John DeLorean has died

Johnny_the_fox

from bbc

The former American car maker John DeLorean has died aged 80.
DeLorean, whose car company at Dunmurry near Belfast collapsed, died in New Jersey on Saturday of complications after a recent stroke.

The government had backed the factory with £77m in public money, in the hope that it would create 2,000 jobs.

The company collapsed in 1983, a year after his arrest in Los Angeles. He was acquitted of charges of conspiring to sell $24m of cocaine to save the firm.

DeLorean, whose namesake car was turned into a time machine in the Back to the Future films, had been a rising executive at General Motors before starting his own company.

Despite the failure of the firm the DeLorean DMC-12, with its unpainted stainless steel skin and gull-wing doors, has gained a cult following.

Alfasudcrazy

That is so sad to hear. I was enthralled by his daring in setting up his factory in Belfast and so jealous that it did not come down here. I was deeply dissapointed when things did not work out for the DMC 12.

Only in America could a guy do that - an achievement of astonishing proportions. Some say he was a crook - to me he was a daring businessman who was not afriad to dream and try to make it come true

mike65

C'mon now the Irish government actually did the right thing by passing on the DeLorean plant. He was crooked and the car was a dog.

Mike.

lomb

yeah the car was a heap and he was as crooked as a genetically modified bent banana.

Pigman II

Alfasudcrazy wrote:

Only in America could a guy do that

..and only in Ireland could he be respected.

lomb

yep ive seen the tape where he is offering to deal drugs. he was the worst form of scum around, be under no illusions. he had a dream for an innovative car, unfortunately the car was unreliable and way way overpriced.

DMC

Silvera

Regardless of his 'misdimeanours', he left us with a legendary (Irish-built!) car.

I was shocked and saddened to hear of his passing.
May he RIP.

DublinWriter

lomb wrote:

yeah the car was a heap and he was as crooked as a genetically modified bent banana.

I get really annoyed when I hear DeLorean being to referred as a crook.

What happened was this. The DeLorean plant in Dunmurray was receiving a massive amount of government aid from the UK Labour government in the 70’s.

When Thatcher and the conservatives came to power in 1979, they wanted to pull the plug on aid to DeLorean as they believe that market forces should prevail and state-aided/run industries were a practise of the left-wing.

They couldn’t do this without a media backlash as the DeLorean project was very high-profile. There was a lot of public excitement about it and it was providing employment in an area with one of the highest rates of unemployment in the Island of Ireland.

By the early 80’s, DeLorean was desperate for backers and went to the states where a number of meeting were set up with potential investors.

One of these groups of potential investors was the FBI, posing initially as legitimate businessmen. In a hotel room, they asked him would he be interested in smuggling cocaine into Europe. DeLorean was desperate to keep the factory and jobs going and probably would have agreed to anything at this stage.

DeLorean *never actually smuggled any drugs*. Got that? It’s an important point.

Conspiracy theorists say that he was character-assassinated by a the Tory government who were desperate to get out of the aid commitment that was promised to the DeLorean plant. This may or may not be true, but remember, this was the age of the Ronnie/Maggie show and the security services between both governments worked exceptionally closely together at this point in time.

Given the fact that DeLorean had no ‘previous’, no ties to organised crime of any shape or form, why exactly did the FBI try to entrap him on cocaine-smuggling in the first place?

Recently I was at the AutoWorld car museum in Brussels. Beside each car is a small plaque showing the details of the car and a small flag indicating the country of origin in the top right hand side. As politically incorrect as it was, I did find myself strangely proud to see the tricolour displayed on the plaque beside the DeLorean.

DeLorean was one of the fasting rising executives in Detroit in the early 1970’s. He could have stayed on in GM and lived a very comfy life, but he chose to take and risk and follow a dream.

Before Microsoft, before Intel, DeLorean was one of the first believers in this country and it’s potential. We should remember him for that at least.

KTRIC

Well said Dublinwriter. A sad but true story.

