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Car Developer John DeLorean Dies at 80
AP (via Yahoo) ^ | 3/20/05 | JEFFREY GOLD, Associated Press Writer

Posted on 03/20/2005 10:35:27 AM PST by Mr. Mojo

NEWARK, N.J. - John Z. DeLorean, the innovative automaker who left a promising career in Detroit to develop the stainless steel-skinned, gull-winged sports car bearing his name and was acquitted of charges he planned to sell $24 million worth of cocaine to support the venture, has died at the age of 80.

DeLorean died Saturday at Overlook Hospital in Summit, N.J., of complications from a recent stroke, said Paul Connell, an owner of A.J. Desmond & Sons Funeral Directors in Royal Oak, Mich., which was handling arrangements.

DeLorean, whose namesake car was turned into a time machine in the "Back to the Future" movies, was among just a handful of U.S. entrepreneurs who dared start a car company in the last 75 years.

DeLorean "broke the mold" of staid Midwestern auto executives by pushing General Motors Corp. to offer smaller models, auto historians said.

While at GM, he created what some consider the first "muscle car" in 1964 by cramming a V-8 engine into a Pontiac Tempest and calling it the GTO.

Although he was a rising if unconventional executive at GM, and was believed by many to be destined for its presidency, he quit in 1973 to launch the DeLorean Motor Car Co. in Northern Ireland.

Eight years later, the DeLorean DMC-12 hit the streets with its unpainted stainless steel skin and gull-wing doors.

Its angular design earned it a cult following, and the car was a time-traveling vehicle for Michael J. Fox in the "Back to the Future" films of the late 1980s.

However, the factory produced only about 8,900 cars in three years, estimated John Truscott, membership director of the DeLorean Owners Association.

DeLorean's company collapsed in 1983, a year after he was arrested in Los Angeles, accused in a sting of conspiring to sell $24 million of cocaine to salvage the company.

DeLorean used an entrapment defense to win acquittal on the drug charges in 1984, despite a surveillance videotape in which he was shown calling a suitcase full of cocaine "good as gold."

He was later cleared of defrauding his investors, but continuing legal entanglements kept him on the sidelines of the automotive world. He declared bankruptcy in 1999.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: automakers; delorean; entrepreneurs; obituary
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To: kenth

That bugs me too, and I'm only 27 (the AC/DC Muzak thing I mean).


41 posted on 03/20/2005 12:15:22 PM PST by RockinRight (Electing Hillary president would be akin to giving a drunken teenage boy keys to the Porsche)
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To: tet68

Dr. Emmett Brown:

I'm sure in 1985, plutonium is available at every corner drugstore, but in 1955 it's a little hard to come by.


42 posted on 03/20/2005 12:16:52 PM PST by RockinRight (Electing Hillary president would be akin to giving a drunken teenage boy keys to the Porsche)
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To: RockinRight

Not at every corner drugstore but maybe at every
Dairy Queen?


43 posted on 03/20/2005 12:18:59 PM PST by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: tet68

44 posted on 03/20/2005 12:19:05 PM PST by RockinRight (Electing Hillary president would be akin to giving a drunken teenage boy keys to the Porsche)
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To: Mr. Mojo
Car DeveloperCoke Dealer John DeLorean Dies at 80
45 posted on 03/20/2005 12:20:37 PM PST by Doohickey ("This is a hard and dirty war, but when it's over, nothing will ever be too difficult again.”)
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To: drt1
Damn - Time is passing. Had no idea he was that old. I guess I have no idea I'M this old!

Ain't that the truth. Our medicine cabinet now looks like the medicine cabinets of our parents whom we used to snicker at and say.....'They're old'.

I guess the whole circle of life thing is at play, and it sucks. But it beats the alternative.

46 posted on 03/20/2005 12:27:10 PM PST by processing please hold (Islam and Christianity do not mix ----9-11 taught us that)
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To: pbrown

The man was a deadbeat in the end.


