[DML] NY Times.

[Marc Levy <malevy_nj@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/18/automobiles/18delorean.html


Putting a Car of the Future Back on the Road
By STEVEN KURUTZ 

Published: March 18, 2005


In the dim half-light of a Long Island garage, a
handful of DeLoreans stand in darkened corners or
suspended on hydraulic lifts, their trademark
gull-wing doors ajar, their stainless-steel silver
shells still ultramodern more than two decades after
the DeLorean Motor Company went bust. Visible through
a dusty window in the parking lot outside, perhaps 20
more DeLoreans, lined up and identical, sit waiting,
like some surreal automotive dream.

This is P. J. Grady's, a modest gray automotive garage
tucked behind a used-car lot in West Sayville, N.Y. As
the sign on its roof - DeLorean Motor Cars -
indicates, the shop specializes in the repair and
restoration of DeLoreans, the famous and doomed
early-1980's sports car created by John Z. DeLorean
and featured in the "Back to the Future" movies. 

It is estimated that around 9,200 DeLoreans were built
in the car's three years of production, 1981 through
1983, and that about 7,000 are left. Of those, a good
number have passed through the hands of Rob Grady, P.
J. Grady's tall, thin, intensely focused owner, who
has spent the past 20 years as one of the foremost of
the world's few DeLorean experts. DeLorean owners from
Maine to Florida send him their cars, and in a small
garage that was once part of his family's General
Motors dealership, Mr. Grady fixes engines, locates
obscure parts, fabricates what he can't find and
restores long-neglected DeLoreans so they can turn
heads once more. 

For many years, P. J. Grady's was about as profitable
as an Edsel dealership, but that has changed. The
teenagers who saw "Back to the Future" 20 years ago
and were fascinated by the film's time-traveling
DeLorean are now grown and seeking out the
low-sweeping coupe. At the same time, the car is
approaching its 25th birthday, a benchmark in the
collector market. Where once values hovered around
$17,000, a restored DeLorean now runs close to
$30,000. 

"In the last five or six years the values have gone
way up," said James Espey, vice president of the
DeLorean Motor Company in Houston, which bought the
rights to the DeLorean brand and sells restored
models. "The car is coming into its own."

It was long believed that DeLorean parts could not be
found, so many cars were garaged, but Mr. Espey's firm
bought the entire DMC parts inventory - everything
from body panels to nuts, bolts and washers. Mr. Espey
estimates that the company has enough gull-wing doors
to last 120 years at the current rate of use, and
enough interior carpet to cover a football field twice
over. This month, the company opened a second branch
near Tampa, Fla. And two shops near Los Angeles,
DeLorean Motor Center and DeLorean One, serve the West
Coast as P. J. Grady's serves the East. 

Of the handful of DeLorean specialists, P. J. Grady's
is the oldest, going back to 1979, when Mr. Grady
became one of the original DeLorean dealers. For the
sum of $25,000 he received the right to sell the
line's one and only model, the DMC-12, and a poster of
the car autographed by Mr. DeLorean, which still
decorates his office, where Mr. Grady was joined on a
recent afternoon by his wife, Debby, who handles the
phone, and a DeLorean enthusiast named Mike Deluca. 

Like many dealers, Mr. Grady signed up based on the
reputation of Mr. DeLorean, who had been an
engineering and marketing star at G.M. - in the early
1960's he created the Pontiac GTO, which many consider
the first muscle car - and left at the height of his
career to challenge the Big Three automakers. But from
the start, his company was besieged with problems,
starting with too little money to work with and the
fact that the car, priced at $25,000, made its debut
in 1981 in one of the worst economies in recent
memory. "The cars were never hot sellers," Mr. Grady
said. 

Topping it off was Mr. DeLorean's very public arrest
in 1982 for conspiracy to distribute cocaine, still a
sore spot with DeLorean enthusiasts. (Mr. DeLorean was
eventually acquitted; the prevailing sentiment among
owners is that he was framed.) When the company filed
for bankruptcy protection that year, Mr. Grady
continued to honor his customers' service warranties.
Over time, he found himself doing more and more repair
work on DeLoreans, until that was all he did. 

Not surprisingly, he has developed an affection for
the car, though it is a cool, dispassionate one,
tempered by years of daily involvement. "It's a good
car," he said simply. 

Mr. Deluca, hovering nearby, said: "Rob is being
modest. He's completely dedicated. I was driving by
once and it was Easter Sunday. It was freezing. Rob
was out in the parking lot testing temperature
sensors." 

In a far corner of the garage, the P. J. Grady's
mechanic, Pat Tomasetti, stood in blue coveralls
beneath a DeLorean on a hydraulic lift, draining oil
and listening to NPR. Mr. Tomasetti has been repairing
and restoring DeLoreans at P. J. Grady's for 13 years
and is accustomed to overenthusiastic fans of the car.
He laughed as he recalled the time a Japanese man
showed up with his family, saying he had flown to
America to visit Disney World and P. J. Grady's. 

The DeLorean Mr. Tomasetti was working on had come in
from Pennsylvania and was set to have its front fender
replaced, among other repairs. Another DeLorean, its
door crunched like a soda can, was in need of
extensive body work. Outside, dozens more waited, a
daunting workload for two men. 

"I'd like another mechanic, but it's hard keeping
them," Mr. Grady said. "Most guys don't like doing
restoration work. It's dirty, and there's also the
repetition." 

People who spend time around garages tend to acquire a
detailed know-how of car design and mechanics, but
DeLorean experts take specialization to a refined
level. Because of its unpainted stainless-steel body,
the DMC-12 was available in only one color, silver.
Its interior was black leather or gray leather,
nothing else, and the car changed little over its
brief production run. 

So while the Corvette aficionado has a half-century of
paint schemes, body types and fancy options to ponder,
the DeLorean lover must be content with trivial
changes - the radio antenna on the '81 models is in
the windshield, for example, while on the '82 it is on
the left rear quarter. 

Pointing to a model whose license plate read BK2DFUTR,
Mr. Grady proceeded to make the indistinguishable cars
distinguishable. "We just got this one out of
mothballs," he said. "It sat for four years. The owner
decided to sell it. It only has 11,000 miles." 

He continued: "That one over there was in a wreck.
Needs a new door." Then he walked over to a car
covered in a soft blanket of dust. The passenger
window was stuck halfway down, and the seat was given
over to orphaned parts. Mr. Grady's pupils widened, as
if he were laying eyes on a DeLorean for the very
first time. "This is the 530," he said reverently.
"It's a Legend prototype, Twin Turbo. They only made
three of these." 

The 530 is going to be restored as his own DeLorean,
Mr. Grady said, just as soon as he finds the time.
"Sometimes you get a little burned out," he mused,
reflecting on the vagaries of being a DeLorean expert.
"Then something rejuvenates you." 




		
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