So what if the car was unreliable, it had loads of carisma , something modern are lacking.

smoke.me.a.kipper

Ratchet

lomb wrote:

yep ive seen the tape where he is offering to deal drugs. he was the worst form of scum around, be under no illusions. he had a dream for an innovative car, unfortunately the car was unreliable and way way overpriced.

u r a lamb,

respect to they guy for following his dream and trying to make a difference.
i wouldn't give flying sink about price or build quality of this car

you or me were not going to buy it anyway at the time it came out.


Eagles fly alone,but sheep flock together

unkel

DublinWriter wrote:

DeLorean was one of the fasting rising executives in Detroit in the early 1970’s. He could have stayed on in GM and lived a very comfy life, but he chose to take and risk and follow a dream

My view too. Saw the video and there was no evil crook, but a desperate man

DeLorean added to motoring history, let that not be forgotten

John DeLorean, RIP

lomb

unkel wrote:

My view too. Saw the video and there was no evil crook, but a desperate man

DeLorean added to motoring history, let that not be forgotten

John DeLorean, RIP

only in ireland could a con artist and potential drug dealer be appreciated. ok the car looked well but delorean didnt style it.

doesnt matter how desperate someone is u dont decide to deal 10million dollars of cocaine. sure the worst that could happen was he lost the shirt on his back -so what. then he would have been as 'poor' as the ret of us. doesnt excuse dealing hard drugs. regardless of what the juries verdict was this gives us an insight onto his character. also he pretty much got the british taxpayer to fund it. he was in it for the reasons all sociopaths are in it for-wealth, fame,power. go study human behaviour and u will realise that. he thought to make a success of it he needed a car that stood out, well the delorean was it. and of course being a sociopath he named the car....................delorean lol

Seth Brundle

Lomb - how was he a con man?
Anyway, he wasn't worried about the shirt on his back he was worried about the shirts on the backs of his employees.

ds20prefecture

kbannon wrote:

Lomb - how was he a con man?
Anyway, he wasn't worried about the shirt on his back he was worried about the shirts on the backs of his employees.

There was a documentary recently on the DeLorean history.They interviewed a lot of the staff at the Belfast plant and all spoke very highly & fondly of the man. I am not a fan of the car, but you can't deny that the man tried his best.

Only in Ireland would the masters of schadenfreude rejoice when those who try fail.

DublinWriter

lomb wrote:

only in ireland could a con artist and potential drug dealer be appreciated. ok the car looked well but delorean didnt style it.

With all due respect, you are a complete fool and muppet for that. Only in Ireland do we berudge those who try to be successful and hang people based on hearsay. Bill Gates didn't design Windows either, so what's your point?

The arrest was the result of a U.S. government sting operation. A 1986 trial showed that John DeLorean was a desperate man because of his car company's impending financial collapse, and, as such, wouldn't have committed a crime if he hadn't been enticed by federal agents. This was a violation of the guidelines for federal sting operations, so DeLorean was acquitted of all charges. Unfortunately, his car company had already folded by 1983, and his name was sullied by the arrest.

Ratchet

lomb wrote:

only in ireland could a con artist and potential drug dealer be appreciated. ok the car looked well but delorean didnt style it.

you are a dipstick

Our man in Havana

Any DMC cars still araound?

Alfasudcrazy

Bond-007 wrote:

Any DMC cars still araound?

see the thread & links on the classic car section

Eoin

Bond-007 wrote:

Any DMC cars still araound?

Yeah, I see a couple around (I used to see one around the Temple bar area a few years ago). My neighbour also used to have one and he was gutted when he had to sell it, but the gull wing doors were just too awkward when parking :rolleyes:

mike65

Controversial subject alive and dead!

The DMC12 was the wrong car at the wrong time for the wrong market.

The body too small and made of unprotected stainless steel which was thought as a selling point (its all shiny!) but which actually tarnished quite easily. The car was too heavy for its engine. The Douvrian V6 was best used in big autobahn barges like the Renault 30 and Volvo 262. To be successful in the Delorean the engine would need to be a quick witted high reving number. Trouble is the engine was also too small. A 2.8 V6 for in States even during reccession was the wrong engine as potential buyers were unlikely to be tempted by a small slow (130 bhp!!) "sporty" car when the opposition came from, at the top end, Ferrari with 8 or 12 cylinders and multiple cams and lower down cars like the Lotus Esprit and Datsun 260z not to mention domestic heaps like the Mustang.

