Leaked Memo: John DeLorean Berates His PR Guy
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.
Comments
Patrick from Astoria
Um, guys, admittedly it has been almost twenty-five years, but enough grumblings and jokes persist even now that everyone shoul be aware that the DeLorean was paneled in stainless steel, not aluminum.
Saw one the weekend. The girlfriend thought it was ugly.
dave gess
I bothers me that this material is being auctioned off piecemeal when it should be going complete a public archive somewhere.
Someday, someone will be trying to write a real history of DeLorean and this type of material will not be available and is very likely to be lost forever.
A shame.
luke hagen
There is a great piece of work on DeLorean, its the book titles "DeLorean: Stainless Steel Illusion". Its out of print now (published circa 85), and good used copies sell for $100 or more, but it is one of the best written and most complete historical accounts of the whole DMC history.
Patrick - where did you see aluminum mentioned?
Sammy B
I really like the last line: "Our PR was much better before we had a PR Department."
LOL. I'm gonna have to use that one :)
Don
Maybe the PR hack realized this Irish built, French engined, stainless steel embarrassement wasn't worth promoting?
Ducati Major
The DMC-12 was marketed at a slow-moving, high-tech sports car. How could the DMC-12 survive with its price, low speed, and terrible build? DeLorean was full of it. He had nerve to lash out against GM's incompetent management and then top that with his own. DeLorean had a good vision--but poor execution. Maybe had he focused on building a premium-market, high-performance sports car, his brand would have existed longer.
Patrick from Astoria
Luke: Somewhere in the two and a half hours between our separate viewings, someone at WR discreetly (ahem) subbed in "stainless" instead of "aluminum" in the middle of that second paragraph.
Wish we of the unwashed chattering class down here had the same option for our own scribblings; I hate having little typos - like "shoul" and that "the" where it should be "this" (an incomplete change on my part?) - preserved for posterity/infamy.
John
Ducati,
You're an idiot. The DeLorean brand lives on. Visit www.delorean.com if you think I'm lying.
Winding Road » Archive » Video: 52-Minute DeLorean Documenta
[...] + Leaked memo: DeLorean berates his PR guy [...]
40-Foot DeLorean: The Bus That Never Was - Winding Road
[...] + eBay: DeLorean DMC-80 Transbus Blueprints + Rare Preliminary DeLorean Sedan Sketches/Musings On eBay + Leaked Memo: John DeLorean Berates His PR Guy [...]
Post new comment