NERVES OF STAINLESS STEEL | AUTO MAVERICK JOHN DELOREAN

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John DeLorean founded the DeLorean Motor Co. in 1974, and a stainless steel-clad, two-seater sports coupe prototype was completed by 1976. Styling came from famed Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro, with extensive engineering input from Lotus of England. The car had a rear-mounted Peugeot-Renault-Volvo single-overhead-cam, 2.8-litre V6, a steel backbone frame and gull-wing doors.

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John DeLorean and His Famous DeLorean Car-- March, 1979.

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John DeLorean never cared to fit the mold of a typical Detroit auto executive.  He was a young, free-spirited maverick that revolutionized the auto industry as the major force behind America’s first muscle car– the Pontiac GTO.  He was thought of as a hippie by his older peers for his longish, shaggy hair, and rebellious attitude.  But what they didn’t understand was that DeLorean had his finger on the pulse of youth and trend in a way that no one else did.  He had an uncanny ability to tap into the music, events and attitudes of the time and mine it for nuggets that translated to top-line success.  As the young DeLorean’s star rose, he supposedly walked away from his $650,000 salary at GM and decided to go it on his own.  DeLorean also became overly enamored with himself, the party scene and chasing women.

He was soon rubbing shoulders with Hollywood celebrities like fellow auto enthusiasts Steve McQueen and James Garner.  Johnny Carson and Sammy Davis Jr. later became investors in his new upstart– DeLorean Motor Company.  Quite the accomplished playboy as well, he was romantically linked to beauties– Raquel Welch, Ursula Andress, Candice Bergen, Nancy Sinatra, Kelly Harmon and Cristina Ferrare.  DeLorean seemed to have it all– but he was headed for a major crash.  Production and deep financial troubles at DeLorean Motor Company, not to mention the resulting money laundering and drug charges, brought it all to a shameful end before the visionary could realize his ultimate dream.

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The charismatic DeLorean went searching for a government to subsidize his project and found socialist Britain anxious to create jobs in troubled Northern Ireland. A factory was built in Dunmurray, near Belfast, and production of the DeLorean DMC-12 began in January, 1981.

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John DeLorean and his wife Cristina Ferrare with the famous DeLorean car-- March, 1979.

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From The Washington Post–

Mr. DeLorean, the son of an autoworker, reached the executive ranks of General Motors Corp. with an astonishing series of successes that revolutionized the industry. He attributed his rise largely to an acute cultural awareness missing in the older executives he saw around him, men he once described as “sitting behind a desk, wearing a pair of those old high-top leather shoes and packing a big wad of cigars” in their shirt pockets.

His winning formula was strikingly simple and hip: Listen to rock and roll radio. From there, he said, one could gauge what young buyers wanted, what trends would develop. “It’s the cheapest education you could get,” he once said.

He won acclaim by introducing sports-car sexiness to conservative Pontiac with his GTO muscle car in the 1960s. He also brought Pontiac its first compact vehicle, predicting a trend to more fuel-efficient models. Ceaselessly inventive, he was credited with creating the overhead-cam engine, concealed windshield wipers, the lane-change turn signal, vertically stacked headlights, racing stripes and an emphasis on cockpitlike driver consoles. He said he had more than 200 patents.

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Mr. DeLorean conveyed a manic, restless energy at GM, where he was viewed as Chevrolet’s savior after a period of extensive decline for that brand. But his rise never seemed to satisfy him, and instead he felt more constricted by bosses who he said were out to get him and deliberately stymied his plans to improve cars and increase sales. If GM’s sales were below 50 percent of total U.S. car sales, he said, the federal government would not have any incentive to dismantle the company.

With his overconfident, often dazzling demeanor and a string of innovations behind him, he widely had been expected to take over GM.

Instead, he left to form his own, eponymous company with the hope of creating an economical, “ethical” sports car. The British government gave nearly 100 million pounds to the business, hoping that Mr. DeLorean’s plan to employ 2,000 workers near Belfast in Northern Ireland would cause support to dwindle for the Irish Republican Army.

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Mr. DeLorean’s dream was crusted with problems with the start, from undercapitalization to mechanical flaws in the car’s design. It took seven years to create the DeLorean DMC-12, a sleek sports car with a stainless-steel body, gull-winged doors and a rear-mounted, V-6 fuel-injected engine.

The cost overruns raised the sticker price to more than $25,000, well beyond the reach of most car-buyers in 1981. The British government, under Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, demanded that Mr. DeLorean raise more money to keep the project solvent. When he was unable to meet the price of business, the plant closed in late 1982, having produced about 9,000 cars.

Embittered, Mr. DeLorean went after the Thatcher government with the gusto with which he previously attacked GM. Business had been flourishing, he wrote on his résumé, but, “The UK government closed [the plants] because the Catholic employees were said to be tithing to the IRA.”

His troubles only grew. Returning to the United States, he became embroiled in a drug sting operation and was arrested in a Los Angeles hotel room in October 1982. He faced more than 60 years in prison.

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Law enforcement officials said he intended to sell $24 million of cocaine to prop up his flailing auto business. To them, the case was clear-cut, complete with an FBI surveillance tape of Mr. DeLorean accepting a suitcase containing 55 pounds of cocaine and telling an undercover agent that “it’s better than gold.”

A series of maneuvers by Mr. DeLorean’s legal defense team discredited the star witness, a convicted drug dealer turned government informer. Their main argument was entrapment by the government. Mr. DeLorean was acquitted on all drug charges and beat a later indictment on charges of defrauding investors in his company.

“We didn’t need our extensive defense plan,” he later wrote in his 1985 memoir, “DeLorean,” by which point he said he was a born-again Christian. “My enemies had destroyed themselves in their effort to be my undoing. I must admit I identified with King David when he wrote the third Psalm: ‘O Lord, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me!’ “

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John Z. DeLorean, 80, the brilliant but troubled automaker who arguably was as flamboyant as his car designs, died March 19, 2005 at a hospital in Summit, N.J., after a stroke.  The Delorean DM-12 (DMC-12) still lives on and enjoys a cult-like status.  You can order a “new” Delorean from DMC that is assembled from a large surplus of parts that still existed when the original DeLorean Motor Company in Ireland folded.   Click here for info.

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