In the Bricklin v. Delorean battle of the ages, another round of cannon shots has cut through the cold internet air, begging us once again to pick sides for our favorite non-Mercedes gull wing supercar. While Bricklin and Delorean fans have long accused the other of inferiority, rarely have officials of the companies ever weighed in…until now.
Let’s review:
• Copycat claims: The Bricklin SV-1 debuted in 1974 and went south in 1976. While Delorean was designing his car around the same time, it didn’t go on sale until 1981, giving Bricklin fans the opportunity to claim copycat. Both cars had gull wing doors, positioned themselves as supreme safety exercises, and were mostly government-funded. But, the Bricklin has its engine in the front while the Delorean’s is mounted in the back.
• Delorean’s rebuttal: Delorean privately and publicly denied any connection between the DMC-12 and the Bricklin (or the Lotus Espirit, for that matter). He died in 2005, though, so we’re going to have to think that he’d still call bullshit on Bricklin even today.
• Bricklin openly claims DMC-12 is clone: Malcolm Bricklin gives an interview wherein he claims John Delorean bought the original SV1 prototype after Bricklin’s self-titled car company went into bankruptcy. “He wanted to copy it in every way….John Delorean’s car is the exact car that I rejected and still have that prototype that was designed in 1972.”
On what would be John Zachary Delorean’s 83rd birthday, we were fascinated to find the late entrepreneur’s daughter (seen above in a photo from the 80s) in a telling Q&A session on the DMCTalk forum, a site for the Delorean community. In a message to the forum dated a few months ago, Kathryn Delorean opened up to members and asked for their questions about her father. The exchange between the site’s members and John Delorean’s daughter is an interesting insight into a historical time in automotive history.
When it comes to restoring vehicles, there are projects, and then there are odyessys of biblical proportions. We’d have to say “Project Vixen” was something close to the latter. Over the course of five years, $25,000 and, more likely than not, enough choice words to fill the pages of War and Peace, one dedicated soul built a 1981 DeLorean out of a pile of boxes.
After 244 weeks of toil, the project was completed, but thankfully the document process of building something from nothing is still up on the web. At times, it’s somewhat captivating to see all the work involved - so much so, it may interrupt your weekend reading and inspire you to go wrench on your wheeled toy. Re-wiring your off-roader or performing an engine swap doesn’t seem so bad anymore, does it?
Although a sedan was supposedly in the works, the late DeLorean Motor Company had, at one time, much larger plans. A batch of documents currently for sale on eBay detail the company’s interest in building nothing less than a forty-foot long transit bus in the United States.
(Click through the jump to read more on the DMC-80 and the Transbus program)
History buffs and fans of the DeLorean legend (both the man himself and the stainless steel DMC-12) will appreciate this long-form find from Google video.
This 1981 documentary by noted filmmakers D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus is a fantastic moment in time, with period-correct synthesized sound tracking to match.The documentary captures interesting day-to-day meetings of DMC, the logistical troubles with Lotus, and also provides some additional perspective on the environment in Northern Ireland (where DMC-12s were built) at the time. The footage spans multiple years, from the construction of the assembly plant to the start of production.
It ends as the cars are just starting to arrive in North America, immediately prior to the downfall of the corporation and one John Zachary DeLorean.Other De Lorean related stories from WINDING ROAD:
YouTube brings us another time warp into the history of the fabulous DeLorean motor car.
Taking us back to 1981, this video shows the first shipment of ill-conceived DMC-12’s leaving port on Easter Sunday (Ostersonntag) on their way to sit largely unsold in America. David Foster’s score takes us through an emotional journey with the silver gullwings, from trailer, to ship, to…ah, backing off another trailer with driver’s side door open.
25 years is a long time to go between new models, but for DeLorean things just seem to get better with age.
The originally ill-fated company has enjoyed a steady rise in popularity since closing the factory doors in 1982, thanks in large part to the much-ballyhooed relationship with Robert Zemeckis’ Back To The Future films.
