Few movie cars have enjoyed such a cult following as the DeLorean from the film “Back to the Future”. Without it, the saga would most certainly not have become as famous as it has. A look back at the creation of a legendary car.
“Hey wait a minute Doc, did I hear that correctly? You said you made a time machine… From a DeLorean???” Marty McFly throws at Doc Emmett Brown. Our favorite mad scientist responds immediately: “You have to dream big in life! If you’re going to travel through time behind the wheel of a car, you might as well choose one that looks good!”
Few movie cars have enjoyed such a cult following, and among these, the legendary DeLorean DMC-12 model takes the lion’s share. Without her, the Back to the Future saga would certainly not have become as famous.
With its butterfly doors, its squat rear, its elegant line and its stainless steel body, many people have also dreamed of traveling through time at 88 miles per hour aboard this fantastic car, thanks to its time convector.
From the fridge to the car…
“We first imagined that the machine was a box, an old fridge that had been tampered with. But it quickly became clear that a time machine had to be a vehicle.” explained Robert Zemeckis. “A tracked vehicle, like a tank. Indeed, if we travel in times without paved streets, we must be able to move around.
We decided to use a DeLorean because of the joke we had in the movie. When the machine arrives in the past, the people on the farm think it’s a spaceship. The car has butterfly doors, it really looks like a futuristic machine from outer space.”.
And to add: “We didn’t anticipate the cocaine story or that it would become so infamous. John DeLorean wrote us a letter expressing his admiration for the film shortly after its release, thanking us for keeping his dream alive and offering to hire us as designers everyone who had worked on the film car as part of its design team”.
Indeed, yes Back to the future had been released 5 years earlier, its colossal success would perhaps have contributed to changing the disastrous destiny of the DeLorean DMC-12which was a major commercial failure, leading to the bankruptcy of the DeLorean Motor Company in 1982, in addition to seeing its creator, the brilliant John Zachary DeLorean, entangled in a dirty story of drug trafficking…
Universal Pictures
John the Visionary
At 27, John Zachary DeLorean graduated from the Chrysler school with a technician diploma in hand. For fifteen years, he worked on behalf of General Motors, Pontiac et ChevroletBrilliant, he was promoted, at just 47 years old, to vice-president of the group. General Motors Company : he was thus the youngest high-ranking officer in the firm General Motors to exercise such a position of responsibility.
But his dream is to create his own car brand, with the project in mind to develop a sports car with high reliability, a car that he describes as “ethical”, focused on safety and the environment, whose chosen materials would be a guarantee of longevity. In this, he is not really on the same wavelength as the major car manufacturers of the time, who are counting on replacing the car fleet every five years…
After resigning from GM, on October 24, 1975 he created the DeLorean Motor Company. Financed with funds provided by the Bank of America, John Z. DeLorean also surrounds himself with stars like Samy Davis Jr (for $150,000), Roy Clark and Johnny Carson (for $500,000!), the host of the show that bears his name, who put their hands in the wallet . A little later, capital will also be injected through the car’s distribution network: each dealer committing to selling DeLoreans will be a shareholder in the company.
Below is a rare promotional video from 1981, featuring the DeLorean Motor Company…
Initially, the CEO sought to set up his factory in Ireland, but did not receive the necessary financial support from Great Britain. He then opted for Puerto Rico, before the United Kingdom finally granted him 60% of the funds necessary for the company, on the condition that the manufacturer establishes its assembly plant in Northern Ireland and is able to procure work for 3000 people. This will be the case in 1978, Dunmurrylocated in the suburbs of Belfast, in a country and region then plagued by terrible unemployment and inter-religious violence between Catholics and Protestants.
Bringing together the best of the best
John DeLorean doesn’t want to do things by halves. He wants his future car to be the result of a unique collaboration with ambitious specifications: to create a sports car with sleek lines, a rear engine, stainless steel body, butterfly doors, good performance, leather interior… For the chassis, he calls on Colin Chapman, founder and CEO of another legendary brand, Lotus.
The latter imposes manufacturing techniques used in his company: the DMC-12 is thus equipped with the suspension and chassis used on the Lotus Esprit. The design of the car was drawn up by a great industrial designer, Giorgetto Giugiaro, who composed several sketches and a model faithful to his inspirations, in particular cars with a central rear engine, with a very sharp aerodynamic style.
