subcompact cars actually were 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:26.440 that economical, but that's how they were marketed. The American 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:31.159 companies were rushing into the design of subcombat cars because 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:35.080 foreign car companies were gaining ground in North America and 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:39.880 the American companies suddenly found themselves facing serious competition from overseas. 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:44.480 So for decades, the American car companies were sitting pretty 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:47.200 in the United States. You know, we had foreign cars 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.479 being imported into the country, but they weren't on a 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:54.080 very large scale. It was only when you started seeing 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:59.320 more German and Japanese cars coming in that the American 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:02.400 car companies started to get a little nervous. So Ford 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:06.080 cut the development time for the Pinto nearly in half 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:09.680 compared to their normal process. And this was in an 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:12.520 effort to stave off the growing threat of foreign cars 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:16.600 and to establish an American subcompact vehicle. So when the 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:21.280 Pinto debuted, you saw this two door car and it 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.680 had an enclosed trunk. But a hatchback version of the 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:29.520 Pinto followed shortly thereafter. And you know, originally there wasn't 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:33.400 that much criticism about the Pinto. Some people complained about 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.320 the brakes a little bit, some people complained about the suspension, 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:41.800 But what would really seal the deal for the Pinto 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:45.600 would be its fuel tank. So Ford had designed the 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.560 Pinto to have a rear mounted fuel tank, and it 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.800 sat nestled between the car's rear axle, which is where 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:57.520 the rear tires attach, and the rear bumper, so sandwich 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:01.400 between these two components in the car and um At 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.000 the time, the US government had really focused on front 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:07.800 end collisions when it came to forming safety regulations because 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:11.200 the seven late seventies was also when the United States 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.480 was starting to say, you know, we probably need to 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:18.720 have some regulations in place to protect drivers on the 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.640 road that car companies have to meet these specifications if 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.080 their cars are going to be sold in our country. 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:28.600 So that had mostly focused on the front end collision 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:32.720 side of things at this point in history, and therefore 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:35.680 they didn't really take a look at the back end 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:38.320 and what might happen with a rear collision. And the 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.840 fuel tank location meant that if someone driving a Pinto 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:44.800 were to get rear ended by another car, there was 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:47.720 a very real possibility that the fuel tank would be 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:53.640 damaged potentially ruptured that in turn presented a serious fire hazard. 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:58.000 The Pinto didn't have any significant crumple zone in the 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.560 back of it. So if you collide at a good 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:03.680 clock of speed and you know, we're talking about more 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:06.360 than ten miles per hour, certainly, if it was more 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:09.160 than thirty miles per hour, you're looking at a real 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.920 potential to have a ruptured fuel tank. And there were 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.240 cases of collisions in which people were you know, badly 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:23.280 injured or even died from burns, and it's undeniably horrible. Now, 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:25.800 I should also add that the reputation of the Pinto 0:09:25.920 --> 0:09:29.480 was also due to a few sensational articles that may 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:33.760 have inflated numbers to make it seem like the Pinto 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:36.880 was even worse than what it really was. Not that 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:39.520 it wasn't bad. I don't think you could really argue 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:42.280 that it was, you know, good, but rather that the 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:48.160 reputation the Pinto received was worse than what it was merited. Uh. 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.439 And there's also this story about a famous cost benefit 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:55.319 analysis memo, and depending upon whom you ask, that cost 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:59.920 benefit analysis memo either showed that Ford had callous leaking 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.960 included that if they fixed the problem, it would be 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.000 more expensive than just paying off the lawsuits that would 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:08.240 come up, so instead they just said, we'll just deal 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:13.600 with lawsuits. That's one telling of that memo. Uh Or 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:17.040 it was more like it was saying the likelihood of 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:20.400 a tragic accident was no greater than for the average 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:24.320 vehicle of especially of that size. Still, this was bad 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:26.880 enough for the Pinto to show up on a lot 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:30.439 of these worst Car lists, and Ford was pressured to 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:34.120 recall one and a half million Pinto's and Mercury Bobcats, 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:39.320 which were essentially the same car. In Okay, let's switch gears, 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.800 so to speak, and talk about a different car. This 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.800 one's called the Trabant, or sometimes the Trabby. This one 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:49.840 came out of what was at the time East Germany, 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:52.800 and quick history lesson for all you young uns out there. 