Co-founder, Subaru of America · b. 1939
Malcolm Bricklin
The 19-year-old franchise entrepreneur who spotted the Subaru 360 in Japan and secured US import rights, founding Subaru of America in 1968 — then went on to found dozens more companies across a 60-plus-year career, most famously the gull-winged Bricklin SV-1 and the Yugo.
“The 19-year-old franchise mogul who talked his way into becoming Subaru's first American importer, then spent the next fifty years founding companies most people have already forgotten.”
Handyman before cars
Born 9 March 1939 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a Jewish family that ran a furrier shop; grew up in Orlando, Florida, graduated Boone High School in 1956, and attended the University of Florida. At 19 he turned his father's building-supply business into a franchised chain, Handyman America, operating seven days a week — but departed in 1960 amid dozens of lawsuits, shortly before the chain's bankruptcy. He later financed his move into automotive importing partly through a deal selling Lambretta scooters to the New York Police Department.
Spotting the 360
Bricklin visited Fuji Heavy Industries in Japan and spotted the Subaru 360 — a minicar getting 60 mpg and, at under 1,000 lb, exempt from US federalization requirements — and secured exclusive US importation rights, founding Subaru of America in 1968 with Harvey Lamm. The first US Subarus arrived 1968–1969 (360) and 1970 (FF-1 Star); SOA went public within six months, the only publicly traded import-car company at the time. By 1971 Bricklin had sold most of his SOA stake to pursue his own car; a brief 1971 side venture, FasTrack (combining RV sales with parking-lot race courses using modified Subaru 360s), failed.
After Subaru: the SV-1, the Yugo, and over 30 companies
Bricklin founded General Vehicles to build the Bricklin SV-1 ("SV" for "Safety Vehicle"), a gull-wing two-seater built in New Brunswick, Canada — roughly 2,854 were built (1974–1976) before the province withdrew financial support in 1975, forcing receivership despite 400 US dealers and a reported 40,000 back orders. Later ventures included International Automobile Importers (1982, Fiat's X1/9 and 124 Spider); the Yugo import (from 1985) — the fastest-selling European import ever at the time (~163,000 units in three years); an electric bicycle venture, the EV Warrior (1993); and Visionary Vehicles (2002–2006), an attempt to import China's Chery Automobile to North America that collapsed amid Chery's undisclosed dealings with Chrysler.
A 60-plus-year career
As of a 2017-dated passage in the source, Bricklin — divorced three times, with six sons — lived in Monroe, New York with his wife, artist Sania Teymeny, and was reported to have founded "over 30 companies" across his career; contemporary press color variously described him as "an automotive version of P.T. Barnum" (The New York Times, 2005) and possessing "a mind that works like a machine gun" (Autoweek, 2017). Market scope: this entire biography is a US/North America/global-import story, distinct from Subaru's own JDM-market history.