Yes it was cheap but maybe that was also a problem as it was in a way the Hyundai of sports coupes, it had no prestige value and in the DMC 12s market a brand name matters.

The irony is that its price was way higher than Delorean anticipated as he had intended a low-spec coupe for the average jo. A sort of Capri for the States. Trouble is the spec grew as the car was developed and it ended up with lots of powered toys which kept failing as the build quality was famously bad. When the cars arrived in the States they had to be stripped down and rebuilt so each car sold at a loss.

Its fair to say if someone had'nt said "hey I know a good car for the mad professor" when Back to the Future was in development chances are it would be 99% forgotten.

Just my 2 cents.

phoenix2181

Have to say I was gutted this morning when I heard,

yes J Delorean had made some questionable business decisions but has someone further up said he always looked after his staff & was thought very highly by both sides of the troubled Northern community at the time.
In regards to the car being a hump of Sh1te...park a Delorean beside a regular Ferrari or Porsche, wait & see which car people will look at first, it'll be the Delorean everytime!
J Delorean was a automotive genius pure & simply

I'm actually planning to buy a DMC12 shortly (or if someone would like to give me one as a present I'd gladly accept )

camarobill

thats some car bashing going on,youd have to b a tick,to forget about these cars.how many cars going around today where made in ireland ,fair play to the lads who keep them on the road,

mike65

Everthing you ever wanted to know about the Delorean project but were afraid to ask

Mike.

halman

Still a cult car and yes there are lots still around. Saw the rally up north a lot of caring owners loking after those gull wing doors so they will miss him. Any in Dublin?

ds20prefecture

camarobill wrote:

how many cars going around today where made in ireland ,fair play to the lads who keep them on the road,

I agree. Although the Heinkel micro car was made in Dundalk in the 50s in greater numbers than the Delorean. Heinkel were owned entirely by the Irish government at the time. :eek: This makes Heinkel the largest indigenous Irish car manufacturer.

The car & rights were later sold to Trojan in the UK.

bazz26

Isn't there a gold plated DMC12 sitting somewhere in a museum or bank in the US...

DublinWriter

Bond-007 wrote:

Any DMC cars still araound?

You'd have to be a serious hard-ass collector these days as parts would be an absolute bitch to come by. I remember seeing one parked on Mount St. about 10 years ago.

Only 9,000 models were ever built in the early 80's, so I guess the pool of spares is rapidly diminishing. No doubt a Google search would unearth some interesting results.

AMurphy

Bond-007 wrote:

Any DMC cars still araound?

Quiet a collection of them about here. (like old Minis) you meet a swarm of thim in some parking lot when the weather gets warm.

Seth Brundle

Plenty of parts available via www.delorean.com!

528i

Hats off to the man, if only for taking thatchers government for a cool £80,000,000

mike65

Well some of that was Callahans and all of it could have been Lynch/Haugheys if Des O'Malley had got his way over the IDA...80 mill was a lot of money back then.

Mike.

BrianD3

Anyone know what's the story with the DeLorean factory and test track at Dunmurry. Last I heard, they were about to be demolished to make way for a new development That was about two years ago. I remember there was a programme on UTV showing DeLorean owners from all over the world visiting Dunmurry to drive aroudn the track before the demolition.

BrianD3

lomb

Ratchet wrote:

you are a dipstick

well he admitted himself he was ' an arrogant egomaniac' so my rekoning that he was a sociopath was spot on.
he died wanted in the uk on fraud charges.
he is on video wanting to deal 24million dollars of coke saying its 'as good as gold'

arrogant egomaniacs or sociopaths dont give a monkeys about anybody else except they need them to feel important and to provide the wealth/fame/ power they need. he couldnt really have cared less about joe public in the workforce.

Ratchet

lomb wrote:

except they need them to feel important and to provide the wealth/fame/ power they need. he couldnt really have cared less about joe public in the workforce.

this fits the profile of most companies and many individuals in our democratic society.


