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!