Hey, I finally found it............From the San Diego Union Tribune Uri Berliner STAFF WRITER 03-May-1999 Monday John Z. DeLorean John Z. DeLorean won't give up. At 74, he still harbors dreams of gull-wing doors and a sleek, supercharged sports car that rocks the staid automotive industry. He's sure he will build it, maybe not this year, but sometime soon, two or three years down the road. "Cars are in my blood," said DeLorean, the quixotic figure known as well for his courtroom battles as the stainless steel cult car he manufactured a generation ago. "They're really the only thing I've ever worked at." Once, in another life, DeLorean spent a fair amount of time on a 48-acre citrus and avocado ranch he owned in San Diego County's Pauma Valley. But he transferred the $2.5 million property to the attorney who represented him against cocaine trafficking and fraud charges related to his failed DeLorean Motor Car Co. He was acquitted in the mid-1980s in both cases, but prefers not to dwell on his legal odyssey. "I don't look back at all," he said. DeLorean now splits his time between a farm in Bedminster, N.J., and New York City, still the visionary engineer obsessed with aerodynamics, lightweight materials and speed. What's on the drawing board now? A 1,450-pound sports car made of structural plastic that can blast from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3.2 seconds, starting at about $18,000. Equipped, of course, with DeLorean's signature gull-wing doors. With his elegant manner, silver-maned good looks and flair for the dramatic gesture -- the DeLorean Motor Car was built in violence-scarred Belfast, Northern Ireland, the former General Motors executive has always made sure to stand out in the crowd. "The key to the car business is generating some excitement," DeLorean said. "There are very few cars anyone's dying to own. It seems like they all have this round, amorphous, droopy look." DeLorean turns elliptical when the subject turns to his partners or sources of financing. When asked the name of his new venture, he responds: "If you put the money up, I'll name it after you." Meanwhile, the original DeLorean Motor Car remains a symbol of iconoclastic quirkiness, having been featured in the "Back to the Future" movies as the launch vehicle for time travel. Aficionados trade in parts and DeLorean lore over the Internet, and DeLorean himself receives letters and packages from DMC owners regularly. "I just got a glovebox door that a woman wants me to sign for her husband," he said in a recent phone interview. Though several thousand DMCs remain on the road, the man behind the machine doesn't drive one. He prefers to look ahead, part engineer, part sci-fi fantasist, refusing to go quietly in his twilight. Another DeLorean plan: an elevated rail system that would run about 100 feet above freeway right-of-ways in traffic-snarled areas like Southern California. The rail line would feature lightweight cars made of aerospace composites and could zip passengers along at more than 300 miles per hour. Travel time from San Diego to Los Angeles? A tad under 30 minutes. "You'd be sitting on the freeway in traffic and look up and say, 'Shoot, there is a better way,'" said DeLorean, imagining the biggest breakthrough in mass transit since the subway. "Right now, we're looking for a place to do a test demonstration." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eGroup home: http://www.eGroups.com/group/dmcnews http://www.eGroups.com - Simplifying group communications