Give the guy a break, he is Dead. what ever happened there still doesn't change the fact that he did produce this unusul car and you have :
-people which grew up on Back to the future movie
-people that remember first time they seen Delorean and have flashbacks every time they see stainless sink
-people that follow car business and are familiar with John's story

I don't think most of them at this stage would really care about 24million dollars of coke which didn't move an inch.

lomb

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4369883.stm

Ratchet

lomb wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4369883.stm

well they didn't blow the story out of proportion like you did initially

stainless steel car built from Alloy 304 commonly used in the catering

lives on

Eoin

Ratchet wrote:

stainless steel car built from Alloy 304 commonly used in the catering

That part was brilliant - at least you know you can easily get a set of matching cutlery if you buy a DeLorean...

lomb

Ratchet wrote:

well they didn't blow the story out of proportion like you did initially

i havent blown anything out of proportion, he died being wanted on fraud charges in the uk and never returned to face justice. they couldnt extradite him for some reason. he was a bent banana make no mistake but hes dead now so no point in knocking him, he leaves behind about 10000 deloreans which are unique cars to say the least, doesnt mean they are any good but they certainly are unique.

Silvera

There are approximately 50 DeLoreans in Ireland - 38 in the North and 12 in the Republic - according to the DeLorean Owners Ireland website, www.delorean.ie

'New' (i.e. refurbished) DeLoreans are available in the U.S. for $30,000 !

Parts supply doesn't seem to be as big a problem as one would think - many owners have a supply of parts in the lofts/garages !!

The site also lists car shows at which you can expect to see at least a few DeLorean's in the coming months.

Silvera.

BrianD3

DeLorean Owners Ireland website, www.delorean.ie

Having done some more research I've found that the dunmurry test track hasn't been demolished at all This is confirmed on delorean.ie. Good news!

BrianD3

lomb

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1827617.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/3480679.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4367473.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/602028.stm
http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=622437&host=3&dir=271

just some info if anyones interested

AMurphy

From the local rag;

DeLoreans live on

GARAGE PUTS THE `FUTURE' CAR BACK ON THE ROAD

By Steven Kurutz

New York Times


WEST SAYVILLE, N.Y. - In the dim half-light of a Long Island garage, a handful of DeLoreans stand in darkened corners or suspended on hydraulic lifts, their trademark gull-wing doors ajar, their stainless-steel silver shells still ultramodern more than two decades after DeLorean Motor went bust. Visible through a dusty window in the parking lot outside, perhaps 20 more DeLoreans, lined up and identical, sit waiting, like some surreal automotive dream.

This is P.J. Grady's, a modest gray automotive garage tucked behind a used-car lot. As the sign on its roof -- DeLorean Motor Cars -- indicates, the shop specializes in the repair and restoration of DeLoreans, the famous and doomed early-1980s sports car created by the late John Z. DeLorean and featured in the ``Back to the Future'' movies.

It is estimated that about 9,200 DeLoreans were built in the car's three years of production, 1981 to 1983, and that about 7,000 are left. Of those, a good number have passed through the hands of Rob Grady, P.J. Grady's tall, thin, intensely focused owner, who has spent the past 20 years as one of the foremost of the world's few DeLorean experts. DeLorean owners from Maine to Florida send him their cars, and in a small garage that was once part of his family's General Motors dealership, Grady fixes engines, locates obscure parts, fabricates what he can't find and restores long-neglected DeLoreans so they can turn heads once more.

For many years, P.J. Grady's was about as profitable as an Edsel dealership, but that has changed. The teenagers who saw ``Back to the Future'' 20 years ago and were fascinated by the film's time-traveling DeLorean are now grown and seeking out the low-sweeping coupe. At the same time, the car is approaching its 25th birthday, a benchmark in the collector market. Where once values hovered around $17,000, a restored DeLorean now runs close to $30,000.

``In the last five or six years the values have gone way up,'' said James Espey, vice president of DeLorean Motor in Houston, which bought the rights to the DeLorean brand and sells restored models. ``The car is coming into its own.''

