Re: [doc] 85 million pound question

[dmcjohn@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Hi Neal,
Are you angry at John DeLorean for the failure of DMC? Personally I'd 
lay most of the blame with Maggie. If you want to talk about who 
stole money, I blame Colin Chapman and Fred Bushell.

John tried his best, and even today has a great interest in the 
welfare of the people of Northern Ireland. He would have loved more 
than anything to have been able to keep his promise of a job for life 
to you.

He is not a con man in my opinion.
He made some mistakes during the operation, but they are very easy to 
see as mistakes with the benefit of hindsight. At the time, he made 
what he thought would be the best decisions for the long term 
survival and growth of the company.
Some of the mistakes that he is so criticized for nowadays is the 
other companies that he got involved with while with DMC, such as 
Logan Manufacturing. John knew that it was very risky to have just 
one product, and therefore one source of income. At the time, he made 
the right decision to diversify DMC into other profitable projects, 
to protect the overall company in case all did not go to plan with 
the DMC-12. This is a very simplified analysis I know, but it would 
take a long time to go thru it in detail.

I've had the pleasure of meeting John at his home in New Jersey in 
1998, and I've spoken to him on the phone on a few occasions since.

My opinion is that he had the best of intentions in regard to the 
DMCL operation in Belfast, and never stole a dime. Sure he paid 
himself a nice salary, but he deserved it. He never had any intention 
of selling cocaine to finance or bail out DMC. 

When people come up to me and complain how much tax payers money was 
wasted on the project, I point out that at around the same time, the 
UK government under Maggie Thatcher was spending per day the total 
amount invested in DMC on a questionable war at the other side of the 
planet. It really puts it into perspective I think. What did the 
Falklands war achieve? What did DMC achieve? I think John DeLorean 
comes out the winner here, and I hope that history will be kinder to 
him than the past 20 years have been.

Whew!

John

--- In doc-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "neal barclay" <neal.barclay@xxxx> 
wrote:
> phil
> yes but mud sticks, yes he was a con-man.he con me into thinking i 
had a job for life.
> neal
> 
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: Phil Peters 
>   To: doc-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
>   Sent: Wednesday, April 28, 2004 2:22 PM
>   Subject: Re: [doc] 85 million pound question
> 
> 
>   Hi Neal, 
> 
>   Yep, that's basically the facts I've picked up over the years. 
Like I said, I'm not sure ALL of the money was spent correctly (like 
the snowploughs etc. etc.) but a factory WAS built, cars WERE made, 
people like yourself were on the payroll... 
> 
>   What I personally object to (and what I hear a lot at shows) is 
the image that the public has of JZD as this kind of bank-robber con-
man character with a big bag labelled "Swag from British Gov.t" It's 
that image that I think the press has a lot to answer for.  
> 
> 
>   -- 
>   Phil Peters 
>   VIN #4400 LHJ 58W 
>   DOC #84 
>   Wolverhampton, UK
> 
> 
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