The Bricklin SV-1 was a gull-wing door sports car manufactured from 1974 until early 1976. The car was the creation of Malcolm Bricklin, an American millionaire who had previously founded Subaru of America. The car was designed by Herb Grasse.
The model name (SV-1), stood for "safety vehicle one". The original idea for the Bricklin SV-1 was a safe and economical sports car, but due to the added weight of the safety features, the car was inefficient and simply a safe sports car. The Bricklin was designed for safety with an integrated roll cage, 5 mph bumpers, and side beams. The body was fiberglass with bonded acrylic in five "safety" colors: white, red, green, orange and suntan. Bricklin is the only production vehicle in automotive history to have powered gull-wing doors, that opened and closed at the touch of a button, as standard equipment. (The later DeLorean DMC-12's gull-wing doors must be operated manually.)
This car was acquired by the American Police Hall of Fame and Museum in the late 1970s as an example of what police cars of the future might look like. Unfortunately, in 2007, the Bricklin SV-1 was declared to be one of the worst cars of all time by TIME and Dan Neil, (Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive critic and syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times.)