DeLorean Motor Company, New York, New York. 1981 - 1982

The factory was situated at Dunmurry, Co. Antrim. Northern Ireland.

John Zachary DeLorean was a high flying executive at General Motors and by the mid 1970s had risen to the position of group executive vice-president with responsibility for cars and trucks. At around that time he seems to have had a personality change which resulted in his leaving General Motors and writing a very hard hitting book entitled "On a Clear Day you can see General Motors" exposing what he saw as the unethical practices of the company.

He started his own company in 1974 with the intention as he put it "of building an ethical car".

The first prototype used a composite fibreglass and plastic chassis designed by William T Collins who was previously employed at the Ponitiac division of General Motors. The body panels were made from stainless steel. The chassis was not a success due to manufacturing difficulties and so Lotus were approached to re-design it. The result was a sturdy steel backbone chassis.

In order to achieve sufficient finance to build the car in quantity he was advised that grants would be made available from the British government if the plant was established in Northern Ireland and so a brand new factory was started in 1978 and completed in 1982. Over this time successive British governments lent about £85 million to the company as part of a programme to provide employment for the region.

The body was styled by Giorgio Guigiaro with gull-wing doors and retained the stainless steel panels, the engine was the 2,975cc V-6 unit supplied to the Renault-Peugeot-Volvo joint venture. The original concept car had been lengthened to provide four seats and the increase in weight to 2,840lbs spoilt the performance of what was intended to be a sporting car.

The first DMC-12, as it was called, left the factory in Ireland in 1981 and although the car received a good initial reaction it did not handle very well and the stainless steel body suffered from unattractive staining marks and sales did not grow as anticipated. By 1982 there were improvements but the basic price had risen to $30,000 in America, sales continued to be poor, and dealers started to give large discounts .

Towards the latter part of 1982 there were rumours of financial mismanagement and the British government called in the receivers, by which time there had been a total of 4,243 cars built.

The cars have a continue to have a following and one was featured in the popular "Back to the Future" film series.

Some time later John DeLorean was arrested for drug trafficing, supposedly in an attempt to make enough to repay the company debts, and was not acquitted until August 1984 on the grounds of "entrapment". A further case heard in Michigan concerned the disappearance of $17,650,000 from the project, but on this occasion he was acquitted through lack of evidence.

However the non payment of his legal bills in the UK, and other outstanding problems have restricted his movements in order to avoid arrest.

Bibliography:

"Dreaming the impossible dream: The DeLorean and its predecessors", by Walt Woren,

Automobile Quarterly, Vol. XXI No. 2