DeLorean: Guts & Glamour

Last night, as Michelle and I were driving through the neighborhood behind our house, I spotted a DeLorean parked in someone's driveway. I can't recall if I've ever seen a DeLorean that wasn't on film traveling through time in a Back To The Future movie.


Pictured: Back To The Future-modified DeLorean illustration.

It was dark, so I didn't get to examine it too much. But I was impressed by how unique the car still looks and how unconventional it must have been for its time (seriously, think about some of the other cars produced during the 1980s... boxy, clunky, ugly).

So I did a Google search for DeLorean this morning and discovered that the car is actually extremely rare, with only 9,000 models produced at its factory in Northern Ireland before the company went bankrupt in 1982. John Z. DeLorean, the brilliant automotive executive turned failed glamour car entrepreneur, actually died this past March at the age of 80 [click here for a detailed obituary].


Pictured: Another Back To The Future-modified DeLorean illustration (Note the flux capacitor).

DeLorean's obituary reads like the quintessential "American dream" tale. He came from a working class neighborhood in Michigan; his father was employed as a foundry worker for Ford; DeLorean attended school to pursue business and engineering; he then worked his way up through the ranks of Detroit's booming automotive industry where he climbed all the way to the position of GM vice-president. And it was just at the peak of his success, as he was being groomed to take over as President of GM, that he departed the company to pursue his dream of designing and manufacturing his own line of automobiles.

Sure, there are rumors that DeLorean sold cocaine to fund his ailing venture (although he was acquitted on the charges). And he was supposedly known as quite a name-dropper, rubbing elbows with Hollywood's elite, garnering financial support for his company from the likes of Jonny Carson and Sammy Davis Jr. to name a few. Or maybe he was just a good businessman. That is, until the bottom dropped out.