Now, DeLorean Motor Company (that’s the new DMC formed in 1995) will begin production of a new version of the DMC-12 with a freshened interior, stronger engines, and fixes to problems with the original model. Still, around 80 percent of the new car will be assembled using parts produced for the original car.
Production of the new DeLorean is set to begin at or around the third quarter of 2008. The cars will be assembled by hand in Texas at the rate of one or two per month and run starry-eyed owners $57,500.
The new DMC took possession of a Texas warehouse full of DeLorean’s production remnants along with the company name, and have been involved in restoration and repair ever since. As the supply of original parts diminished, DMC made the decision to produce new supplies, keeping more cars running and on the road.
With a generation of Delorean fans grown into nostalgic and affluent consumers, the new car would seem to have a built in core market at any price. No word yet on what Zemeckis’ cut will be.
eBay Motors continues to provide a fund of great ephemera from the life of one John Zachary DeLorean and, as always, we’re here to put the spotlight on it. This time we find a memo that DMC CEO DeLorean sent to his head of public relations, William Haddad. One might say that the relationship between the two men had turned south.
In the scolding letter the boss rips his press man for his lack of effort in calling back reporters–particularly the Wall Street Journal. In addition, Haddad is blamed for a botched job at the 1981 Geneva Motor Show–an important time for the company as it was the first year of production for the company’s sole product, the stainless DMC-12. DeLorean writes, “At the Geneva Show the failure was complete – to have my next morning’s speech stuffed under the door at 1 A.M. the night before and not to have prepared a press release to distribute at our Press Conference, is sheer incompetence – a total lack of interest.” Boom!
Haddad writes in his own 1985 book, Hard Driving: My Years With John DeLorean, that DeLorean’s smear campaign on him started to take form around the same time. By the end of that year his children would be threatened by DeLorean’s hammer man, Roy Nesseth, and soon after he left the company altogether. The fate of the DMC-12 and the company, as we all know, was short-lived.
In one of the last known archived speeches before his death in 2005, John Z. DeLorean detailed his plans for the revival of his car company at a DMC owners event. Of course, DeLorean made claims throughout the last twenty years of his life that he was in the process of building new cars. Believe it or not, in this video DeLorean claims that he had two sports cars (both gullwings) “about 85% complete” (the video was recorded in the summer 2000) with aerospace engineer Burt Rutan (designer of the Voyager and SpaceShipOne) and was in the process of securing financing. Fast forward to 10:15 for details on this new venture.
“We have two cars planned which are logical successors to the cars we built.”
John Z. Delorean fans the world over are buzzing over the most recent offering from the company’s seized holdings from its bankruptcy. Included in this special auction are 24 pages of writing and sketching by JZD, focused on a “Luxury Sedan” that would have featured a Citroen CX chassis, stainless steel skin, carbon fiber door reinforcements, air bags, and a possible assembly partnership with Bricklin or Jensen. Yes, JZD dreamed big.
Interesting aspects of Delorean’s dream for this car include a “Gucci interior,” and a sales proposition for “super athletes and rock stars.” Check out one of the sketches where he does some back-of-the-envelope math to work out the financial possibility of his dream.
There’s usually a piece or two of worthwhile John Z. DeLorean memorabilia floating around on eBay, but this one’s a real doozie: the 1978 World Series ring that was awarded to the fallen entrepreneur, who was then a co-owner of the New York Yankees.
Sadly, while DeLorean himself was ultimately unable to make good on the ring’s “Greatest Comeback In History” inscription, that doesn’t mean the next owner can’t enjoy its 21 diamonds, 14 karat gold and unique history.
The starting bid on the ring is $30,000, which is the price of a really, really clean DMC-12.
Admittedly, the words “racket” and “DeLorean” have been seen together before and one might say that no explanation is required. However, we present to you a different type of racket; this one is of the tennis variety.
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