Where to begin. The old saying goes, "The truth is niether black or white, but shades of gray." If I were to sum up the operations of the man and the company, that is how I would put it. But still, we need to find a place to begin... I'll be frank, JZD wasn't the picture perfect exec, nor did he run his company idealy as he described how things should have been run by GM in his book "On a Clear Day..." But he sure as hell is in my opinion a more moral man than Iacoca, or Ed Cole (Iacocca was on TV denoucing the classic Mustang. What are the chances he would pull over to completment a Ford owner for having such a nice car!) I'm not going to attack or justify anything, but I will try to explain everything as best I can... First, a little background info about Haddad is needed. JZD hired Haddad because he claimed that he had close ties to the Kennedy family (who is from Twinbrook), and this could benefit DMC/DMCL because the company would be going in with political links/ties to the area. And that could give the company some pull to get things done. He conviced JZD he could help him/the company in the policital realm of Northern Ireland, and was thus hired. The "Gold Facets" memo that stated he wrote on Boxing Day (Dec. 26) was completely false. Later durring another one of JZD's trials, Haddad admitted on the stand under oath, that he did indeed forge the memo. He also conviced JZD's secratary Marion Gibson that everything in the memo was true. She ended up trying to alert the British Govt, and I beleive that Scotland Yard found no problems at that time (it's been a while since I've read Hard Driving, and I don't have a copy handy. bear with me). After she found out that Haddad lied to her, she was truly sorry for what she had done, and even appologized. Haddad does provide us with some interesting inside with his book. But, you must also take into consideration he is biased against JZD, and the fact that he went so far as to forge a public record in the process. Interesting insights, but we can't take everything he says as being etched in stone. DMC/DRLP had no other choice but to agressivly go after any and all capitol they could. After all, they were starting up a new company. Manical, no. Very creative in creating tax shelters and complex investment plans to acquire money, yes! As for the cars that were taken from the QAC in Jersey, I believe it was Roy Nesseth thate was present to take control of the cars. C.R. Brown was in California. But the loan was paid back. Of course it had to be for DMC to sell/floor plan cars. While Haddad "claims" he has no knowlege of what happened to the cars, they probably just went back to the QAC to be shipped. Haddad has a writting style that doesn't say things right out, but will plant a seed of doubt into your thinking. DMC had no reason to falsify anything to the EPA. The PRV6 motor had already been tested for emissions, and was approved for use in the US. It did need to go thru a 5K mile test for it's application in the DMC-12 though. To pass emissions, the power of the engine was greatly reduced. That is why we have only a 130bhp engine, and the restrictive exhaust/emissions system on our cars. JZD didn't pay as much attention to the car as was expected in as engineering. He was indeed a bit more concerned about cosmetic aspects of the car. Honestly, this makes total sense since he was paying Lotus to complete the engineering work! And it is something that I am very thankful for. The DMC-12 has a warm, quality, handcrafted feel to it. The amount of pre-moulded plastic and vinyl in most modern cars have all the craftsmanship of a $2.00 snap-tite model. Both suspension recalls that I am aware of were not due to lack of concern over the car, but of GREAT concern. The front crumple tube was thought to be to riged, and it was believed it wouldn't crupmle/absorb engery properly in a front-end collision. They reduced it, but then made it way to thin, and it could be damaged simply by hitting a pothole. Thus the front-end recall was born. The training arm bolts were recalled because the company who made them didn't make them strong enough. As far as Haddad's run-in's with Roy Nesseth, who knows. They sound to me like two people who didn't get along to begin with. And Nesseth always struck me as the type (from what I've read) who just had a gruff demeanor about him. Not nessisarily a mean guy, just one who seemed intimidating to most. Now that he has passed on, we'll never get a chance to hear his side of the story... Logan Mfg is an interesting topic, and one that has even less answers. JZD took out a loan to buy Logan, but the angered the bank when he paid it off too early (they lost $ by not getting any interest payments). I was the person who originaly posted about people seeing cars @ Logan Mfg. I have heard stories from various people that go so far as stating that JZD had parts shipped to Logan, UT to build cars there as well as N. Ireland. I even heard rumors that JZD has a hidden cache of cars stashed away in an old warehouse, but can't sell them because of his bankruptcy. This was a story told to me by a stranger met @ Pep Boys. Honestly, I take it with a grain of salt. I've never seen the guy since, but he knew some pretty accurate info about JZD's trials and DMC's history. MUCH more than the average joe off the street. But hey, who knows. If I belived everything a stranger told me about my car, I'd have a helecoptor engine made by Ford, and my car would be illegal to drive because it's either too fast, or too shiny! :) John Z. DeLorean had a dream, and he made it come true. Plus it was a dream that was shared by others. If no one had believed in that dream, then there would never have been a car. Besides, I don't have the motivation to vaccum my house, but JZD was able to build a car. Now that takes more than just motivation. It takes great courage! Which leaves the final question: Why didn't DMC suceed? As it's been discussed before, there is a long list of factors. JZD didn't bring down DMC all by himself. But it is true that he had more than enough help to colapse everything. "What if" will be the question that many people will always ask. What if the British Govt had given DMC export financing? What if JZD wasn't intimidated into going into room 501? What if they bypassed GMAC and provided customers with in-house financing? What if everyone lived happily ever after and DMC was still around today? Everytime you ask yourself one of these questions, don't forget to ask yourself that one truely unspeakable question. The one that keeps me up at night. What if there never was a DeLorean? -Robert vin 6585 --- In dmcnews@xxxx, Soma576@xxxx wrote: > Hello All, > > This last week i had the opportunity to check out the book "Hard Driving - My > Years With John DeLorean", written by William Haddad... <SNIP>