47 posted on 03/20/2005 12:33:57 PM PST by OldFriend ("If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child might have peace." Thomas Paine)
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To: OldFriend
The car was a piece of junk, always in the shop.

I wondered about that. I did a quick internet search and there are several DeLoreans for sale with under 10,000 miles.

48 posted on 03/20/2005 12:43:51 PM PST by kennedy ("Why would I listen to losers?")
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To: kennedy
A neighbor had one......it was forever in the shop.

Not being a car person, I can say that my Ford was also always in the shop in those years.

As was our Alfa Romeo......

Now we're old and have a faithful Subaru!!!

49 posted on 03/20/2005 12:46:02 PM PST by OldFriend ("If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child might have peace." Thomas Paine)
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To: OldFriend
I only remember the controversy over him vaguely. I wasn't much of a concerned citizen in the '80's. I had a teenage daughter that I was thinking about killing at the time. Just about the time she grew that dreaded second head that girls at their age grow.....lol
50 posted on 03/20/2005 1:04:19 PM PST by processing please hold (Islam and Christianity do not mix ----9-11 taught us that)
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To: Mr. Mojo
One of my childhood heroes. I remember being seven years old and seeing Delorean on TV talking about his new models. He really seemed like a really cool guy and I loved the side hatch doors. He made the rather unsexy automobile industry (which my father worked in) look cool.

A few months later, he was on TV snorting coke.

51 posted on 03/20/2005 1:06:53 PM PST by Clemenza (Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms: The Other Holy Trinity)
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To: pbrown

DeLorean's daughter Catherine was in my daughter's high school.........AAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH


52 posted on 03/20/2005 1:10:48 PM PST by OldFriend ("If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child might have peace." Thomas Paine)
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To: OldFriend
After his acquittal he did not pay his attorneys.

Now that is funny.

53 posted on 03/20/2005 1:13:47 PM PST by Harmless Teddy Bear ( We're all doomed! Who's flying this thing!? Oh right, that would be me. Back to work.)
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To: OldFriend
Was his daughter snooty?

I remember a pretty woman on his arm sometimes, I guess that was his wife, the model/actress.

54 posted on 03/20/2005 1:13:48 PM PST by processing please hold (Islam and Christianity do not mix ----9-11 taught us that)
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To: OldFriend

Its hard to believe that the meth and coke addicted creep that we saw in the earlier picture was the same suave, debonair guy who impressed me at a young age. He went from being James Bond to Crackhead Bob.


55 posted on 03/20/2005 1:17:19 PM PST by Clemenza (Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms: The Other Holy Trinity)
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To: Clemenza

Uh oh, I suspect the pictures are of the murderer of Jessica Lundford.


56 posted on 03/20/2005 1:23:21 PM PST by OldFriend ("If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child might have peace." Thomas Paine)
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To: pbrown

Spoiled rotten.


57 posted on 03/20/2005 1:24:47 PM PST by OldFriend ("If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child might have peace." Thomas Paine)
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To: OldFriend

Figures.


58 posted on 03/20/2005 1:27:28 PM PST by processing please hold (Islam and Christianity do not mix ----9-11 taught us that)
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To: OldFriend
Whoops, my bad. I've been hanging out in the San Juan Islands and haven't had much time to get a good look at Lunford's murderer.

The good news is that Florida will give him the needle. In New York or New Jersey, he would be sitting in Attica or Rahway while his lawyers filed appeal after appeal at taxpayers expense.

59 posted on 03/20/2005 1:28:27 PM PST by Clemenza (Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms: The Other Holy Trinity)
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To: Clemenza
Last time I saw John DeLorean he was tall, thin, beautiful silver hair, and quite handsome.

He has had a stroke and it's been years since I saw him out and about.

60 posted on 03/20/2005 1:30:33 PM PST by OldFriend ("If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child might have peace." Thomas Paine)
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