It was long believed that DeLorean parts could not be found, so many cars were garaged, but Espey's firm bought the entire DMC parts inventory -- everything from body panels to nuts, bolts and washers. Espey estimates that the company has enough gull-wing doors to last 120 years at the current rate of use, and enough interior carpet to cover a football field twice over. This month, the company opened a second branch near Tampa, Fla. And two shops near Los Angeles -- DeLorean Motor Center in Garden Grove and DeLorean One in Chatsworth -- serve the West Coast as P.J. Grady's serves the East.

(Locally, the Northern California DeLorean Motor Club was formed in 1998. Its members stage driving events and participate in car shows, like the Pacific Coast Dream Machines show in Half Moon Bay on April 24. Its Web site, www.ncdmc.org, says that more DeLoreans were sold in California than anywhere else.)

Original dealer

Of the handful of DeLorean specialists, P.J. Grady's is the oldest, going back to 1979, when Grady became one of the original DeLorean dealers. For $25,000, he received the right to sell the line's one and only model, the DMC-12, and a poster of the car autographed by DeLorean, which still decorates his office.

Like many dealers, Grady signed up based on the reputation of DeLorean, who had been an engineering and marketing star at GM -- in the early 1960s he created the Pontiac GTO, which many consider the first muscle car -- and left at the height of his career to challenge the Big Three automakers. But from the start, his company was besieged with problems, starting with too little money and the fact that the car, priced at $25,000, made its debut in the awful economy of 1981. ``The cars were never hot sellers,'' Grady said.

Topping it off was DeLorean's very public arrest in 1982 for conspiracy to distribute cocaine, still a sore spot with DeLorean enthusiasts. (DeLorean was eventually acquitted; the prevailing sentiment among owners is that he was framed.) DeLorean died last week at age 80 of complications from a stroke.

When the DeLorean company filed for bankruptcy protection in 1982, Grady continued to honor his customers' service warranties. Over time, he found himself doing more and more repair work on DeLoreans, until that was all he did.

Not surprisingly, he has developed an affection for the car, though it is a cool, dispassionate one, tempered by years of daily involvement. ``It's a good car,'' he said simply.

`Completely dedicated'

Mike Deluca, a DeLorean enthusiast, joined Grady in his office on a recent afternoon. ``Rob is being modest. He's completely dedicated. I was driving by once and it was Easter Sunday. It was freezing. Rob was out in the parking lot testing temperature sensors,'' he said.

In a far corner of the garage, the P.J. Grady's mechanic, Pat Tomasetti, stood in blue coveralls beneath a DeLorean on a hydraulic lift, draining oil and listening to NPR. Tomasetti has been repairing and restoring DeLoreans at P.J. Grady's for 13 years and is accustomed to overenthusiastic fans of the car. He laughed as he recalled the time a Japanese man showed up with his family, saying he had flown to America to visit Disney World and P.J. Grady's.

The DeLorean that Tomasetti was working on had come in from Pennsylvania and was set to have its front fender replaced, among other repairs. Another DeLorean, its door crunched like a soda can, was in need of extensive body work. Outside, dozens more waited, a daunting workload for two men.

One color: silver

People who spend time around garages tend to acquire a detailed know-how of car design and mechanics, but DeLorean experts take specialization to a refined level. Because of its unpainted stainless-steel body, the DMC-12 was available in only one color: silver. Its interior was black leather or gray leather, nothing else, and the car changed little over its brief production run.

Grady knows each nuance, and the history of each car in his garage. He walked over to a DeLorean covered in a soft blanket of dust. The passenger window was stuck halfway down, and the seat was given over to orphaned parts.

Grady's pupils widened, as if he were laying eyes on a DeLorean for the very first time. ``This is the 530,'' he said reverently. ``It's a Legend prototype, Twin Turbo. They only made three of these.''

The 530 is going to be restored as his own DeLorean, Grady said, just as soon as he finds the time.

``Sometimes you get a little burned out,'' he mused, reflecting on the vagaries of being a DeLorean expert. ``Then something rejuvenates you.''

Silvera

Great story, AMurphy !

Thanks for posting it !!

Silvera.

lomb

yep thanks was great