The story of John DeLorean and the car that shares his name

Through the success of the film, the car – along with hoverboards and Michael J Fox – became a pop-culture icon. But the other half of the DeLorean story is less well known. It’s the story of a designer and engineer, raconteur, corporate maverick and accused cocaine trafficker. We look back at the car and the man that share the DeLorean name.

John DeLorean was born in 1925 in the 20th century’s car capital of the world: Detroit. As a young man he had academic and musical talents that could have taken him in any number of directions, but ultimately – while his education was interrupted by three years of military service in World War Two – he earned college degrees in mechanical and automotive engineering. John went on to work for automotive company Packard before joining General Motors (GM) in 1956. There, his biggest success was co-creating the Pontiac GTO, the car that pushed the big four companies to focus on the development of the American muscle car, and, in doing so, write an influential chapter of American car culture.

At the age of 40, John became a GM division head  – the youngest GM employee ever to do so – and he was soon invited to lead the company’s most prestigious marque: Chevrolet. He accepted. At this point, he was making a lot of money and buying into sports teams – including the San Diego Chargers and the New York Yankees – and, while corporate and mainstream culture was becoming more and more conservative, John was rocking sideburns and unbuttoned shirts, and partying hard in celebrity circles. His outsider style clashed with GM’s executive class – defined by a creeping conservatism and the “bean counters” John despised – and, despite continued success with Chevrolet management and sales, change was just around the corner. Industrial action during production of the new Chevrolet Vega led to – as he pertly claimed – John deciding to fire General Motors.

Around the time he left GM, John said: “A car should make people’s eyes light up when they step into the showroom.” In 1975, John formed the DeLorean Motor Company (DMC), and six years later, in 1981 – some four years before the first Back to the Future film – production on the DMC-12 began. The design was a gull-winged object of sporty ’80s futurism, featuring a stainless-steel body designed by Italdesign’s Giorgetto Giugiaro, and it caught people’s attention and captured imaginations. But with a “wheezy” European V6 engine and a $25,000 price tag (the equivalent of around $65,000 today), it struggled in the marketplace. Its performance belied its sporty looks, and the price – despite plans for it to sell at $12,000 (the ‘12’ in DMC-12) – was exclusive, if not unaffordable. In the movie, Marty McFly says, “Doc, are you telling me you made a time machine out of a DeLorean?” – a subtle dig at its reputation as less than sporty.

DMC tweaked the design and attempted other strategies, but no matter how much they tinkered, sales were sinking like a big, round stone lobbed into the middle of Lake Erie thanks to slow production, the US recession that began in 1980 and a lukewarm response to the flawed if interesting, design. While John drank expensive champagne and lived a playboy lifestyle, half of the DeLoreans produced were left unsold, DMC was $175 million in debt, and the UK government-funded manufacturing plant in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland, went into receivership. The DMC was in its death throes; all it needed was one more thing to tip it over the edge.

In October 1982, John, in need of a quick influx of money to save his company, was charged with trafficking cocaine. A sting operation had captured him bragging on video that the contents of a cocaine-filled suitcase were “as good as gold”. The bust was set up by an opportunistic FBI informant and career criminal, James Hoffman, and it was this fact that later exonerated John: at trial, he was found not guilty on the basis of police entrapment.

John’s credibility was destroyed. His business reputation, tainted. After being acquitted, he said wryly, “Would you buy a used car from me?” Enduring both company and personal bankruptcy, John continued to dabble in engineering and the automotive industry, and, before his death, he considered resurrecting his namesake car company with a DMC2 model. John passed away in 2005 aged 80, but his legacy is large. And his tombstone? It carries a depiction of the DMC-12, gull-wing doors open.

About 10,000 DeLoreans were made and around 100 are owned in Australia today.

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