A brief history of Subaru of America is outlined in Randall Rothenberg's 1994 book "Where the Suckers Moon: An Advertising Story." Summed up, SoA formation can be traced back to 1967 when Harvey Lamm and Malcolm Bricklin decided to import the Subaru 360. "It was among the world's tiniest autos," Rothenberg states. Quoting Road and Track, the car "....occupies one-third the road space of a Cadillac Eldorado." But the car cost $500 less than the Volkswagen Beetle.

SoA was formed on February 15, 1968. From their suburban Philadelphia headquarters, Lamm and Bricklin would be the distributors of Subarus in the United States. The first shipment of cars numbered only three, one more than Volkswagen's first shipment.

In the April 1969 issue of Consumer Reports, the Subaru 360 was given a rating of "Not Acceptable." According to Rothenberg, "there were some six thousand Subaru 360s in the United States" when this issue hit the newsstands. SoA was in trouble. Early in 1970, the company had $1 million worth of the little cars and couldn't sell one.

Len Epstein had a small local advertising agency at this time. Subaru of America was one of their clients. Epstein's agency had paid for a number of advertisements (including the one on this page) on behalf of SoA. Bricklin promised Epstein that the bills would be paid to the advertising agency. Rothenberg quotes Epstein to say, "I felt there was no way I wasn't going to get my money."

Epstein never heard from Bricklin again. Len Epstein's firm closed its doors only a short time later due, in most part, to Bricklin's unpaid bills.