Posted on 03/26/2005 2:28:11 PM PST by UnklGene
In Humble, a legacy lives on -
DMC restores the maverick automaker's famous steel sports car
By LOUIS B. PARKS
Craig H. Hartley / Special to the Chronicle DMC service manager Bill Morgan, left, shows off the classic gull-wing doors for Rafael Hernandez Jr. and Monica Hernandez. Saturday's passing of John Z. DeLorean, the controversial figure behind the DeLorean Motor Car Company's short but high-profile bid for glory, closed an unusual chapter of automotive history. And the death of the 80-year-old Detroit native is only likely to increase the collectible appeal of the automobile that carries his name.
Luckily for enthusiasts who fell in love with the stainless steel DeLorean that Michael J. Fox took for a big-screen spin in 1985's Back to the Future, a mint-condition car of their dreams can be found just 20 miles north of downtown Houston.
On Wednesday at the Humble warehouse of the DeLorean Motor Company, nearly a dozen DeLoreans formed a perfect silver and black row in the shop's parking lot.
Inside the warehouse were several hundred unused engines, transmissions, doors and seats, some still in their original assembly line bins.
"Last year I sold 20-25 (DeLoreans)," said James Espey, vice president of the Houston DMC, which has the rights to the name of John DeLorean's original company that produced slightly fewer than 9,000 of the flashy two-seaters from 1980-83 in a plant near Belfast, Ireland.
The Humble company owns most of the remaining factory parts. Enough so that it can all but build new DeLoreans. It also has the engineering drawings so that every part can be manufactured.
"We can't build new cars because the (auto regulations) have changed so much. We'll buy an older DeLorean, strip it completely (down to the frame), then rebuild it with all these parts you see," Espey said, nodding at the rows of high shelves in the 40,000-square-foot warehouse/automotive shop. "That way (customers) are getting a new 20-year-old DeLorean."
A refurbished DeLorean doesn't have the extravagant rear valves and louvers featured on the time-traveling machine of the Back to the Future trilogy. But the car purrs like a kitten and, even 20-odd years later, looks sleek, sporty and fast. And with its famously designed doors flung up like great wings, the DeLorean still is cool.
Today's DeLorean buyers generally are in their late 20s or early 30s, Espey said.
"(The average buyer) saw Back to the Future when he was a kid," said Espey, who attended DeLorean's funeral Thursday near Detroit. "Now he has the money to get the car he wanted."
A used DeLorean, depending on its condition, may cost as little as a few thousand dollars, but DMC's completely refurbished models start at $37,500.
New DeLoreans sold for about $33,000 in 1983, the year the line closed.
"We strip it to a bare frame and start building a new car from there up (but) once people start doing things with stereos and performance packages, (the costs) start getting into the mid-40s."
Though DMC takes in cars for repairs, refreshing and restoration, its main business is selling parts to DeLorean owners and to other shops that repair these unique cars.
"Mechanically (DeLoreans are) really not that different (from other cars)" DMC service manager Bill Morgan said. "Their uniqueness is in the ownership devotion to the car. The continued enthusiasm."
One thing the company does not do is paint the car's classic never-rust stainless steel body.
"A quality paint job on a DeLorean is very expensive," Espey said. "Paint usually won't stick to stainless steel so you have to pay careful attention to how you prep the metal and what primers you use. Whatever you put into it in painting, you can take that off the value. If you buy one for $20,000, and pay $6,000 to have it painted, you have a $14,000 car. It is no longer an original DeLorean. There were no factory painted cars — ever."
You'll hate the snotty Renault engine...
Maybe there is room for the 7.3L diesel in there.
Yep, he is something else!
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