A sports car from the 1970s and its iconic founder celebrate over 50 years of design and durability at Vail Concours

It’s a big weekend in the Vail Valley for car enthusiasts. After traveling 1,000 miles along the scenic byways of Colorado all week, the 36th annual Colorado Grand came through Lionshead on Friday for the Concours de Non Elegance, where people could view classic racing cars, meet the drivers and ask questions about the journey.

In addition, The Vail Automotive Classic puts on a three-day event called the Vail Concours and Friday’s event took drivers on a beautiful route from Vail to Steamboat and back. On Saturday, Cars & Coffee, a monthly event, brought local car lovers together, but this one was on a grander scale. On Sunday, all the cars will be on display for the public to see at the base of the Eagle Bahn Gondola in Lionshead from 9 a.m to 2:30 p.m.

Spectators saw cars from the 1920s or 1930s and automobile companies such as Bugatti, Alfa Romeo, Bentley and more at the Colorado Grand. The Vail Concours features pre-World War II vehicles, American sport, European classics, muscle cars, street rods, super cars and more from various car manufacturers.

There is also a third car event that was held this weekend, but on a much smaller scale and with only one car company represented: Bricklin.

The Bricklin brand has had a storied past and a passionate following. The sports car was founded by automotive entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin. Bricklin founded Subaru of America and brought the popular car to the states in the late 1960s. He also brought in the Yugo, which was the fastest selling European import ever. But this week’s event centered all around the Bricklin SV-1. The Vail Valley served as the host for the Western Regional Meet and brought in 24 people and six Bricklin SV-1 cars.  

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The Bricklin SV-1 was manufactured in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. The sports car had a short life, with less that 3,000 cars produced between mid-1974 to late 1975, a span of time that covered the 1974, 1975 and 1976 model years. The Bricklin SV-1 had a futuristic design with signature electronic gull-wing doors.

“Our electric windows went up and down, and nobody had windows that went up and down in a gull-wing because of the physics,” Bricklin explained. “The design is what it is all about for me. I can’t get bored looking at the design, and I get bored easily. That’s the qualification for a car I will put my name on.” Bricklin said. “I don’t want to be bored.”

The car itself used a composite body of fiberglass with a colored acrylic resin and came in five colors: Safety Red, Safety Green, Safety Orange, Safety White and Safety Suntan.

“What’s crazy about those cars is they didn’t dent,” Bricklin said. “If you could hit it hard enough with the sledgehammer, you’d make a hole, but you’d put the hole right back in and buff it out, if you scratched it, you just worked that out and it looks the same forever. It’s over 50 years later and these cars look like new,” Bricklin said.

Throughout the car’s run, Bricklin utilized every marketing opportunity he could to get the word out about it. But, he also gained the interest of some of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities who just wanted to be associated with the brand for fun and not for dollars.

“When I met Paul Newman, we start talking and I showed him a picture of the Bricklin SV-1 and he said, ‘I’ll make you a deal,’ and I said, ‘What’s that?’ and he said, ‘You let me come whenever I want to spend time with the people who are doing all the engineering and the prototype building. I just want to sit and talk to them. And I’ll do anything you want in advertising for free.’ And in that time, he was turning down a million dollars an ad because he didn’t want to do commercial ads. So, I said, ‘You’ve got a deal.’

Even today the SV-1 has been featured in ads with such celebrities as Selena Gomez, SZA, Kim Kardashian and more.

For the Western Regional Meet, 24 Bricklin owners and enthusiasts, along with six SV-1s, came out for a few days to share stories and spend time with the car’s founder, who, at 86 years old, isn’t stopping his creative ideas as far as vehicles go. Bricklin has another concept he can’t wait to bring to market with his company, Visionary Vehicles. The Bricklin 3EV is a sleek, three-wheeled electric vehicle that has a design that Bricklin loves and that other people love, too.

“I drive it to the coffee shop early every day where I live in Florida, and people ask me what kind of car is this, and I tell them about it, and show them the features like the scissor doors and the car-shaped key fob and how the lighting changes on the Bricklin logo on the back of the car, and they just love it,” Bricklin said. “Then, I ask them how much they think it costs and they think it’s going to be the price of a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. Then, I tell them it’s going to be $39,000 and they can’t believe it. It puts a sports car within their reach. It’ll be fun to bring this car to market.”