John Zachary Delorean’s 2005 obituaries dwelt on his chequered industrial career, his drugs bust and his glamorous private life. There were not many compliments for a man whose personal vanity knew no bounds, whose good looks were a result of surgical enhancement of his chin. He also persuaded our government to part with £80million for a factory in Northern Ireland, and his role in the downfall and death of Lotus founder Colin Chapman remained shrouded in mystery.
This week’s TV documentary shed no more light.
Like the obituarists it neglected the shortcomings of Delorean’s most tangible legacy, the DMC-12 car. It had an engine overhanging the back wheels, a stainless-steel body, upward-opening doors and was a resounding failure. Only 8583 were built before the firm went bankrupt. Even the genius of Colin Chapman at Lotus was not up to rescuing an impractical design replete with gimcrack features.
John Delorean knew the car business all right. His sales pitch went to impressionable politicians, so he put forward a design to impress anybody whose ideas of a sports car crystallised in the 1950s. Those famous gull-wing doors, unlike those on the Mercedes-Benz SL (Sport Leichtbau) Le Mans racer and 300SL of 1952, had no structural rationale. Delorean included them for effect. He put the engine at the back because Porsches were rear-engined so rear-engined looked good. Only people who knew no better believed that. Porsches of the 1950s were little more than over-developed Volkswagens, with quirky swing-axle rear suspension that dithered and bounced on corners.
Porsche drivers believed fast cars must be difficult. If not teetering on the threshold of disaster, a driver’s mettle was not being tested, they were not getting their money’s worth unless it felt dangerous, which it often was. Even after Lotus replaced a plastic and reinforced glass-fibre chassis with a steel one, the Delorean’s handling remained at best indifferent.
MG Classics by Eric Dymock. Dove Publishing Ltd, Model by Model Books 1, 2 and 3
The fact was that by the 1980s rear engines were discredited and one of the Delorean’s ploys, different sized tyres front and rear was of no help. The DMC-12’s starring role in Back to the Future movies enabled Delorean apologists marvel that survivors commanded premium prices from collectors. Beyond its status as a monumental fraud its appeal was difficult to believe. Its only success came as an instrument for extracting large amounts of taxpayer’s cash, convincing politicians not to take the advice of astute civil servants. Even Margaret Thatcher admitted the mistake. If ever a car was a product of hype and humbug this was it. Superficial and thoroughly phoney it was designed to impress people making political capital.
The engine was the lacklustre Peugeot-Renault-Volvo co-operative V6, providing a feeble performance and the automatic gearbox was slothful. Following criticism from journalists, Delorean avoided proper road test reports, “ …in order to emphasise the car’s exclusive nature,” but in reality because it was apparent how bad it was. “Underpowered and flabby… the ride qualities of a New York taxi … dull, lazy, no brio with a boudoir interior … stodgy … unmemorable … vague steering,” were some of the criticisms Classic Cars magazine levelled when they got round to driving one.
One of the most expensive departments of a car plant was a paint shop, so Delorean saved the money and pretended the brushed stainless-steel finish was a style feature. Like the entire project, it soon tarnished. Collectors or car museums coat Deloreans with clear varnish
Despite scepticism in the motoring press, notably when Motor magazine alerted the world to the pretence on which the Delorean was based, production went ahead. It lasted until 1982 when the receiver was called in. Success had depended on outselling Lotus, Porsche, and all the European-style sports cars in the United States, with a car that had none of their racing pedigree nor sporting reputation. Selling 30,000 a year in a market hard put to absorb 20,000 of the native popular Chevrolet Corvette had never been realistic.
I watched John Z introduce the Delorean at the Geneva motor show of 1981, boasting that he had sold more cars than any other human being, conveniently overlooking all the other former General Motors executives who could claim much the same. What could not be avoided was the shortfall between his prospectus and its achievement.
John Delorean’s claim that he was motivated by a desire to help Northern Ireland was hard to accept, since he had previously been motivated by a desire to help a Free Trade Area in the Irish Republic, and before that a depressed zone in Puerto Rico also awash with government subsidy.
The $24million cocaine indictment was not Delorean’s only difficulty. A Michigan Grand Jury investigated him over $17,650,000 missing from the project’s accounts, believed set aside in a Swiss bank for illicit payments to Colin Chapman, who died unexpectedly of a heart attack following a meeting with Delorean’s henchmen.
Delorean claimed his car’s sales suffered because of a hard winter in the United States. Yet a good car would have weathered snowfalls. His assessment of dealing with the British government, that it was, “ like trying to dance in wet cement”, was best explained by the likelihood – judging by the performance of his venture – that he had feet of clay.