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.720 Once upon a time, after World War Two, Germany was 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.640 split into two nations, who had East Germany and West 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:02.959 german Many. East Germany was a communist country, essentially an 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:06.480 extension of the then Soviet Union. So East Germany began 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:10.000 producing the Trabant back in the late nineteen fifties, and 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.440 while there would be a few models produced over the 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:17.480 decades of production, the actual design of the car remained 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:19.960 almost identical. So in other words, like if you were 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:22.440 to look at a Trabant that was made in the 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.240 late fifties and one that was made in the early eighties. 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:27.400 You probably wouldn't be able to tell that there were 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:30.840 very many differences. They were essentially the same. In some ways. 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:34.120 That makes things easy because replacement parts are going to 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:37.920 be plentiful. I mean, presumably that will be compatible across 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:41.640 multiple models. But it also shows, let's say, a lack 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:47.240 of evolution and innovation. It was a tiny two door car, 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.000 and the Trabant's body was made from a material called 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:55.160 dero plast, and this is a fiber reinforced plastic, so 0:11:55.400 --> 0:12:00.280 kind of like fiberglass. Typically the fibers in dero last 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:04.400 work cotton or sometimes wool, so these were cars that had, 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:08.560 you know, sometimes cotton reinforced plastic bodies. One issue with 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.320 this was that the process of shaping and curing the plastic, 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:16.640 called thermo setting, is an irreversible process. So you start 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:20.840 off with a polymer that's in a liquid format, and 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:24.680 you can pour this liquid into say a mold. Then 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.760 you can subject that mold to you know, heat and 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:32.480 high pressure, and the liquid polymer cures and it hardens 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:37.000 into shape. But you cannot do the same process in reverse. 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:39.800 Once it's hardened into shape, it's locked there, so you 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:41.880 can't just you know, heat it up and melt it 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:45.720 back down into a reusable format. So that makes makes 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:47.800 the tribun a bit of a pain to deal with. 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.160 When they reached the end of their useful life cycle, 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:53.000 which for some of these vehicles appeared to be shortly 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.360 after they rolled off the assembly line, eventually people figured 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.800 out how to shred the car bodies and use that 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:03.240 material as aggregate for concrete production. And there's some stories 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:07.959 that say that pigs found deer o plastic delicious. Uh, 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:11.480 those maybe urban legends, and I would probably treat it 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:16.000 as you know, being such and not taking that as gospel, 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.600 But there are so many articles out there that just 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:21.320 casually present that as fact. It's just when you do 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:25.599 some digging you find out there are any like reliable 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:29.040 reports on it. Anyway, the car ran on a mixture 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.040 of oil and gas, so you sort of refuel the trabant, 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:33.719 you would actually have to open up the hood of 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:36.480 the car. There was no like, you know, gas tank 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:38.920 that you could access outside the car. You had to 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:42.800 open the hood so expose the engine and then it 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.360 had a little fuel tank at the top of the 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:48.120 the engine blocks. You would open that up and you 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:51.600 would pour in a mixture of oil and gas into 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:54.400 the two stroke engine and then close it back up 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:57.240 and shut the hood. There was also no fuel gauge, 0:13:57.520 --> 0:13:59.960 so there was no way to tell from behind the 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.920 wheel how much fuel you actually had, so if you 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:04.600 wanted to check and see how much fuel you had, 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:06.920 you had to stop the car. You had to pop 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.600 the hood, open up the fuel tank, and use a 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:14.480 dipstick to check the fuel level. So not super convenient. 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:19.240 The Trabant was famous for being notoriously unreliable and smelly. 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:23.480 It would produce a lot of exhaust, like visible exhaust, 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.800 like you were rolling coal every time you drove a Trabant. 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:30.440 And it was also very loud. It was the engine 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:33.480 was loud, and it was allowed experience to ride in one. 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.040 It was also really slow. I saw one video in 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:38.960 which an owner of one of these said he had 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.720 only coaxed a Trabant up to a maximum off on 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.400 flat road. Uh, he got a little faster if he 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:49.120 was going down a hill, but on flat road fifty 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.240 five was where it maxed out. And also that the car, 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:56.440 you know, handles pretty poorly. It had no interior signal indicator, 0:14:57.120 --> 0:14:59.560 and so the turn signal was a bit of a 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:01.360 thing because if you turned the turn signal on and 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:03.800 then you made a turn, it would not automatically reset. 