John DeLorean and his iconic car live again in new book

By Jim Bray
January 14, 2025

If you've ever wondered what the real story was behind the DMC-12 and its famous, infamous, and late, inventor, a new book gives insight you might find quite fascinating.

"Delorean: the Rise, Fall and Second Acts of the Delorean Motor Company", by Matt Stone, is an easy read, illustrated copiously, and it basically follows the life of John Zachary DeLorean from when he was a nipper until, well, today – which is about two decades after his untimely death from a stroke.

It's a tale of the pursuit of one's dreams, the pursuit of excellence, and the lengths to which some people will go to ensure their dream is realized – or that an upstart's dream isn't.

I enjoyed it quite a bit!

I also learned quite a bit.

Oh, I new who Delorean was; it's hard to be a car guy and not have heard of the guy who brought the world the stainless steel-bodied gull winger sports car from the early 1980's. Heck, even if you're not a car guy you've undoubtedly seen the iconic DMC-12 from its appearances as the pivotal time machine in the Back to the Future movies.

But there was a lot more to the man than merely the DMC-12 – though of course he's most famous for that attempt to create a brand-new sports car that could go head-to-head against the existing giants and the sports car establishment.

In fact, DeLorean first made his name at General Motors, at the time the world's largest car company. It was he who dreamed up the concept of the muscle car – a mostly conventional sedan or coupe into which a large engine and other performance upgrades were crammed in.

I had always thought that Lee Iacocca invented the muscle car by taking a Ford Falcon and turning it into the Mustang, but the book says that DeLorean did it first, with the Pontiac GTO – one of the few GM cars I ever found appealing.

But John Z had had enough of the corporate towers, as well as (according to Stone's book) the planned obsolescence he saw the "Big Three" engineering into their vehicles to ensure they didn't last as long as they could, thereby ensuring new car sales. And he wanted to change that.

He knew he couldn't just come up with another Chevy Vega (another of his "achievements") if his company were to survive and flourish – he had to find a niche and fill it with his proverbial better mouse trap. And that's from whence the DMC-12 came.

I had heard criticisms of the DMC-12 itself, that it wasn't much of a car, and I suppose that's true to a certain extent, at least as far as its engine was concerned. It was a tad anemic at about 130 horses, though that isn't too bad for back then. I had a 1983 Toyota Supra in that era and it was rated at about 150 horses, so theoretically it would have blown the doors off a DeLorean, but the DMC also had other things going for it besides its terrific styling – which came courtesy of the famed Italian studio Italdesign, thanks to the pen of the great Giorgetto Giugaro.

The DMC-12's handling should have been up to snuff, because DeLorean wisely got into bed with Lotus, whose Esprit shares some of the DMC's DNA, including that of the Italdesign studio. I've never driven a DMC-12, nor an Esprit, and so can't comment on that, but a car can do a lot worse than handle like a Lotus.

Manufacturing was done at a new facility in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a place that at the time was experiencing a lot of sectarian violence. According to the book that violence pretty much stayed outside the factory property, and the people inside (whether Catholic or Protestant) were more interested in making a living than in making a religious and/or political statement.

Alas, the money ran out and the DeLorean car company ended up teetering financially, and this appears to be where a lot of John DeLorean's legal troubles began. Desperate for money, he was ripe for victimization and the book makes it appear (not that I have any reason to doubt it) that he was entrapped by a corrupt government into a cocaine scheme that wreaked havoc on his life and which certainly didn't help keep his company afloat.

The book outlines his trial (in a chapter called Tribulations and Trials) and his eventual exoneration – though of course by then the damage had been done. In fact, I remember well when he was busted and going to jail/trial, but I didn't remember that he was found not guilty on all the counts with which he was charged. Funny how that works with the mainstream media.

Or, as Don Henley said so wisely in his classic song "Dirty Laundry": "Kick 'em when they're up, kick 'em when they're down."

Those years apparently, and quite understandably, took a huge toll on John Z. DeLorean, though he also found God during his ordeals and that seems to have brought him peace.

Alas the DMC-12 was still dead. And it appeared to be slated to be forgotten much like the Canadian gull winged Bricklin of a few years before it.

Then came Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, who had made the hilarious "Used Cars" and who had an idea for a science fiction time travel comedy called Back to the Future. And the rest is history.

Oh, the car is still dead, but it's no longer a forgotten footnote in automotive history. In fact, it has built quite the cult following.

Matt Stone devotes an entire chapter to this, er, chapter in DeLorean history, and as a movie and car buff I found it quite fascinating.

After the Back to the Future movies, DeLorean was no longer forgotten and in recent years others of his family (as mentioned above, John Z. DeLorean died of a stroke in 2002), including his daughter, decided they'd try to resurrect the DeLorean name in automotive circles. Stone devotes his final chapter to the concepts that have been floated to bring new models to the market, including electric ones that strike me (at this state of the automotive market) as a pretty dumb idea. As usual, of course, no one asked me.

Stone also covers the state of the classic DMC-12 today, in a chapter dedicated to the car clubs and the variety of aftermarket service outlets that still help keep the stainless-steel icon on the road.

In all, it's a very interesting book, written well for the most part, and with a lot of great illustrations. It's a very easy read and, at only 192 pages including the index, I got through it in only a couple of sittings.

The book isn't cheap by any means: according to the back cover, it retails for $52.99 Canadian, though as I write this Amazon has it on for $49.57. It makes for a very nice coffee table book, and you may find you learn quite a bit about DeLorean the man and Delorean the company that you didn't know before.

I certainly did.