Extracts from the latest Classic & Sportscar: " In setting up his own company, De Lorean tried to buy the mid-engined Corvair sports car prototypes but failed." "He (De Lorean) ....got to work on an initial proposal with Giugiaro's Italdesign while Lotus was enlisted to productionise the prototypes. Rumours has it that Colin Chapman asked for a personal cheque for $17 million to ensure the design was completed within the two-year timeframe De Lorean was working to". (I bet he was the only one who got paid. Chapman must have known something nobody else knew!) ""The result was an amalgam of Lotus Esprit and Douvrin V6, clad in pizza-oven stainless over an Electric Reservoir Moulded GRP substructure, on a GKN built backbone chassis. So the all-American ethical car vision became a cocktail of financially constrained design inputs" "Price now: £20,000" that's about $14,000 no? The De Lorean scandal left the British government embarrassed. They had promised employment in a region lacking industry and in political turmoil -Northern Iralnd -, no sensible British businessman would have invested a penny there. Smooth-talking De Lorean turned up, convinced politicians, proposed to create jobs, obtained state grants, lines of credit, loans from Europe, etc... and ran away with the cash. Even if the car had been good, I really don't think that he would have sold 15,000 cars yearly in the States as he predicted. The industry secretary must have been very naive... unless ... say no more!
An Automobile as an investment is almost an oxymoron. As stated earlier, there is very little profit in buying a car to make money from unless you do it in bulk. That being said, there is nothing wrong with making a grand or two from a fun project. However, no one is going to be buying a Delorean for $500. I guarantee the owner of that car is approached weekly with low ball offers. Even if the car is trashed it could still net $5k just to be used as a donor (read, VIN and Sub Frame) for one of Delorean.com's refurbs. After reading this thread, I see that, what many people know about Deloreans, is still 90% fiction. Love him or hate him, John Delorean was an innovator, who has a majority of the musclecar's existence to thank for, so when he and Lotus get together, I seriously doubt they are going to create the dung some of you describe the Delorean as being. All cars have their downsides... especially when the car was the first product from a fledgling car company. I have driven and have friends that own various years and models of Ferraris. They certainly don't think that their cars, like any specialty car owners vehicles, are perfect either. I would like to invite those of you, who genuinely want to learn more about the Delorean and the Delorean owner, over to DMCtalk.com. It is one of the big 3 online Delorean communities. We would love to tell you the facts about the car and maybe, if some of any of you are nearby, we could even show you the cars firsthand. You might find that we are not all nutcases and kooks for owning the cars.
A former co-worker of mine has three of the things, if you can imagine. Two are runners. They're kind of '80s-awful in execution but still pretty neat. It's hard to believe that they are nearly 25 years old. One has a crazy-rare twin turbo kit that was in development when everything fell apart. The company doing the development (it was to be a dealer-installed option IIRC) had gone as far as to cast intake manifolds so the installation looks OEM. Another just got a late model Maxima engine with a Porsche transaxle. He did quite a nice job of this, effectively doubling the horsepower to the level of the twin turbo car. As mentioned, the layout shares quite a bit with the Esprit and he was looking into doing a chassis update to his Delorean that I had done to my Lotus.
I've ridden in Marc's Nissan powered DeLorean. Very fast car! Wish my DeLorean was that fast, but I'm still happy with it.
too bad they are illegal to drive on US roads they suck up the white lines down the side of the road...........hahahahahaha sorry couldn't resist. my dealership's owner had one with 8xx miles on it. i started looking at the build tag and the car was 'born' at the same time as me AUG 1981!!!!!