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:07.480 You had to manually turn off the turn signal. But 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:09.680 there was no indicator inside the car that the turn 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:12.800 signal was on, so you know, if you didn't remember 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:14.960 to do it yourself, you'd be irritating everyone behind you 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:18.200 as they just start yelling go ahead and turn already. 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:20.360 So in other words, it was just a lousy car. 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:22.960 But it was also the only game in town if 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:25.680 you were in East Germany pretty much because you know, 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:28.520 it was a state owned operation. So to get a 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.960 Trabant East German citizens actually had to submit an application 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:34.640 and the wait time could be up to a decade 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:38.600 or longer. So it was a really crappy car and 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:40.200 you had to wait ten years before you had a 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:43.440 chance to own one. When the Berlin Wall came down, 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:47.240 there were stories of people from former East Germany who 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.280 came straight over to West Germany and then they abandoned 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:53.280 their old Trabant cars while getting you know, any other 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.360 car that they could uh. The Trabants are pretty rare 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.280 these days, especially in the United States, but some collectors 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:03.680 do seek him out because I don't know why, because 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.040 they're weird. We have a lot more bad cars to 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:17.640 talk about, but first let's take a quick break. It's 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.160 time for us to talk about an American business man 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:24.400 named Malcolm Brooklyn, responsible for several cars that pop up 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:27.960 on worst Car lists. And he's had a really long 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.040 career and mostly focused in the automotive industry after he 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:34.280 made some serious bank in the hardware business. And it's 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:37.800 a career. March was some pretty big peaks and big valleys. 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:40.480 So it's not like it's just failure. I mean he's 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:44.840 he's he's been behind some big success stories too. So 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:47.520 let's talk about one of the flops. This one is 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:51.840 the s V one. Now, before the SV one, Brooklyn 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:56.480 had co founded uh Subaru of America. You know, there 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.400 was the existing Subaru company, but he created or co 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:03.640 founded the American division of Subaru. And he did this 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:09.040 in nineteen sixty eight, and they imported the Subaru three sixty. Now, 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:11.879 this little vehicle looked a lot like a Volkswagen Beetle, 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:14.480 and in fact, the suber Ut three sixty also shows 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:16.480 up in a lot of worst car lists. That's not 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:19.800 what we're talking about here, though. Anyway, the three sixty 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:24.240 got some scathing reviews for its performance in various safety tests. 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:28.520 It was named one of the most unsafe vehicles that 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:31.720 were available. And this was right around that time when 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.360 the US government was mulling over regulations that would force 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:38.000 the automotive industry to adopt new safety measures in car design. 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.840 So Malcolm Brooklyn saw the writing on the wall and 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:45.000 decided to go all in on safety. So in nineteen 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.879 seventy one, Brooklyn created a car company called General Vehicles, 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:52.600 which you know, sounds a little bit like General Motors, weird. 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:55.960 His idea was to create a two seater car kind 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:59.040 of similar to a sports car like the Corvette, and 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:01.520 this one would have goal wing doors. You know, so 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:04.200 those are the doors that you know, they they open 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:07.600 upward similar to another car that's gonna show up in 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:10.480 this episode. That's a spoiler. I mean, I'm sure everyone 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:13.920 here knows what car I'm talking about. And uh, this 0:18:14.280 --> 0:18:17.840 sp one would also have a steel frame chassis complete 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:22.080 with a rollover protective structure so it would protect passengers 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:26.399 should the car be flipped over onto its you know, back, 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.879 and it had or top I guess. It had front 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:33.280 and rear bumpers that were pretty chunky. They extended out 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:35.440 a good ways from the car, but they would also 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.600 protect the car to a point where the you know. 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:42.480 Brickland said, his company said, really that any collision up 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:44.919 to ten miles per hour would have no damage to 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:49.040 the bumpers. The car would resist that damage because of 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:52.800 this design. D SP one would have an enclosed fuel 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.960 tank and reinforced side panels for the doors. It would 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:00.480 have no ashtray and no cigarette lighter. Brick And himself 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:03.000 was a former smoker, and he thought that smoking in 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:07.000 cars was dangerous. I happened to agree with him, and 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:09.760 so he said, yeah, we're just not gonna have it now. Granted, 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:13.840 people would could eventually buy an SV one and potentially 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.800 have an aftermarket thing put in, but that's beside the point. 