Gaze Upon the Quirkiest Electric Vehicle You’ve Ever Seen

When I was in college, I worked at a place that bought, sold and consigned classic cars. I was a shop mechanic, and a Subaru 360 passed through. I fell in love with it, and, about a year later, one popped up for sale on Facebook. I paid $US1,200 for it.

The 360 was the first Subaru imported into the U.S., in 1968. A guy named Malcolm Bricklin imported them. He later started his own car company that failed. [According to Subaru’s website, the 360 sold for $US1,297, got 66.3 mpg and was marketed as “cheap and ugly.”] The car did not sell very well. My 360 was not in good shape at all. The motor was disassembled and missing pieces. The cylinders were rusted. The bottom half of the car was mostly rotted out.

At the time, I had just started working as a nurse. Covid was a rough time if you were a hospital worker. I did a lot of ICU work. This car became my Covid project, to get my mind off of work. A lot of it was done when I’d get home, between midnight and 3 a.m. In the summer heat of Mississippi, it’s a good time to work in the garage. It became a “can-I-do-it” project.

I spent about two years just on rust repair. I took the transmission apart. I was able to flush it out and clean it. The brakes were a project. They don’t make parts for this car, so all the parts had to be sourced from different cars and different model years.

For power, I took the electric motor and mounting plate out of a Taylor-Dunn truck. (If you don’t know what this is, you might remember one from the scene in “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” when he is riding this little truck and gets stuck in a hallway.) I used the control box out of an E-Z-GO golf cart. So now the 360 runs on electric power.

The goal was never about making an electric car, specifically. I was just trying to get it going with whatever I had lying around and stuff that people gave me. I had to get two sprockets custom made, by a company here in Jackson, Miss., called Motion Industries.

A lot of people in the Subaru community were helpful, through the 360 Facebook page. These cars are so rare these days, and the parts are so hard to find, people are just happy to see them not end up in the crusher. Especially one as bad off as this car was when I started out.

A lot of people also helped me right in my garage. My dad was an electrical engineer for many years, and he helped with the wiring and other stuff. My grandfather, a neighbour, my uncle all helped, too.

Along the way, we took the 360 to car shows, a lot of them locally around Jackson, and one as far off as Ardmore, Tenn. The first time we took it to a show, it had no brakes and we had to roll it up to the judging station with our feet hanging out the doors to make sure we could stop it. Every show we took it to, it had reached another stage, and some people really enjoyed seeing the progress.

I think the car could be street legal, but right now it’s not. Where I live, a lot of the roads are minimum 55 mph. This car has a top speed of about 30 mph. But I have invested so much time in it, and with the help of my friends and family, it means a lot to all of us.

Nowadays, you see Subarus everywhere. But you won’t see many 360s, and you won’t see any other Subaru like this one.

Private-equity firm Paine Schwartz Partners is backing BERO, a nonalcoholic beer brand launched by British actor and “Spider-Man” star Tom Holland.

A person familiar with the transaction said it values New York-based BERO at more than $100 million and will help support the brand’s ambitious growth plans.

BERO co-founder and Chief Executive John Herman said the company aims to more than double its sales team and significantly expand distribution to roughly triple sales this year.

BERO, which Holland and Herman launched in late 2024, reached nearly $10 million in sales in its first year and expects sales to reach almost $30 million this year, said Herman, who previously served as president of C4 Energy brand drink maker Nutrabolt.

“We weren’t just looking for capital,” Herman said. “We were looking for great partners that could help us grow.”

Paine Schwartz is investing through BetterCo Holdings, a portfolio company in the firm’s sixth flagship fund that it formed late last year to hold non-control investments in better-for-you food and beverage businesses, Paine Schwartz CEO Kevin Schwartz said.

Ultimately, Schwartz said he expects BetterCo to hold five to 10 investments.

BERO, BetterCo’s third investment, falls within the firm’s typical growth investment range of $10 million to $25 million, he said.

Earlier BERO backers include leading talent agency William Morris Endeavor Entertainment and venture-capital firm Imaginary Ventures, which also participated in the latest investment.

“This first external raise is not just a milestone, but a validation of what’s been achieved in a single year,” said Logan Langberg, a partner at Imaginary Ventures.

When they started BERO, Holland and Herman tapped as brewmaster Grant Wood, a past Boston Beer executive who went on to found Revolver Brewing, now part of Tilray Brands.

The brand currently offers four types of beer, including two IPAs. Its products are sold at Target stores, on Amazon.com and at other retail locations, such as supermarket chains Sprouts Farmers Market and Wegmans Food Markets in the U.S. and Morrisons in the U.K. BERO is also available at a number of liquor stores and bars and restaurants.

The company also offers a $55 a year premium membership that offers such perks as free shipping and access to member-only products and limited-edition releases.

To help build the brand’s name, BERO has struck a series of partnerships, becoming the official nonalcoholic beer partner of luxury sports-car maker Aston Martin and fitness studio chain Barry’s.

Nonalcoholic beers, which generally contain less than 0.5% of alcohol by volume, have become increasingly popular and account for the biggest share of alcohol-free drink sales, according to the Beer Institute, a national trade association.

Sales of such drinks are growing at a more than 20% annual rate and were expected to exceed $1 billion in 2025, according to market-research firm NielsenIQ, citing so-called off-premise channel sales it tracks, such as sales at liquor stores and grocery stores. But the bulk of those sales come from the top five brands, such as Athletic Brewing, co-founded by a former trader at Steve Cohen’s hedge fund Point72 Asset Management, NielsenIQ said.

Alcohol-free drinks, the market-research firm said, have emerged as a lifestyle choice—one based not on quitting alcohol but expanding options, with most non-alcohol buyers also buying alcoholic drinks.

“There’s a pendular swing in behaviours that [is] happening right now when it comes to people’s relationship with alcohol,” Herman said.

Corrections & Amplifications undefined Nonalcoholic beer brand BERO offers its fans a premium membership for $55 a year. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the membership costs $50. (Corrected on Jan. 20.)

Gaze Upon the Quirkiest Electric Vehicle You’ve Ever Seen

Richard Rieger II, 25, a nurse living in Brandon, Miss., on his electric 1969 Subaru 360, as told to A.J. Baime.

Paine Schwartz joins BERO as a new investor as the year-old company seeks to triple sales.