This anniversary is another tricky one on our car anniversary list, as the 40th birthday is for the model and not for the company. Still, as the short-lived Delorean Motor Company produced only a single model during its existence, this anniversary is the right one. The DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) was founded by automotive titan John DeLorean in 1975. After years of preparations, the company did not live long: it went bust in just a few years after the unveiling of its first and only series production model, the DMC-12.
Despite several revolutionary elements in design and marketing, the company remained at the cliff edge, but it’s fate was ultimately sealed by the arrest of John DeLorean. He was indicted for engaging some shady people to fund his enterprise for helping them trafficking drugs to the US. Eventually, he was acquitted on procedural grounds (that the operation was a setup), but the publicity of the case shed light on the shaky foundations of DMC. John DeLorean’s life was full of ups and downs and feels like the dark version of Elon Musk. If Musk was the embodiment of Tony Stark, DeLorean was the incarnation of Anton Vanko.
The company’s only model, the DMC-12, was eternalised by the blockbuster movie Back to the future. Unfortunately for John DeLorean, this happened years after the cease of production. The car entered production 70 years ago, and about 9,000 vehicles were built by late December 1982, when DMC filed for bankruptcy.
Despite numerous minor revisions during the short production span, the car harvested critics for poor build quality. Partly due to the low output engine, the driving experience also fell beyond expectations. At the same time, the DMC-12 fell in the brightest limelight thanks to the Back to the Future movies. Also, due to a solid fanbase, over 6000 DeLoreans are still on the road.
This I can confirm from my impressions at car events and owner’s websites. There is an active community of owners with a wide range of events, from visits to the factory site in Northern Ireland to the regular masquerades as time machines at shows. Thus the brand punches well above its weight at classic car events, and I hope to see many DMC-12s this year.
