A Mach 1 and a Bricklin, best of friends (pic)

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perfdavid

Well-known member
Joined
May 15, 2012
Messages
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Location
Louisiana
My Car
1971 Mach 1
400, race cam, pistons, rocker arms, ignition, heck, basically everything is race modified
I posted on the aesthetics thread my new paint job. My buddy has a Bricklin SV1 so we went down the street from our homes to the LSU lakes and took a few pics. Here are a few of them. Not many people get to see Bricklins. Thought I would share.

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Oh, and talk about turning heads? This street is the main drag for all of the 18-21 year old girls who jog around the lakes. Too bad they didn't care about them and it was all of the 19-21 year old guys who stopped to check them out.

 
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Cool pictures. I saw my first and only Bricklin back in the late 70's/early 80's in Virginia where I grew up. I thought the doors were the coolest thing ever.

BTW it was the same color as the one in the pictures.

 
The Mach1 looks great. I have to admit though, the Bricklin is pretty cool. I remember seeing one at a dealership in a small town when I was a kid. Nice to see one again. Nice pics, thanks for posting them.

 
Funny thing is, my friend who owns it is from Virginia as well, and when he saw one there as a kid, he knew he had to have one. Also, the only place you can get parts is from Virginia. A former engineer for Bricklin owns and runs the shop. The color is actually not paint but impregnated into the fiberglass. As far as engineering is concerned, they are horrible, but only about 2000 cars still exist.

Cool pictures. I saw my first and only Bricklin back in the late 70's/early 80's in Virginia where I grew up. I thought the doors were the coolest thing ever.

BTW it was the same color as the one in the pictures.
 
Very nice! The Mach 1 looks great...although I am partial to that color! LOL!

 
Funny thing is, my friend who owns it is from Virginia as well, and when he saw one there as a kid, he knew he had to have one. Also, the only place you can get parts is from Virginia. A former engineer for Bricklin owns and runs the shop. The color is actually not paint but impregnated into the fiberglass. As far as engineering is concerned, they are horrible, but only about 2000 cars still exist.
I was surprised to see how nice the body panels are. They used bonded fiberglass and acrylic. I guess a lot of them 'lift up'. Maybe the heat/sun is their downfall? THat one looks like it is pampered.

The local police dept had a couple of those (Scottsdale) back when they were new. They would always draw a crowd.

So the unanswered question? Is it Ford or AMC powered?

 
It has the 351W in it.

He bought it as a desert car in Vegas and had it shipped.

It was painted red. To get it back to the original acrylic

He just sandblasted the paint off in his back yard.

He rebuilt the engine and designed his own air compressor system

To lift the doors. It has been a 2 year project and he still has a few minor

Things to do to it.

He especially loves it when people ask where is the flux capacitor. He loves it like

A hemorrhoid

 
A guy down the street from me has two mint condition Bricklin's. They were originally built in New Brunswick, Canada which is not far from my place. I love the Mach1, looks nice.

 
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I bought a 1975 Bricklin a couple years ago so that the now ex-girlfriend would have something to drive (she could not drive a gear shifter). Dont have any pics of both my cars together. The Bricklin reminded me of Commander Straker's car from the old UK TV show UFO. Besides she always hated it when people would questions about the Mustang- the Bricklin gets 100x more of those. Te he!

A few facts about Bricklins:

They made them at the factory in canada in 1974 & 1975 just shy of 800 in 74 about 2000 in 75 and a few 76 models were made from spare parts in Ohio after the company went belly up.

The 1974 ones all had AMC 360 engines and transmissions most were automatic a minority manual.

The 1975 (&76) ones all had a Ford 351W and FMX transmission (I swapped mine for an AOD to get better gas mileage and have the car run cooler- running hot is a big problem on the cars).

The suspension brakes and many interior parts were AMC on all the cars. The lights and light switch off a corvete. I have a parts list in the car to know what to ask for at Autozone when one needs a spare. In general the parts needed to keep the car running are as easy to get as for my 72 Mustang (autozone has them in their regional warehouse) unique parts made for the car window glass, body panels etc are not easy to find some are being reproduced.

The only options on the car were choice of transmission and colour in 1974 and colour in 1975. The interior and everything else was the same.

There were five colours: Safety white, safety red, safety green, safety orange and safety suntan. The colour was part of the plastic body panels which tend to crack. Mine had lots of minor scuffs and scratches in it when I bought it the body shop hit it with 1000 grit sandpaer and lots of buffing and made most of them go away. You can do this with no paint, as the colour goes down about 1/8". Reproduction body parts are all fibergalss and need to be repainted. Many people will keep original acrylic ones with cracks instead of going to the painted variety. The bottom 1/4 of all the cars are black. Some people have painted them other colours.

Originally they had hydraulic doors that used the same motor to open them as a 72 Mustang does for the convertible top. It took about as long as it des for the top to go down for the door to open or close and only one side could be in operation at a time. Plus this really drained the battery. Most Bricklins still being used today have been converted to air doors which take about 2 seconds to open, a small compressor fills up a big air tank under the rear bumper. DeLoreans and Mercedees gull wing cars both the old one and the new one have doors you open manually.

A lot of Bricklins have very low mileage- mine had 10k on it when I bought it and has about 19k on it now. A lot of them were driven until the doors developed a problem that no one know how to fix and they were put in a barn somewhere.

The cars were built as safety vehicles a safe sports car- it has a full roll cage the gas tank is protected by a frame on 5 sides there is no cigarette lighter or ash tray since smoking while driving is not safe. No one has every died in a Bricklin.

There is no spare tire or space for one since the car was supposed to come with run flat tires.

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