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Consumer Reports was influential in 1968, too, which is why the magazine's devastating review of the tiny Subaru 360 was so damaging. It took the tiny
car a full 37.5 seconds to go from zero to 50 miles an hour. Sixty miles an hour on flat ground wasn't really possible with the car's 25 horsepower two-cylinder
engine. That was probably a good thing. The front bumpers were "virtually useless against anything more formidable than a watermelon," the magazine said.
Handling was dangerously bad. During abrupt maneuvers, the back wheels tended to curl up under the car like a turtle's leg. Sales of the 360 collapsed.
The man whose idea it had-been to-import the cars, Malcolm Bricklin, left the company. He would try again, about 20 years later, with a Yugoslav car imported
as the Yugo. In a recent interview with CNNMoney, Bricklin blamed Consumer Reports for the 360's failure and insisted the car wasn't bad, considering
its price. It cost $1,300. Toyota's cheapest model, the Corolla, cost hundreds more. Bricklin's clever idea with the 360 was to import a car that wasn't,
under American rules, a car at all. As far as American regulators were concerned, if it weighed less than 1,000 pounds, it was not a car and, so, was
exempt from many regulations. The Subaru 360 weighed 965 pounds. My curiosity, and my courage, were piqued. I had never heard of a car this bad. I have
driven a Yugo, and it didn't really seem atrocious, considering its $3,995 starting price in the late 1980s, thousands less than a Toyota Tercel. The
car a full 37.5 seconds to go from zero to 50 miles an hour. Sixty miles an hour on flat ground wasn't really possible with the car's 25 horsepower two-cylinder
engine. That was probably a good thing. The front bumpers were "virtually useless against anything more formidable than a watermelon," the magazine said.
Handling was dangerously bad. During abrupt maneuvers, the back wheels tended to curl up under the car like a turtle's leg. Sales of the 360 collapsed.
The man whose idea it had-been to-import the cars, Malcolm Bricklin, left the company. He would try again, about 20 years later, with a Yugoslav car imported
as the Yugo. In a recent interview with CNNMoney, Bricklin blamed Consumer Reports for the 360's failure and insisted the car wasn't bad, considering
its price. It cost $1,300. Toyota's cheapest model, the Corolla, cost hundreds more. Bricklin's clever idea with the 360 was to import a car that wasn't,
under American rules, a car at all. As far as American regulators were concerned, if it weighed less than 1,000 pounds, it was not a car and, so, was
exempt from many regulations. The Subaru 360 weighed 965 pounds. My curiosity, and my courage, were piqued. I had never heard of a car this bad. I have
driven a Yugo, and it didn't really seem atrocious, considering its $3,995 starting price in the late 1980s, thousands less than a Toyota Tercel. The
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