thoughts from a new owner

[webmaster@xxxx]

Please indulge me for a second...

I OWN A DELOREAN!!!

(Sorry for shouting, but I've been waiting 15 years to say that and 
this is the closest thing to "the rooftops" that I could find!)

I flew to Cleveland this past Saturday and purchased VIN 6681 from 
its original owner (who only put 5,000 miles on it, bless her heart). 
Huge thanks go to Marty Maier and Mike Substelny for all their time 
and wonderful advice!

I've only owned my D for a few days, so I'm as far from being an 
expert as one can get. Still, I feel I've learned a lot recently and 
would like to offer some advice to those still waiting to live the 
dream (since I was in the same boat just one week ago!).

First, I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't made some 
connections with folks in the D community. Since I live in a small 
town in rural Illinois, I always presumed if I bought a DeLorean I'd 
be all alone with no support network nearby. Well, not only did I 
discover somebody a stone's throw away who owns two D's, but there's 
even an entire club in my area! You might not be as fortunate, 
depending on where you live, but I'd wager there's somebody out there 
(probably on the DML, by the way) who would be willing to show you 
their car and share some knowledge.

Also, don't let the opinions of others make you feel discouraged. The 
majority of my peers who knew I was going to buy a DeLorean thought I 
was nuts. They perceived the car as an odd relic from a cheesy era of 
excess -- quaint, but lame. If I had "that kind of money" to spend, 
by their rationale, why not buy a "real sports car" with it? That 
type of attitude wasn't too surprising to me, but what I hadn't 
anticipated was that people's reactions to the *idea* of a DeLorean 
are generally very different from their reactions to a *real* 
DeLorean. Folks at work who had been making jokes about Miami Vice 
and parachute pants last week were huddled around photos of my car 
and begging me to drive the thing to work yesterday. Within the first 
hour and a half of ownership, I had one guy request a photo with my 
car, a few people drive up to get a closer look, two carloads of 
people shouting in approval ("Woo! DeLorean!" and "Back to the 
Future!"), and more passing rubberneckers than I could count. In just 
the first ninety minutes! I hope I never get complacent about that 
and forget how fortunate I am to own such an amazing automobile.

________________
Todd Masinelli
VIN 6681