Visionary Vehicles

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Malcolm Bricklin is head of Visionary Vehicles that was to be the North American distributor of Chery Automobiles. Bricklin's foray with Chery ended in mid-2006 after he could not get the necessary funding to invest with Chery for US-specification vehicles. Bricklin's strategy was to bring in cars and crossover SUVs that were competitive with German brands (Audi especially), but priced similarly to Honda vehicles. The lineup was to start with a mid-size car, a sporty coupe and small crossover. Later, with Bricklin funding, a bespoke line of front-wheel-drive vehicles was to have been developed. Following the front wheel drive vehicles, a rear wheel drive platform was contemplated which would have pushed Visionary into the Audi/BMW/Mercedes class of vehicles.

Bricklin's distribution strategy was to have dealers invest in Visionary Vehicles and in Chery, different from traditional dealer-distributor-manufacturer relationships. The dealer investments of $2-million were to be put in an escrow account until being used to fund investments in products from Chery. Apparently, the dealer-investors in Visionary Vehicles are now suing Bricklin to get their money back.^{[citation needed]}

Visionary intends to bring a $35,000 luxury Mercedes-S-style V2G-capable PHEV to market around 2010. VV just announced it would compete for the X-Prize. ^[1]