Editorial: Malcolm Bricklin: "Holy Crap! How the Hell Did It Ever Come to This?"

Malcolm “Call Me Malcolm” Bricklin and I had our little chin wag this morning. As expected, the serial entrepreneur dominated the initial conversation. Less predictably, Bricklin began by bludgeoning me with Google-sourced biographical data. “I know about the Subaru [ flying vagina] thing,” Bricklin pronounced. “You’ve got balls. I assume you’re not just saying all this stuff to be controversial.” After admitting his own insanity, Bricklin started recounting the entire history of the Yugo. His no-word-allowed-in-edgewise tale included the Cadillac Allante’s inhibiting effect on X1/9 production and Henry Kissinger’s contribution to the car that launched a thousand jokes. At some point, I interrupted Bricklin to ask about his latest venture: hydrogen. Turns out I got it wrong. Bricklin isn’t proposing a societal switch to hydrogen fuel. He’s got one of those 100mpg carburetor things. Only his creates “hydrogen-on-demand.”

Bricklin’s latest, perhaps last baby: a 4″ X 6″ X 8″ box that bolts onto an internal combustion engine, turns water into hydrogen and squirts it in with the gas. Bricklin claims the technology will increase ANY engine’s mileage by 50 to 100 percent. He also says Visionary Vehicles has licked the three problems that have prevented hydrogen-on-demand from being hydrogen-in-demand: overheating, blowing out the engine’s O2 sensors and corrosion of the stainless steel housing unit.

So, specifics? Nope. No demos. No names of scientists or companies who’ve worked on the device. No link to the company that’s supposedly field-tested the system. Nada. “We’ll have a car to show the public in 90 days, Bricklin promised. And that’s it.

Note: car. Not device. (Although, ever the salesman, Bricklin tried to convince me to fit my Odyssey with his “bumblebee”.)

While you and I might think that developing and licensing a miracle mpg generator would be enough work in the current economic climate, Bricklin has bigger plans. He wants to buy the output of one otherwise shuttered GM and one wanna-be defunct Chrysler plant, equip their vehicles with his hydrogen-on-demand system, tweak ’em a bit, and sell them to GM and Chrysler dealers as a “Visionary GM” and “Visionary Chrysler” products. “Like a Shelby Cobra,” Bricklin suggests.

Details, schmetails. Bricklin couldn’t care less which automotive models get the gizmo and wear the company badge. “I’ll let the dealers decide,” he insists.

Meanwhile and in any case, he’s got his eyes on the prize: the $25 billion Department of Energy retooling loans. You know, the loans for building more fuel efficient vehicles that were, at one time, the be all end all of the feds’ Motown meltdown bailout billions. Bricklin reckons the DOE money will pave the way for his visionary Visionary Vehicles.

Mind you, that doesn’t make Bricklin a bailout booster. When I tell him about the Small Business Administration’s new dealer floorplanning guarantees, the automotive Maverick goes ballistic.

“Holy Crap! How the hell did we ever come to this?” Bricklin demands, rhetorically. “All this bailout money is crazy. I never thought this would happen. Never.”

Nor, apparently, did Bricklin foresee that China’s Chery would screw him on his deal to import inexpensive, Chinese made plug-in hybrid electric vehicles into the US market. “We had $200 million set aside for the project,” Bricklin says. “We were all set to import the cars by ’07. Then Chery went around us and cut a deal with Chrysler for $275 million. I guess that didn’t work out so well.”

On the other hand, “This complete stupidity is the only reason something like my hydrogen-on-demand system will ever be considered.”

Clearly, Bricklin likes to believe that everything happens for a reason. His current media campaign reflects this philosophy. He wants the world to consider his abortive, eponymous Canadian car factory and his recent Chinese misadventure as pre-ordained events, preparing him for this, his life’s crowning achievement. He really believes he can fix the “aura of a scam” surrounding hydrogen-on-demand devices (not to mention the devices themselves) and realize the country’s fuel-saving dreams.

“We already have a working prototype,” Bricklin asserts. “We’ve got it down to the size of a coffee cup.”

Bricklin also thinks the timing is right. “It’s easier to start a car company these days. With the majors on the ropes and the technology changing. Companies like Tesla and Fisker are going to be around for a long time.”

With Malcolm Bricklin’s history of ups and (a lot of) downs, the septuagenarian’s indefatigable spirit comes as no surprise. What I’d like to know is what lies beneath Bricklin’s irrepressible dreams of brand building. Is ego all, or is Malcolm Bricklin honestly trying to make the world a better place? If so, well, good luck with that.