John Delorean and the DMC-12

This article is being written on October 21, 2015, which is when Marty Mcfly supposedly arrived in the “Future” in his modified Delorean DMC-12. This is a great opportunity to talk about one of our favorite companies, and one of the greatest american car designers and executives, John Delorean. He is responsible for important milestones such as the iconic Pontiac GTO, and the less known development of a short-lived company called Packard.

John Delorean (1925 to 2005) began his career out of school with Chrysler in 1952. This tenure was short lived, and within a year he joined a new car company called “Packard” under the famed Forest McFarland. Packard from the beginning adopted a “high quality and custom” ethic, which caused financial problems for the company compared to more affordable alternatives from Ford, GM and Chrysler, however Delorean excelled in the atmosphere, making multiple improvements for the company. This ultimately led Delorean to take McFarlands place as head of research and development for all of Packard. Packard merged with Studebaker in 1954, which put Delorean in a state of transition.

When Oliver K. Kelley of General Motors called Delorean offering him a position, Delorean accepted a position at Pontiac as “Assistant to chief engineer” and was soon promoted to Division Chief Engineer for Pontiac. Delorean had a sharp engineering mind, and made dozens of improvements to the automotive industry, including the creation of GM’s overhead cam six cylinder engine. However, what is commonly unknown is that Delorean is responsible for the creation of the beloved Pontiac GTO in 1964. The GTO was a huge success, however many of Delorean’s key design features, such as inclusion of disk brakes, were rejected by Ed Cole, GM president. This frustrated Delorean, but he pressed on.

In 1967, a new model presented by Delorean was rejected by GM executive Ed Cole, and Ed instead forced Delorean to use a modified version of the existing Camaro. Delorean even had to use the existing fenders to save cost. The result was the 1967 Pontiac Firebird. The Firebird was followed a couple years later by a luxury vehicle created by Delorean, knows as the Pontiac Grand Prix. Even as GM struggled to remain profitable, Pontiac remained in the black under John Delorean’s leadership, which led to his promotion to head of GM’s prestigious Chevrolet division.

Delorean was somewhat of a corporate rebel, in how he dressed and behaved. Delorean horrified his coworkers by inviting the famous and successful Ford executive Lee Iacocca to his wedding, as the best man! Delorean’s free-spirited behavior led to clashes between himself and other GM executives, however his performance and sales at Chevrolet would again lead to a promotion to Vice President of Car and Truck production for all of GM.

Surprisingly, in 1973 John Delorean announced he was leaving GM. He made public statements which state he left the company for other pursuits, however it is rumored he was fired because of his clashing with upper management at GM, which started many years earlier.

The Delorean Motor Company

After leaving GM in 1973, he immediately started his own car company, called the “Delorean Motor Company”. This car company ultimately created only one car model, called the DMC-12. The DMC-12’s first prototype was seen in 1976, and production ranged from 1981 to 1983. The manufacturing plant was originally going to be located in Puerto Rico, however Ireland offered DMC 100 million dollars to build the plant there instead. While the Delorean is considered to be an American car from an American company, it is comprised on almost entirely European parts, many of which are Italian and British.

The DMC-12 featured an all stainless steel body (unpainted), gull-wing doors and a chassis created for the Lotus Esprit. It also featured an advanced fuel injected 6 cylinder engine made by Renault, Peugeot and Volvo. Three DMC-12’s were even produced in 24k plated gold. The doors were supported by cryogenically set torsion bars and gas struts created by Grumman Aerospace. Features like this were loads more advanced than the comparable offerings of Ford, GM, or Chrysler. The DMC-12 also offered other advanced features at the time, including 4-wheel disc brakes, and fully independent front and rear suspension.

While not impressive by today’s standards, the 0-60 time for a manual transmission was a respectable 8.8 seconds, and 10.5 seconds with an automatic.

The car was named the DMC-12 because of its intended original price of $12,000. New DMC-12s had a suggested retail price of $25,000, which is equivalent to approximately $64,852 in 2014 US Dollars. Even at these prices, DMC still managed to acquire an extensive waiting list. Today’s analogy seems to be the Tesla Company, which despite their high prices and low practicality command great demand due to their uniqueness and new features.

Unfortunately John Delorean was arrested on drug charges in 1982. Many today believe that Delorean was set up, and the charges were a result of entrapment by the US government. Delorean was eventually cleared of his charges, and successfully defended his case in court, however it was too late for DMC. DMC entered bankruptcy in 1984, largely because of the damage to Delorean’s reputation.

The companies assets were liquidated as part of the bankruptcy. Today, the dies used to form the DMC-12’s body panels are rumored to be used as fishing net anchors in Northern Ireland.

Back to the Future

Perhaps the advanced technology used in the DMC-12 was the inspiration for using the car as the Back to the Future time machine. Maybe it was simply the sleek and futuristic Italian styling. Maybe it was the fact that the car was rare due to its short production time. In the end, the DMC-12 is the icon of an entire generation, quickly identified although poorly understood, despite being one of the rarest cars ever produced.