1.21 gigawatt electric car!?!

[SignOfZeta]

why they don't just do eet? this car would sell like hell nowadays...lol

The price of a very good condition DMC12 is less than a loaded 2011 Golf. These cars aren't worth shit and never have been.

[rag-time4]

A new ride for Marty?

Rag-time probably just had an accident in his pants, but will anyone else give a shit?  I think I'll wait for the Mr. Fusion version, so I won't have to worry about finding a plug-in.

i think its an interesting story for sure! I would question seriously the tact of the author of the article however, as the reason Mr DeLorean is not involved with the project largely because he passed away 6 years ago...

On the subject of safety, i would be very interested to see comparisons with other rear engine cars. One should keep in mind that the front of the delorean is trunk space, the engine compartment is in the rear.

The DeLorean was 20hp better in Europe, power was reduced for emissions controls in the US.

I think that like any car, the DeLorean has strengths and weaknesses. I love the exterior and interior design. A big part of a sports car is the appearance and feel, and the DeLorean has that to me. I totally agree that for the price point it should have been more powerful. Perhaps if the company had lasted longer the car could have gotten an engine upgrade. Many smaller parts of the car were upgraded during the car's three year run.

As far as the cocaine allegations, and the fate of the company, i really take DeLorean's side. He was found not guilty of the cocaine charges due to government entrapment. I think that he really deserves a lot of credit for opening his factory in Northern Ireland where there were, and probably are, so many people desperate for work and opportunity. Maybe being in the U.K. Had something to do with the price point of the car.

[SignOfZeta]

Its kind of hard to explain the degree to with modern cars are safer than older ones to people who haven't had a lot of experience with it. The advances are in the details. It doesn't matter where the engine is, how big the car is, how much it weighs. A new Boxster would rip a '72 LTD in half. A new Fiesta versus a '79 F-150? I'd take my chances in the Fiesta. Full frame cars are strong in many ways, but the frame doesn't help you much when it becomes completely separated from the body! The DeLorean's basic chassis is constructed like many Lotus cars used to be made. I'm not sure if any mass production car uses that method anymore since not only does it suck in a crash, but it really can't compare to fully unitized construction methods when it comes to chassis rigidity.

The best example for what I'm talking about would be this:


As for the DeLorean...my distaste for this vehicle mainly stems from it being so famous, and its form over function nature. A sports car should drive well. That is all the matters. That's why the Miata, which essentially looks like nothing and has no design to speak of, is the most successful sports car of all time by a huge margin. It does what its supposed to do.

The fact that they even sold the DMC12 with that piece of shit engine shows how superficial and meaningless the project was. Its like making a pickup with a carrying capacity of 100lbs. Its fake as hell. They never wanted it to actually do what it looked like it did. The US emissions thing wasn't a good excuse either. All cars had to meet those requirements, and everything from Europe took a hit. The DMC would get schooled by a Fiat X 1/9 in Europe, and it would get schooled here as well.

The car looks f*cking great. It looks even better if you lower it by about 1". Truly it is beautiful. In todays world it would be a decent candidate for full powertrain replacement. Basically anything remotely modern would be a massive upgrade.

[grahf]

That was an interesting video.  I don't share your views on the DMC12 though. While I agree that it didn't live up to it's image, it's not because it was focusing on form. It's pretty well known that Delorean was disappointed with the performance of the thing, as were some owners. Before they went under, they were getting a supercharger kit together for it. Delorean had one of them on his personal car, and he stated that it brought the thing almost up to what he felt was acceptable. I remember reading an interview with Delorean in an old mens magazine about 10 years ago, and he went into pretty good detail about the whole performance thing.

[SignOfZeta]

Of course he wanted it to be faster. I'm sure he wanted it to get better fuel economy and a better air conditioner. Everyone who makes a car wants things to be as good as possible...but they didn't make performance a priority. Its not like you couldn't get a decent engine in 1981. Hell, the Esprit of that era, which is what the DMC12 was largely based on, outperformed it by a f*cking mile, and that was a 4 cylinder.

