In 1965 Pontiac headlights were vertical with the top headlight protruding out over the bottom. Only year like that. In 1965, the entire Pontiac lineup was Motor Trends Car of the Year.
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 $24 million of cocaine to salvage the company.
DeLorean used an entrapment defense to win acquittal on the drug charges in 1984, despite a surveillance videotape in which he was shown calling a suitcase full of cocaine "good as gold."
He was later cleared of defrauding his investors, but continuing legal entanglements kept him on the sidelines of the automotive world. He declared bankruptcy in 1999.
Oops, we're both right:
Technically, the DMC-12 is a solid automobile, powered by a rear-mounted, 130-horsepower Peugeot-Renault-Volvo fuel-injected, aluminum, 2.8-liter V-6 engine with a Bosch K Jetronic fuel-injection system. It sits on a Lotus-designed, double-Y,
http://www.delorean-owners.org/legend/index.html
We bought this car two years ago we are the second owner. The car gets a lot of attention wherever we go. We love it, but we don't drive it daily.
One thing I remember is that DeLorean had considerable plastic surgery to harden his facial features, give him a "stronger" chin, angle his face, etc., in order to look like a prototypical "movie star" business executive.
Good grief. I had no idea he has plastic surgery. He was a brilliant exec at GM and hardly needed to change his face.
But with a 389 and 3 deuces and the only options a heater and a radio you could go through a set of rear tires over the weekend.
Eventually bored it out to a 394 so I could put in double dome pistons and a 3/4 cam and headers that made pulling the exhaust for the weekend drag races a snap. I could take just about everything but those @#$^ 396 Cameros and the SS396. I think those guys knew how to cheat better than I did....
Good thing gas was less than a quarter a gallon back in those days...
From: HERE
His daughter Catherine was at my daughter's high school for a couple of years.
In 1965 Pontiac headlights were vertical with the top headlight protruding out over the bottom. Only year like that. In 1965, the entire Pontiac lineup was Motor Trends Car of the Year.
Q:how do you know it's a delorean going down the road?
A:the white lines disappear underneath it.
(Carson joke in reference to Delorean's cocaine involvement)
You couldn't support 8,000 drivers that way - the point is if you wanted to introduce a new model - you need to have a nation-wide network to support warrenties, do maintenance, stock parts, etc. Any car can be supported by a dedicated home mechanic - I have a friend who maintains his classic Aston-Martins for the cost of parts but I wouldn't say you could build a viable market for the typical driver based on that evidence.
Yes, the car came with a detachable rear-view mirror, and snow tires!
A:the white lines disappear underneath it.
LOL! A blast from the past. Thanks.....;^)
A late reply here. There are quite a few DeLoreans around Cleveland. There is still a DeLorean Cadillac just to the west, owned, I think, by his brother, at least back then.
autoweek says he was living in a 2 bedroom apartment in Morristown NJ at the time of his death, having gone through bankruptcy, he was selling watches over the internet to earn money - and amazingly, was involved in a project to develop a new sports car.
Our opinions on him differ - the guy was a brilliant engineer - and was targetted in that drug sting because it was known he was desperate to raise money to keep his company going. GM didn't everything they could to try and stop him from succeeding.
"...Hearing a muzak version of AC/DC in a grocery store the other day doesn't help..."
I was thinking the very same thing the other day when I was at a store tapping my foot to Red Hot Chili Peppers muzak. To bring this thread back to John Z. DeLorean, his guidance in the late-60's made for some awesome vehicles that look like a million bucks even today. Oh, shoot, that is almost forty years ago.
~ Blue Jays ~
You are right, the feds targeted him for their own reasons. They used his little son in their sting which is probably why the jury acquitted him.
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