Beleaguered Auto Maker Fights Takeover : Cars: Jerry Wiegert has surrounded headquarters with guards and changed the locks to keep out firm’s directors, whom he says he has fired. They are asking a judge to order him out.

Within the automotive world, he’s been compared to such colorful dreamers and schemers as Preston Tucker and John DeLorean.

But now Gerald A. (Jerry) Wiegert, the maverick maker of the $450,000 Vector “super car,” invokes the images of Texas cult leader David Koresh and the president of Russia in trying to explain exactly why he has changed the locks at his Wilmington headquarters, hired armed security guards and is hunkered down in a desperate bid to keep control of the company he founded.

“No, I’m not boarded up like those guys in Texas,” Wiegert said with a laugh during a telephone interview Thursday. “But I do feel a little bit like Boris Yeltsin.”

Just as Yeltsin is trying to resist parliamentary efforts toward his ouster, Wiegert is waging an unusual battle to retain control of the financially troubled Vector Aeromotive Corp. His rivals say that what Wiegert doesn’t seem to understand is that, despite appearances to the contrary, he has already been ousted.

Another round of the war over Vector is expected to take place this morning in Los Angeles Superior Court, where Wiegert’s rival directors will ask the court to recognize the legitimacy of their claims in representing shareholders and order Wiegert to leave the Wilmington offices. If Wiegert defies such a court order, sheriff’s deputies may be required to escort him from the premises, Vector director John F. Pope said.

If that happens, it would be a fittingly flamboyant end to a battle that began last week when Pope and other directors asked Wiegert to resign and became widely publicized this week in an unusual exchange of press releases. One was issued by three company directors announcing that Wiegert had been dismissed. Then Wiegert fired off a response, saying that he is still in charge “in spite of a rump effort to take control of the company made by an Indonesian investor.”

“Unfortunately, this action demonstrates Mr. Wiegert’s failure to deal with reality,” said Pope, who arrived at Vector’s offices Monday only to be turned away by security guards that Wiegert had hired. “To think he can fire the directors who are duly elected by the shareholders and seize control of the company himself simply demonstrates his lack of ability to run the company.”

To people familiar with Wiegert’s maverick ways and the company’s history of turmoil, the standoff does not seem out of character. “I don’t think anybody’s terribly surprised,” said John Rettie, editor of the California Report, an automotive bulletin published by the J. D. Power & Associates consulting firm.

Wiegert has often “been in the position of being a one-man band,” Rettie added. “He’s a character. And you have to look at what he’s achieved. For one person with limited funds, he’s really achieved quite a lot, albeit it’s taken him many years.”

To Wall Street, Vector has never been much more than a minor blip--a relatively small company that grew out of Wiegert’s dream in the early 1970s to produce limited-edition exotic sports cars using the materials and technology of the aerospace industry. The 47-year-old Detroit native, an alumnus of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, unveiled a mock-up of the first Vector in 1975 and within a few years produced a single drivable prototype.

Known for his charismatic enthusiasm, his dark good looks and substantial ego, Wiegert spent years searching for investors to begin production of a car that would compete with limited-edition Ferraris, Porsches and Lamborghinis in the rarefied market of wealthy car collectors. His attempts to begin production had its ups and downs before Vector Aeromotive was formed in 1987 and a search for capital prompted a public stock offering in November, 1988.

In a February, 1990, profile in California Report, Wiegert acknowledged the famous flameouts of such car makers as Tucker, DeLorean and Malcolm Bricklin. “I want to survive another decade,” he told Rettie. “After all, I’ve survived one already, which is twice as long as DeLorean and Bricklin together.”

With Wiegert at the helm, the company has produced 22 Vector W-8s, sleek machines that are sometimes compared to earthbound jet fighters, with cockpit-like interiors and high-powered engines. Of the 22 Vector W-8s, 19 have been sold, with a retail price of $448,000. The company is preparing to unveil and produce two new lines, the Vector Avtech WX3-R (roadster) and the Vector Avtech WX3-C (coupe), with prices starting at $225,000.

Stock in Vector Aeromotive reached a peak of $13 per share in 1989, said Pope, who used to serve as the company’s chief financial officer before joining the board of directors.

But Vector’s fortunes went into a dramatic nose-dive. In fiscal 1992, Vector Aeromotive recorded losses of $4 million on revenues of $1.2 million. Last Friday, its stock was trading at 25 cents per share and on Wednesday it was down to 12 cents.

For all of Wiegert’s skills as designer and entrepreneur, he proved ill-suited to run the company once it started production, Pope said.

“It is probably fair to say some of his strengths are some of his biggest weaknesses,” Pope said. “His drive, his single-mindedness--that helped him get the company founded. It also, unfortunately, denied him ability to take input from other people.”

According to Pope, the disputes between Wiegert and the other three board members--Pope, George Fencl and Baduraman Dorpi, who represents the Indonesia-based Eagle Holding Co.--involved Wiegert’s desire to produce a still more expensive Vector despite the world’s economic woes.

“The board believes that the era of the conspicuous super car--the $500,000 car--has ended and we should downsize to less expensive models,” Pope said. Wiegert wanted to build a $700,000 car, he said.

Investors, stockbrokers and lenders had lost faith in Vector as long as Wiegert was at the helm, Pope said. So last week, he and the two other directors “offered (Wiegert) the opportunity to resign on a graceful basis.” They suggested that Wiegert form a new design company that might have an arms-length relationship with Vector. Pope said that they told Wiegert that if he refused to resign, he would be “terminated for cause.”

Wiegert, he said, asked for a few days to ponder his options. When Pope went to see him Monday in the company’s quarters in Wilmington’s warehouse district, he encountered new locks and security guards. Several employees were likewise turned away.

“We believe his continued presence in the building is doing irreparable harm. He’s informing callers all employees have been fired,” Pope said. “To send out a press release to say he’s still in control. . . . A thinking person has to ask: Of what? Because the employees will not work for him.”

Wiegert, meanwhile, says he has retained a lawyer and seems intent on fighting for the company he founded.

“We haven’t had an opportunity to show our side. My legal counsel has advised (me) not to make any more formal or casual comments,” Wiegert said. “These people have been trying to gain control of the company for several months.”

Wiegert noted that on the day after he issued his press release trumpeting his effort to save Vector from an Indonesian investor, the company’s stock jumped back up a few cents.

“I guess that’s a vote of confidence in my favor,” Wiegert said.

Pope, on the other hand, suggests it simply took Wall Street a day to digest the news that Wiegert, if not yet gone, will soon be leaving.