RE: [DML] Re: Downfall of the DMC?

["Brian McCool" <bjmccool@xxxx>]

If I had to narrow it down to one specific event that brought the company
down, I would say it was the decision in November of 1981 to double
production of cars from 40 a day to 80 a day. The country went into a
recession and had a very bad winter about a month after this, which affected
every car manufacturer negatively, especially DMC. JZD did this partly to
make the company look more impressive right before a planned public offering
of the company's stock that ended up being canceled. By doubling production
right before a market downturn, working capital was effectively used up, and
the market was flooded with Deloreans that were just sitting at the Quality
Assurance Centers in the US. This started a downward spiral that the company
wasn't able to recover from. A major gamble in the auto industry is to build
cars without adhering to dealer orders. Chrysler got itself into trouble in
the late seventies by doing this. In retrospect, if JZD would have cut
production in half, DMC may have lasted much longer than it did. It's likely
that DMC would have merged with or been bought by another auto company, by
this point. Global mergers have drastically reduced the amount of
independent auto companies. Smaller auto companies face a major problem in
that it takes very large sums of cash to function in the automotive
manufacturing industry, and the little guys don't have very deep pockets.
This was especially true for DMC. Whereas every penny they spent had to be
asked for, the big boys were functioning off of their own cash flow.
-----Original Message-----
From: therealdmcvegas [mailto:DMCVegas@xxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 2:27 AM
To: dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [DML] Re: Downfall of the DMC?


I will have to agree with Andy on this one. The best thing to do is to read
the
books available. Specificly, I would stick with "De Lorean", "Hard driving",
"Dream Maker", and "Stainless Steel Illusion".. These are the best books,
and
to get the full effect, I would reccomend reading them in that order. Once
you're done, read "De Lorean" over again, and alot of bits and pieces from
all
of the books will click together.

Was there any one thing that took DMC down? No. It was unfortunetly a
combination of a number of things that caused the demise. When you start
reading up on the subject, you begin to wonder just how it could have ended.
While there were a some mistakes made here and there in the form of things
that either should, or should not have been done, there wasn't a single
action
that caused any sort of a domino effect.

-Robert
vin 6585 "X"



--- In dmcnews@xxxx, Vin 5386 <delorean_stainless@xxxx> wrote:
> Does anyone know the actuall reasons that DMC ended up
> in bankrupcy? When all is said it seems to me that the
> company did quite well in its short time. Was it just
> that the DeLorean as an automoblibe didn't "fit the
> nitch" at that time in history? sorta to much to soon?
> or was it more related to competeing with the larger
> companys? Would be amazing to suspend reality for one
> instance and imagine where the DeLorean would be today
> given it had continuted production.
>
> Todd
> Vin5386
>
> =====
> For up to the minute details on the restoration of Vin5386 point your
browser
to, http://www.khpindustries.com/stainlessrestorations.html
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo!
> http://sbc.yahoo.com



To address comments privately to the moderating team, please address:
moderators@xxxx

To search the archives or view files, log in at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dmcnews

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/