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.200 The body was made from an acrylic resin bonded to 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:24.879 fiberglass that ended up being a really huge hassle. Early 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:27.600 versions of the car had problems with the acrylic blistering 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.199 and required a total overhaul of the process. It was 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.439 supposed to be a super safe sports car, and the 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.399 s V in fact stood for Safety Vehicle see I 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:41.919 told you went all in. Brickland was anticipating many of 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.639 the changes that the US government would ultimately impose on 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:47.600 the automotive industry. He was ahead of the game, so 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.760 the SV one was truly a car that was ahead 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:53.840 of its time. Now, while General Vehicles had its headquarters 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:57.200 in America, the cars themselves would be manufactured in St. 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:02.240 John in New Brunswick, Canada. So Brooklyn was looking around 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:05.800 to find a place to you know, manufacture these vehicles, 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.520 and he was looking for places that would have the 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.520 government assistance and incentives in order to get things going. 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.240 The idea being that the company would provide you know, 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:18.959 more than a hundred well paying jobs in a region 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:23.240 in Canada that was struggling with unemployment problems. It appears 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:27.080 as though the Canadian government was under the impression that 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:29.560 the money was going to go straight to production, like 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:31.560 in other words, everything else was ready to go, we 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.680 just need to start making these cars. But in fact, 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:38.119 the SV one's design was not yet complete, so a 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:41.119 lot of the initial money actually went into engineering and 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:46.679 development to work out kinks in the design. So like 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.040 they knew what they wanted the card to be like 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:50.960 but they had to find a way to make it 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:53.560 be that way. Right, You have to test all those 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:56.480 ideas and reality and make sure they actually work. Now, 0:20:56.480 --> 0:20:58.399 that would mean that Brooklyn would actually have to seek 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:02.199 additional funding as the project went on because he was 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:05.399 still working out the bugs in the in the design 0:21:05.560 --> 0:21:08.280 and couldn't go right into production. The car would end 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:11.240 up being a pretty hefty one. The doors alone weighed 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.680 around ninety pounds each. Now they had a hydraulic system 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.479 attached to them, at least the initial ones did. Uh. 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:20.040 That did mean, however, that if the hydraulic system failed, 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:23.439 you would have to lift those cars manually. Uh. And 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:26.520 the doors were slow as well, even when they were working, 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:28.760 so if the weather was bad and meant you would 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:32.480 be left standing out or then sitting in the rain 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.400 or snow or whatever for several seconds because the car 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:39.359 door takes a while to open and close. It also 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:42.520 meant that the V eight engine that powered the vehicle 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:44.639 really had to push hard to meet the demand of 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:48.560 moving such a heavy car, and Brocklyn had problems and 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:51.480 that he was buying his engines from the American Motor 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:55.359 Company and there was a dispute between General Vehicles and 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:59.840 American Motor Company, and eventually it saw his initial order 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:04.480 drastically reduced. Now what caused that division is a matter 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:08.359 of debate. If you were to ask Brooklyn, he was 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.240 said that he was told AMC didn't want to hurt 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:15.240 their own car sales by supplying engines to a competitor, 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:18.000 essentially saying, your car is so good that if we 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:20.680 give you engines, people will buy your car. They won't 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:23.240 buy our car. However, if you ask other people, you 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:26.119 might hear that Brooklyn was talking some smack about a 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:29.760 m C and that that soured the deal. At any rate, 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:32.800 he would get around MC engines, and it was the 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:35.240 three eight to be precise, He would have to get 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:40.159 other engines for future SV one cars. The problems that 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:44.560 Brooklyn encounter meant that the cost of production kept going 0:22:44.640 --> 0:22:47.760 up UH and that internment that the company was going 0:22:47.840 --> 0:22:49.960 to have to hike up the suggested price for the 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:52.359 SV one in order to compensate for the fact that 0:22:52.400 --> 0:22:56.280 it was costing so much to produce. Initially, the price 0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:59.320 was supposed to be four thousand dollars for an s 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:03.600 V one UH. The nineteen version that eventually came out 0:23:04.040 --> 0:23:08.240 more than doubled that to nine thousand, nine eighty five dollars, 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:11.520 and okay, that sounds like nothing for a car these days, 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:13.440 But then we have to remember we're talking about the 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:16.240 mid nineteen seventies here, so if we adju for inflation, 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:21.639 that nine thousand dollars is closer to fifty one thousand 0:23:21.680 --> 0:23:25.600 dollars today. It was way more expensive than comparable cars 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:28.080