Without this legendary car, Back to the Future would not have become so iconic!

“Hey wait Doc, did I hear you right when you said you made a time machine out of a… DeLorean?” Marty McFly yells at Doc Emmett Brown. A quick answer from our favorite mad scientist: “You have to think big in life, even if it means time traveling behind the wheel of a car, you might as well choose something that looks good!”

Few movie cars have enjoyed such a cult following, and legendary among them DeLorean The lion’s share is taken by the DMC-12 model. Without him, the saga Back to the Future certainly would not have become so famous.

With its butterfly doors, flexible rear, elegant lines and stainless steel body, many people dreamed of traveling through time at 88 miles per hour in this fantastic car, thanks to its convector temporaries.

From the fridge to the car…

“We first imagined the machine to be a box, an old refrigerator that we had broken up, but it quickly became clear that the time machine had to be a car. explained Robert Zemeckis. “A tracked vehicle, like a tank, if we’re traveling on unpaved streets, we should be able to move.

We decided to use the DeLorean in the movie because of the joke. When the car 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 spaceship.”.

and add: “We didn’t expect Cocaine’s story or that it would become so infamous. John DeLorean wrote us a letter expressing his admiration shortly after the film came out, thanking us for keeping his dream alive and offering to hire us as designers. He worked on the film’s vehicle as part of his design team.”.

Indeed, if back to the future Released 5 years earlier, its colossal success might have helped reverse a disastrous fate. DeLorean DMC-12which was a major commercial failure leading to bankruptcy DeLorean Motor Company 1982, in addition to seeing its creator, the brilliant John Zachary DeLorean, become entangled in a dirty history of drug…

John the Seer

At age 27, John Zachary DeLorean graduated from Chrysler School with a technician’s degree in hand. For fifteen years he worked under the name General Motors, Pontiac and I shot. Brilliant, he was promoted to Group Vice President at the age of just 47 General Motors Company : Thus he was the youngest senior official of the firm General Motors To exercise such responsibility.

But his dream is to create his own car brand, with a project to develop a sporty and highly reliable car, a car he describes as “ethical”, focused on safety and the environment, whose chosen materials will guarantee longevity. In that respect, it’s definitely not on the same level as the big car manufacturers of the day, who hope to replace their fleet every five years…

After retiring from GM, on October 24, 1975, he created DeLorean Motor Company. It is financed by funds provided by Georgia Bank of AmericaJohn Z. DeLorean is also surrounded by stars such as Sammy Davis Jr. ($150,000), Roy Clark and Johnny Carson ($500,000!), the host of the show named after him, who reached into the wallet. A little later, capital will also be channeled through the car’s distribution network: each dealer committed to selling DeLoreans will be a shareholder in the company.

Below is a rare promotional video from 1981 featuring DeLorean Motor Company…

Initially, the CEO tried to set up his factory in Ireland, but did not receive the necessary financial support from the UK. He then chose Puerto Rico, before the United Kingdom finally gave him 60% of the funds needed for the company, on the condition that the manufacturer set up an assembly plant in Northern Ireland and could afford 3,000 jobs. So it will be in 1978. Dunmurewhich is located on the outskirts of Belfast, in a country and region that was then plagued by terrible unemployment and interfaith violence between Catholics and Protestants.

Gathering the cream of the crop

John DeLorean doesn’t want to do things by halves. He wants his future car to be the result of a unique collaboration of ambitious specifications: to create a sports car with refined lines, rear engine, stainless steel body, doors, leather interior… He called on Colin Chapman, the founder and CEO of another legendary brand, Lotus.

The latter prescribes the production techniques used in his company: DMC-12 The suspension and chassis used on it are thus equipped the soul of the lotus. The car was designed by the great industrial designer, Giorgetto Giugiaro, who made several sketches and models faithful to his inspiration, namely the cars with a central rear engine, with a very sharp aerodynamic style.

there DMC-12 Ahead of its time thanks to its avant-garde features: durable materials, absorbent bumpers and deformable chassis, four disc brakes, injection, air conditioning, electric mirrors and windows, central locking, aluminum wheels, audio system. Finally, the car’s V6 engine, with 130 horsepower, is a Franco-Swedish engine developed by the Peugeot-Renault-Volvo trio, the only engine that can meet anti-pollution standards in the United States.

Production, originally planned for 1979, did not begin until 1981 due to major development problems; the year when DeLorean DMC-12 It was also presented to the public for the first time.

Below is a TV commercial for the car from 1981…

The engine choice was poor: considered too greedy and not powerful enough to power the 1233kg car, its performance clearly fell short of expectations, especially given the car’s finish and overall performance, and the asking price was ultimately too high: $25,000.

To make matters worse, cuckoo doors quickly revealed their weaknesses with a faulty mechanism. This is compounded by the lack of skills of the labor employed in the Irish assembly plant, so much so that the first models sent to the United States were partially disassembled and then reassembled after delivery to a purpose-built factory…

going to 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 cash is quickly felt, and sales do not match the ambitions promised to investors.

The firm counted on sales estimated at around 30,000 copies a year. Totally unreal, despite the fact that it produced around 9,200 cars between January 1981 and December 1982 alone. Other sources speak of an even more accurate number of 8583 DeLorean DMC-12 manufactured.

By the end of 1982, it was bankrupt DeLorean Motor Company. John DeLorean is accused of falsifying accounts. In October 1982, he was even arrested for drug trafficking: he appeared in a video where he is seen buying cocaine for resale; The traffic was meant to fill the coffers of his dying community.

The FBI accused him of distributing the equivalent of $24 million worth of drugs in the country. His defense strategy, though curious (he was “Leading to Crime” According to his lawyer, the trap set by the FBI finally paid off: after a 29-hour trial, John DeLorean was acquitted in August 1984.

Epilogue of the Revival

About 100 DMC-12s, partially assembled, were completed and sold in 1983. An inventory of factory and warranty parts, as well as parts manufactured by subcontractors but not delivered, was shipped to Columbus, Ohio, in 1983–1984. Parts are sold wholesale and retail by mail order company KAPAC.

In 1997, the remaining stock of parts, some of the period tools, as well as the rights to the names and logos, were acquired by KAPAC, a new company. DeLorean Motor Company of Texas, which was created in Houston to distribute spare parts and develop new ones in case of shortages. It should be noted that the new company DeLorean Motor Company Not affiliated with the original company.

At the beginning of 2020, this company returned the stars in the eyes of car lovers. At the motor show, he announced that he would be able to produce about 325 cars a year; In small quantities to avoid the restrictions associated with large motor groups. Although speculation has run rampant in recent years, the company appears to be close to actually producing the car.

The new model… is still so 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 will have the same body type as then in a modernized version. It may inherit a much more powerful gasoline engine than before, but it is also suggested that an electric motor may be added to make the car more environmentally friendly. .

According to the company’s CEO, the car will retain many of the features of the era, while incorporating modern elements, especially in the case of headlights and connectivity technologies.

Anyway, we were talking about a bill of about $100,000. A far, far cry from the $27,500 he had to pay—a huge sum at the time—between 1981 and 1983. Finally, the revived brand introduced its first model called the Alpha5 in May 2022. A 100% electric model with a price that should appease more than one person: around $170,000.

Today, a more legendary car than ever, DeLorean DMC-12 is a model that is highly sought after by collectors around the world. Rare, you might be lucky enough to find one in France, priced between €25,000 and €35,000. Which in the end isn’t too much to pay to get a piece of a dream, a time machine back to your childhood.