John DeLorean has died

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