For those that possibly don’t know, I am a huge DeLorean enthusiast in addition to my slight addiction to the Mac community. When I have the time to pull myself away from my Mac and my code, I do enjoy playing the Alto Sax and reading all I can on this wonderful car. My goal is to one day soon own one. We’ll see how that all pans out as they tend to be a bit out of my college-student budget at the moment, but one day, one of these beauties will be mine!

So, to share a bit of my love for this truly unique and amazing car, I thought I would share some really good links with you so that you can get started researching and falling in love with one of these yourself. To give a brief history for those out there who may have never seen one (as is the case with me, I’ve never laid eyes on one in person) or those that don’t know the history behind the car, here is a brief intro.

John Z DeLorean was a genius car engineer and designer that headed up great projects during his time at GM. He is credited with many accomplishments, a major one in my eye being the fact that he is the father of the Pontiac GTO. Do some research on the ‘64 Goat (as they were called). A beautiful car that my Dad had for a long time as his first love. After several successful years with GM, however, John wanted to design his own sports car and the idea of DMC, DeLorean Motor Company, was born. To not make this too boring, the guy put a lot of heart and soul into the car. One distinguishing characteristic is that the car is really roomy since John was a very tall man and most sports cars are very uncomfortable for tall people. He designed the sports car that he always wanted.

Keep in mind this car was under development for much of the late 70s and was designed to compete with cars such as a ‘77 Corvette, a Porsche model as well as a Mercedes. John build a state-of-the-art factory in Ireland because it was cheaper to manufacture the cars there and started turning out the first ones in 1981. The last DeLorean rolled out of the plant in 1983 after the company had tried to expand much too quickly and John got caught up in the mess. He ended up doing hard time because he had sold drugs in order to raise capital. The Irish workers were angry, closed down the factory and threw the molds into the sea.

Despite the very short-lived official DMC, the cars are still on the road today. In fact, there are still lots of original parts left over from the factory that were never used, so repairing a DeLorean might not be as easy as driving to AutoZone, but there are parts available from several big centers throughout the US and Europe.

The DeLorean really gained its popularity after it was used in the 1980s movie trilogy, Back to the Future, where the car was used as a time machine.

Today you can find DeLoreans for sale on places such as eBay and other automotive sites on the internet, or you can check into buying a “remanufactured” one that is as good as new from DMC Texas for about $44,000 USD.

Links:

DMC Texas - Great source of parts and information including remanufactured and “preowned” (as-is) DeLoreans
Delorean One - Another very large company that specializes in parts, repairs, and remanufactured vehicles
Delorean Car Show Website (with a podcast) - This is every two years with the next one being in Gettysburg for 2008
DMC News - A great mailing list with lots of info and cars for sale

Free DeLorean Backgrounds - What it says. 36 great pictures that were used in the calendar
DeLorean World Magazine - The only magazine to keep up with DeLorean news

Read all about Delorean and the car on Wikipedia
Back to the Future - A great website for all of those that are fanatical about this movie series