Why you’d want a DeLorean DMC-12
General Motors’ golden boy John Zachary DeLorean was its youngest-ever senior vice president and tipped for the top, when in 1973 he abruptly quit, saying he wanted to free himself from big corporation reticence and build a radical “ethical sports car”.
He then horrified his former colleagues by publishing a book exposing a failing bureaucratic dinosaur, before raising millions to bring his dream to reality, in the form of the DeLorean DMC-12 (technically it’s ‘De Lorean’ rather than one word, but we’ll go with the majority here).
His most inspired choice was picking Giorgetto Giugiaro to style the car: 37 years after it was first revealed, it still looks fresh.
But the prototype had a Citroën ‘four’ (a Wankel was proposed) in a foam-filled glassfibre sandwich monocoque, clad with stainless-steel panels. On his own in the real world, without an army of advisers, DeLorean’s irrational characteristics began to show.
He played hardball over where the cars would be built, pitting Ireland against Puerto Rico before the British government – desperate to generate hope in Northern Ireland during The Troubles – offered him millions to build the cars in a new factory in the heart of the Catholic and Protestant communities, drawing staff from both.
DeLorean was an angel to thousands who’d had no hope of work, but he dragged Colin Chapman of Lotus, who he had turned to for production expertise, down with him.
(l-r) Esprit-like backbone chassis, with 2.8-litre V6 in rear vee, plus fuel tank and radiator in the front; ad promised ‘superb standard of service’
