DeLorean Motor Company - John DeLorean History Timeline

May 8, 2024 Mark Elliott

Delorean - DMC 12 - John Z DeLorean

The History of DeLorean Motor Company - John DeLorean’s Timeline

* 1956 John Z. DeLorean’s 12½-year career at Pontiac director of advanced engineering

Age 40 DeLorean became a GM vice president, the ‘youngest general manager’ in the corporation’s history

John Z DeLorean

1972 Group Vice President, salary/bonuses totaling $650,000, $250,000 expenses

1973 DeLorean resigned. Frustrated with GM’s monotonous products / insular culture

1975 DeLorean Motor Company was incorporated

Living the Dream John DeLorean

1976 October DeLorean and Collins had arunning prototype, built by Triad

1977 Early - DeLorean allowed the press to see and sit in the prototype
1977 Floated in mid ‘77, was 2,000,000 shares at $5 each

1978 Spring DeLorean approached the Northern Ireland Development Agency (NIDA), proposing establishing a DMC factory in Ulster creating at least 2,000 jobs in the region. Deal reached in just 46 days

DeLorean with Management Team and the DMC Chassis

1978 Late July the British government agreed to give DMC

£16.5 million (about $31.7 million) in Loans and

£22 million (about $42.2 million) in Grants, plus an additional

£17.8 million (about $34.2 million) Equity Investment in a new holding company

72-acre (29-hectare) marshland in the village of Dun Murry in west Belfast. The package brought DMC’s total capitalization to a claimed $156 million

DeLorean Factory

1978 the deal with Colin Chapman for re-engineering the DMC-12 had called for Lotus to be paid through a Geneva-based holding company called GPD Services, allegedly run by two of Chapman’s longtime friends.

1981 January 21st First true production cars rolling off the line

John Z DeLorean at the Factory

1981 - Early, DeLorean toldAutocar that the Dunmurry factory’s maximum capacity was 30,000 units a year, BMW-rivaling volume in those days.

ohn DeLorean - The DMC-12 - Christine Ferrara

1981 DMC entered ‘81 with an $18.6 million shortfall.

1981 Inflation and exchange rate fluctuations had pushed the DMC-12’s U.S. retail price to $25,500

1981 Company said it would sell 30,000 cars a year

Brand New DeLorean

DMC was losing money at an alarming rate & obliged to pay the British government £185 (nearly $400) for each car sold, cutting into the company’s per-car margins.

DeLorean, meanwhile, was living as lavishly as ever with an annual salary of $500,000 and a generous expense account.

British approached for even more money: another £35 million (about $70 million). Since the Conservative Thatcher government was understandably nervous about the £77 million-odd (approximately $154 million). But in a misunderstanding Mrs Thatcher was not passed on the correct information regarding the money, and immediately said there would be no more British Funding.

1981 February 19, the British forced DMC Ltd. into receivership, appointing Sir Kenneth and Mr Shadwell as the official receivers.

John Z DeLorean

1981 DeLorean no longer in control of DMC Ltd.’s operations. Unless he could come up with another $20 million to pay off its outstanding debts, the company was doomed. DeLorean offered $10 million than a that Virginia-based Financial Services Inc. was prepared to loan him. Sir Kenneth judged that acceptable and set a deadline of October 20 for the transaction.

1981 The Dunmurry factory manufactured around 7,500 cars but DMC sold only about 3,000 of those, while the rest piled up in Belfast.

The Dream is over - DeLoreans Stockpiled

1982 Evening of October 19, 1982, John Z DeLorean was arrested in a Los Angeles hotel room for conspiracy to distribute more than $24 million of cocaine.

The receivers immediately shut down DMC Ltd., sending its 35 remaining employees home. DMC of America filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection six days later.

1983 Some of the remaining cars were re-serial and sold as 1983 models, but the DeLorean Motor Company was finished. John DeLorean’s troubles, however, were only beginning.

DeLorean Dealer offer

After 10 days in Los Angeles County Jail, DeLorean was released on a $2.5 million bond.

1984 DeLorean was tried in a Los Angeles federal court in the summer ‘84. He never took the stand during the 62-day trial. August 16, the jury acquitted DeLorean of all charges

DeLorean had transferred $17.65 million to GPD (Grand Prix Drivers) setup by Colin Chapman, $5.1 million from DMC Ltd. the rest from one of his U.S. research partnerships. When the receivers investigated, however, they reported that none of those funds had gone to Lotus and that Lotus had billed DMC Ltd. directly for its engineering services, which totaled about $23 million. The receivers claimed that the GPD money had simply disappeared.

1997 Houston, Texas mechanic Stephen Wynne bought the remaining parts inventory along with the original engineering diagrams and the rights to the DMC name and logo

Stephen Wynne - DMC

It’s worth noting that despite all the accusations and allegations, John Z DeLorean was never convicted of any of the crimes of which he was charged.

The DMC-12 was Designed in 1975

DeLorean 0-60 performance in a bit under 8 seconds, DeLorean Top Speed of 129 mph 25.2 mpg combined

Gold 24 Karat Gold Plated DeLorean

Steel backbone frame, manufactured in England by GKN Sankey Bilston

The engine in the production DMC-12 was a hybrid, combining : Heads and Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection from the rear-drive Volvo 260 Series - Bottom end of the front-drive Renault 30

DeLorean 2.8 V6 PRV Engine

The commonality with the Volvo engine enabled DMC to “piggyback” on Volvo’s EPA certification, avoiding the expensive and time-consuming 50,000 mile (81,000 km) durability test

The DMC-12’s engine had the same output as its Franco-Swedish cousins: 130 hp (97 kW) and 162 lb-ft (220 N-m) of torque. That was about what Bill Collins had anticipated, but Lotus’s structural redesign had left the production car some 500 lb (227 kg) heavier than originally planned

DeLorean Motor Company now defunct, the DMC-12’s finest hour arrived in : July 1985 with the premiere of the popular science fiction film Back to the Future which did much to restore DeLorean’s tarnished image.

Back to the Future - Marty McFly with DeLorean Time Machine

The DeLorean was nearly going to be a Mustang but Bob Gale flatly refused the $40,000 per day and reshooting fees from Ford

The DeLorean we know and love was almost called the ‘Z Tavio’. ‘Z’ stands for Zachary, which was John DeLorean’s middle name & the first name of his son. ‘Tavio’ was DeLorean’s father’s name, and also his son’s middle name.
Standing at 6 ft 4 in tall, John DeLorean wanted a vehicle he could get in and out of, and sit inside comfortably. He got his wish when special cavities were built into the tops of the gull-wing doors, which is why the 1.85 meter tall Christopher Lloyd doesn’t bang his head when he closes one of the time machine’s doors.
Before Back to the Future the most famous DeLorean’s were the 24 karat gold-plated ones American Express ordered.

24 Gold Plated DeLorean DMC-12

AmEx presumed that their gold card customers would buy them, so ordered a hundred from DMC. In reality, only two people were crazy enough to spend $85,000 on a gold-plated car nowadays, the gold-plated DeLorean’s are worth even more than the ones used in Back to the Future movies.
Wait! Did we say ‘crazy’? Now it Turns out the two guys who bought them weren’t so crazy after all!

Sources vary as to exactly How Many DeLorean DMC-12s were built ? 9020 was the total

Perhaps that is the ultimate tragedy of DeLorean

The car

The company

The man

John DeLorean

Perhaps that is the ultimate tragedy of DeLorean

The car

The company

The man

Is it’s not how far they fell, but how much Higher they could have climbed

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