Picking up where we left with my recent road trip to Georgia, I had commented how the pace of traffic picks up pretty radically as you near town. That point seems to get farther and farther out, though! At any rate, traveling on a Sunday made the trip through downtown Atlanta fairly pleasant, especially since I was able to meet my youngest brother across the highway from my alma mater at The Varsity and catch up a bit over Naked Steaks and FOs. Darkness was settling as we parted, and after negotiating the I-75/85/20 interchange and settling into the flow, I noticed a familiar sight moving up fast in the right lane…
As I was enjoying some windows-down motoring, I caught the throaty growl of the 130hp fuel-injected PRV (Peugeot, Renault, Volvo) ZMJ-159 V6 engine, which is of a 90° cylinder bank angle, “odd-fire” design. These characteristics make for a unique audio footprint, which I distinctly remember being shared by the 3.8l Buick V6 I had swapped into my ’71 Vega.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a full CC treatment on the DeLorean DMC-12. We do have a few pieces to whet your appetite until someone has time to write one up, though.
I was lost in my thoughts remembering college days as the DeLorean sped off into the night, followed shortly afterwards by a brief flash on the horizon…
Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads!
And I was wondering how many comments it would take before the first “BTTF” reference.
Just one, apparently!
“When this article hits 88 comments, you’re gonna read some serious shit!”
I always laughed at the 88 mph requirement as a kid (BTTF is the first PG movie my parents actually let me go to at the ripe old age of 8).
I knew cars were limited to 85 mph speedometers by govt. regulation but it still seemed to me like time travel should require a higher speed than that.
Funniest part was watching the movie car trying to hit 88mph the word gutless springs to mind are you sure they didnt make a 4
I always assumed time travel was only possible when all of the elements of the the two digit LCD speedometer were displayed lol
I know, the VW Bus the Libyans were driving was giving the DeLorean a serious run for the money
I think they had to create a speedometer for the DeLorean in the movie with markings that were higher than 85 so you could actually see the needle hit 88.
Where would the DeLorean be without Back to the Future? It is funny how certain cars get picked out to become movie and TV stars and get fame far beyond what they would have received otherwise. I’m thinking of Christine (the 58 Plymouth Fury), the Charger from the Dukes of Hazzard and the Starsky & Hutch Torino. Everybody recognizes these cars. I’m sure there are others.
A gorgeous car and one of Giugiaro’s masterpieces. Bit of trivia… the most money Mike and Edd ever made on a Wheeler Dealer flip was on a DeLorean. How fun it must be to have a DMC-12 in England!
Ive only seen a static display Delorean, not found one in the wild yet nor am I expecting to even the Peugeots Renaults and Volvos that used that engine are very rare because of it.
One of these is a regular at the cruise night at North Park Mall. The owner even has made his own flux capacitor, placed between the seats. The car is otherwise stock, and in primo condition.
The Lemay museum in Tacoma had a couple DeLoreans on display, parked nose-to-nose, when I went there a couple months back. They’re not very impressive cars at all when you look at them up close! The interiors had a generic quality, and those stainless-steel panels just made them look like old, battered kitchen equipment. Deep-fry cookers with gullwing doors! That’s great that Ed caught one on the highway, though. Cars are made to be driven.
That was an eighties car problem with the “generic” interiors.
There was a DeLorean dealer in the neighborhood where I drove a cab (small suburban cab company).
Not only that…it was a DeLorean dealer who was a DeLorean brother. Chuck DeLorean, who owned DeLorean Cadillac, in Lakewood, Ohio.
And just to add to the fun: During my tenure, such as it was, driving for this company…was when the ca-ca went down for John D. Shortly after his arrest…I’m taking a fare to Hopkins Airport, trundling her bags for her (gotta earn that quarter tip!)…and who in God’s Green Earth should I nearly run into? None other than The Great DeLorean.
I didn’t stop. I didn’t introduce. Hell, if he could have dropped his pride, he’d probably have worn a ski mask. As it was…there was no mistaking the thick, gray hair, the patrician scowl. His photos were all over the Cleveland paper.
I’m guessing he was in town to tap his brother up for legal funding. Now, I know, in glitzy parts of the world, it’s nothing to run into some movie sleb out doing a pub-crawl…but with all the hoopla about the DMC, and then about The Arrest; and about John’s newest career, that of an importer of controlled substances…and the Cleveland connection (not every town had a DeLorean DeLorean dealership)…
Oh, well. Cleveland being what it is, the few DMC-12s out there quickly found better environs or otherwise disappeared.
I think one of the Hemmings staff interviewed him over the phone, said he was pleasant and answered the phone on the first ring himself. I think John Z did more good than harm and overreached by trying to build his own car. The arrest be dammed, at least he was trying to save his company and was not caught doing something silly.
I’ve seen a couple in museums here in NZ, but have only seen one on the road – and it was painted yellow, which kind of ruined the whole point of them.
When the dealers couldn’t move them around here they started painting them red to try and get some interest. The red ones still show up around here every year or two.
I recall seeing a red one down here in Miami too. These were probably more common down here than in other places, since the DeLorean, the 80’s and Miami all really went well together, I mean this was a car you practically had to be high on cocaine to buy, no one would consider one while sober. DeLorean wasn’t busted trying to sell cocaine, he was in negotiations to make it a factory installed option.
I used to see them in traffic and in parking lots frequently when I was a kid, I don’t recall what dealership sold them new. I remember on passing us on the highway once with a golden retriever sticking its whole head out the little window.
As I remember, there was a certain percentage of people who hated the stainless look with its perpetual fingerprints all over it. I recall the pieces in the automotive press that the company had approved a paint for painting the stainless. I guess when every possible potential buyer counts . . . . Always seemed silly to me to paint stainless steel.