The DMC-12 is ahead of its time thanks to avant-garde features: durable materials, absorption bumpers and deformable chassis, four disc brakes, injection, air conditioning, electric mirrors and windows, central locking, alloy wheels, audio system. Finally, the vehicle’s V6 engine, with a power of 130 horsepower, is a Franco-Swedish engine developed by the Peugeot-Renault-Volvo trio, the only engine capable of meeting anti-pollution standards in the United States.
Production, initially planned for 1979, did not begin until 1981, due to major development problems; year when the DeLorean DMC-12 was also presented to the public for the first time.
Below, a television advertisement for the car, dated 1981…
The choice of engine was poor: judged too greedy and not powerful enough to boost a vehicle of 1233 kg, its performances were clearly below expectations, especially since in view of the finish and the overall performances of the car, the asking price was ultimately very high: $25,000.
To make matters worse, the gullwing doors quickly revealed their weaknesses with a faulty mechanism. Added to this was the lack of qualification of the workforce employed in the assembly plant in Ireland, to the point that the first models shipped to the United States were partially disassembled and then reassembled once delivered in a factory specially created for this purpose…
The descent into Hell
In 1982, it was a descent into hell for John DeLorean and his brand. With multiple delays due to design flaws and poor management, the lack of money is quickly felt, while sales do not live up to the ambitions promised to investors.
The firm was counting on sales estimated at around 30,000 copies per year. Totally unrealistic, even though it will only produce, between January 1981 and December 1982, around 9,200 cars. Other sources speak of an even more precise figure of 8583 DeLorean DMC-12 produced.
At the end of 1982, it was bankruptcy for the DeLorean Motor Company. John DeLorean is accused of rigging the accounts. In October 1982, he was even arrested for drug trafficking: he appeared in a video showing him buying cocaine to resell it; traffic intended to replenish the coffers of his moribund society.
The FBI accused him of having spread the equivalent of 24 million dollars worth of drugs in the country. His defense strategy, although curious (he was “driven to crime” by a trap set by the FBI according to his lawyer) finally paid off: after 29 hours of deliberation, John DeLorean was acquitted in August 1984.
Universal Pictures
Epilogue of a rebirth
About 100 DMC-12s, partially assembled, were completed and sold in 1983. Factory and warranty parts inventory, as well as parts manufactured by subcontractors but not delivered, were shipped to Columbus, in Ohio, in 1983–1984. The parts are sold wholesale and retail by mail order, by a company called KAPAC.
In 1997, the stock of remaining parts, part of the period tools, as well as the rights to the names and logos, were purchased from KAPAC by a new company, DeLorean Motor Company of Texaswhich was founded in Houston, in order to distribute spare parts and develop new ones in case of shortages. It should be noted that the new company DeLorean Motor Company is not associated with the original company.
At the start of 2020, this company put stars back in the eyes of lovers of this vehicle. At a car show, it announced that it would be able to produce some 325 vehicles per year; a small quantity to avoid the constraints linked to large automobile groups. While speculation has been rife in recent years, the company seemed close to actually producing the car.
Zuma Press/Bestimage
The new DeLorean model.
A new model… Still as expensive
According to the site Canadian specialized RPMwho mentioned this potential production in January 2020, “the car, according to rumors, could be offered in the fall of 2021 and would have the same type of body as at the time, in a modernized version. It could inherit a much more powerful gasoline engine than in the time, but it is also suggested that the addition of an electric engine is possible in order to make the car more ecological.
According to the company’s CEO, the car would retain many of the features of the era while incorporating some modern elements, particularly in the case of headlights and connectivity technologies.
In any case, we were talking about a bill of around $100,000. A long, long way from the $27,500 that had to be paid – already a large sum for the time – between 1981 and 1983. Finally, the resurrected brand presented its first model called Alpha5 in May 2022. A 100% electric model… At a price that should calm more than one person: around $170,000.
Today, a more legendary car than ever, the DeLorean DMC-12 is a model highly sought after by collectors around the world. Rare, you may be lucky enough to find it in France, for a price between €25,000 and €35,000. Which is ultimately not that much to pay to afford a part of the dream, a time machine to return to childhood.