The difference here is that, in reality, they sacrificed the powertrain so they could dump a huge amount of money into the design, the stainless steel, the glue-on panels, all that useless shit that made the car look super futuristic but perform...rather badly. The chassis was massaged by Lotus, but an actual Lotus, even a cheap one, like an Elan from 20 years earlier, would rip this thing apart.

The thing is, there have been dozens of failed supercars since the DMC12, and we aren't talking about them. Why? Because they didn't have such a distinctive design. We remember the car to this day because of that, and really that was what doomed it.

Seriously, steel panels glued onto a plastic body...WTF? That is the worst of both worlds. You have the weight of metal but the rigidity of fiberglass. The Esprit just had...the fiberglass, no metal bling glued to it. Makes a lot more sense to me.

[rag-time4]

What was the last independent / start up American owned company to mass produce cars for the U.S. market?

[nectarsis]

What was the last independent / start up American owned company to mass produce cars for the U.S. market?

  AMC?

[rag-time4]

What was the last independent / start up American owned company to mass produce cars for the U.S. market?

  AMC?

AMC predates DeLorean... Have there been any since?

[nectarsis]

What was the last independent / start up American owned company to mass produce cars for the U.S. market?

  AMC?

AMC predates DeLorean... Have there been any since?

You just asked the last one, not the last that predates Delorean...especially as Delorean had such limited numbers it wouldn't really qualify as mass production anyways    I could be wrong but AMC was the last "big hitter" outside the Big 3 for a US auto maker.

[A_Locomotive]

Delorian Motor Company has been in business forever. I'm pretty sure they even have the original tooling, and have been producing new replacement parts for Delorians for a while now. This is definitely real.

They don't actually have the original tooling, what they have is an enormous stock pile of left over parts from when DeLorean went bust, they have enough parts to build complete cars(and in fact are if you've got the cash) with I believe the exception of the fiberglass frame. And if memory serves thats not a problem since they make new ones and I believe they are an improved design they came up with.

[SignOfZeta]

What was the last independent / start up American owned company to mass produce cars for the U.S. market?

Mass produce? Well, that's a tough one. I'm not sure there has been a single new startup car company anywhere in the world since...decades. Its an industry that takes so much more overhead than it used to. You'd need hundreds of billions to make something like a Ford Focus from scratch. This is why there are fewer and fewer car companies every year, they just merge, mainly.

However, Tesla seems to be on the right track. They've taken over the old NUMMI plant last I heard and will be making less exotic stuff than the mediocre, powertrain-swapped, rebadged Lotus they have been selling.

[Necromancer]

What was the last independent / start up American owned company to mass produce cars for the U.S. market?

It depends on what you mean by mass production (only ~10k DMC-12s were made), but there are many startup companies that have come since DeLorean, though most of 'em only have (or had) annual production in the hundreds.  Of those still kicking, check out SSC, Mosler, Panoz, Carbon Motors, and the aforementioned Fisker; likely only the latter two have much chance of ever making thousands of cars per year.

AMC?

The AM General part of that group keeps chugging along.  Have you seen their new Hummer design?  It uses a double-v hull to direct explosions to the sides or to a frickin' chimney in the middle!  Sounds crazy to me.

[DragonmasterDan]

You just asked the last one, not the last that predates Delorean...especially as Delorean had such limited numbers it wouldn't really qualify as mass production anyways    I could be wrong but AMC was the last "big hitter" outside the Big 3 for a US auto maker.

AMC turned into Eagle who got absorbed into Chrysler. The Jeep goes back to AMC.

[SignOfZeta]

Honestly 10,000 cars in two years is HUGE production for a supercar. I consider that mass production.

[Necromancer]

Honestly 10,000 cars in two years is HUGE production for a supercar. I consider that mass production.

Me too.  I meant whether or not the newer companies qualify as mass production for making a few hundred cars annually in comparison to what DeLorean managed to crank out.