RE: [DMCForum] Nice New York Times Article

[Marc Levy <malevy_nj@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/20/business/20cnd-delorean.html


March 20, 2005
John DeLorean, Innovative Automaker, Dies at 80
By DANNY HAKIM 
 
John DeLorean, the flamboyant automobile industrialist
whose dream of running his own car company dissolved
into bankruptcy, died Saturday evening at Overlook
Hospital in Summit, N.J.. He was 80 years old and
lived in Bedminster, N.J.

The cause was complications following a stroke, his
family said.

Mr. DeLorean, a Detroit native, was once thought to be
a contender for the presidency of General Motors but
left the world's largest automaker in 1973 and went on
to start his own company, DeLorean Motor Company, with
the backing of investors like Johnny Carson and Sammy
Davis Jr. 

DeLorean Motor produced only one model, the DMC-12,
but it made a lasting impression. In the early 1980's,
with increasingly dull cars coming from Detroit, the
unpainted, stainless steel sports car had doors that
opened like a seagull's wings and was featured in the
"Back to the Future" movies starring Michael J. Fox. 

Though the car remains an iconic collector's item, the
life of Mr. DeLorean's company was brief, with about
9,000 cars produced at a factory in Northern Ireland
before the company went bankrupt in 1982 amid charges
by authorities in the United States that Mr. DeLorean
was selling cocaine to prop up its finances. Mr.
DeLorean was acquitted in 1984 after a highly
publicized trial. 

Though he was never able to rekindle his automotive
dream-for a time he started a wrist watch company
called DeLorean Time -he also never let it go. His
fourth wife, Sally, said in a brief interview
yesterday that he had designed a new sports car and
still hoped to start another automaker.

"He's been working on it for the last couple years,"
she said.

John Zachary DeLorean was born in Detroit on Jan. 6,
1925, the oldest of four sons of a Ford Motor Company
foundry worker. Growing up in a working class
neighborhood, he graduated from the Lawrence Institute
of Technology and went on to earn masters degrees in
both engineering and business. 

He joined the small Packard Motor Car Company as an
engineer in 1952. With ambition, insight and an eye
for the unconventional option that could succeed, he
became a rising star, first at Packard, and starting
in 1956, within G.M., the world's largest automaker.
At 40, he became was the youngest general manager of
G.M.'s Pontiac division and four years later the
youngest manager of Chevrolet. In 1972, at 48, he
became a G.M. vice president.

He was an anomaly in an industry then dominated by
button-downed executives. He dyed his hair jet-black,
wore shirts open to the navel, married a teenage
starlet and subsequently a supermodel, and became a
wonder at self-promotion. He wore long sideburns that
violated the company's unwritten dress code and even
had the president of Ford as best man at his second
marriage. He also owned a tenth of the San Diego
Chargers for a time and played the jazz saxophone. 

"He once told me that he placed enjoying life very
high in his list of priorities, and he felt that
contrasted with many other executives," said J.
Patrick Wright, who collaborated with Mr. DeLorean on
a book called "On a Clear Day You Can See General
Motors."

His flair extended to business. He created Detroit's
first muscle car, the Pontiac GTO, the first of a wave
of such vehicles. Many in the industry felt he would
someday be G.M.'s president, but he left G.M. in 1973,
citing opposition to his unorthodox business style;
others said he was dismissed. He told reporter at the
time, "There's no forward response at General Motors
to what the public wants today."

Mr. DeLorean became intent on creating a corporation
in his image. 

"If we were super, super lucky and did everything
right, we might some day have another B.M.W.," Mr.
DeLorean said in 1977. 

He opened a factory in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland, in
early 1981, which was to produce his $25,000 sports
car, at a time when the average vehicle cost about
$10,000. The British Government sunk $120 million into
the $200 million project.

But with cars sales depressed in the United States,
and with the cars plagued by numerous quality
problems, the company fell into financial trouble and
was the subject of a British Government investigation
into allegations of financial irregularities. The
inquiry found no evidence of criminal conduct, but on
Oct. 19, 1982, the British government announced the
factory would be closed. 

On the same day, in Los Angeles, Mr. DeLorean was
arrested and charged with conspiring to obtain and
distribute 55 pounds of cocaine. He was videotaped in
an F.B.I. sting, declaring, "it's better than gold"
when presented with a case of cocaine by what he
thought were investors and who turned out to be
government agents.

His trial was seen as kicking off an era of celebrity
cases. Mr. DeLorean contended that he had been seeking
a legitimate investment for his factory when he was
lured into a setup. Accompanied by Christina Ferrare,
the model who was his third wife, Mr. DeLorean, his
hair by then snow white, professed to have found
religion in jail. A jury in Los Angeles acquitted him
in August 1984. 

Shortly thereafter, he faced another trial, in
Detroit, on fraud charges after a grand jury accused
him of siphoning off, for his own use, about $9
million investors had put into his auto company-he was
also acquitted in that trial.

Persistent legal troubles drained Mr. DeLorean's
resources over the years. By 2000, he sold off his
sprawling estate in Bedminster, N.J., which is now a
golf club operated by Donald Trump.

In addition to his wife, Mr. DeLorean is survived by
two duaghters Kathryn Ann DeLorean, Sheila Baldwin
DeLorean; a son, Zachary Tavio DeLorean; three
brothers: Charles (Chuck) Delorean, Jack DeLorean and
George DeLorean; and two grandchildren. 

Though Mr. DeLorean's company long ago went bankrupt
and stopped producing cars, it lives on today,
operated by a company in Texas that bought all of the
remaining DeLorean parts and repairs and refurbishes
cars for collectors. 

"You can't discount the value of the Back to the
Future movies," James Espey, the vice president of
DeLorean Motor, said yesterday. 

"People who saw the cars in the movies in their teens,
these are people in their early, mid 30's, well
established, and they now can get the car they wanted
when they were a kid."

Though Mr. DeLorean was not involved with the company,
Mr. Espey said he spoke to Mr. DeLorean once a month,
including a conversation Thursday morning shortly
before he suffered a stroke. Mr. Espey said Mr.
DeLorean was concerned about the increasing financial
troubles of his former employer, General Motors. 

"He had said that there were too many bean counters
and not enough engineers in the management," said Mr.
Espey. .

Mark DeLorean, Mr. DeLorean's nephew, said Mr.
DeLorean was concerned that domestic automakers were
relying too much on rebates to sell cars that were not
much to look at. 

"John's attitude was always, I want people's eyes to
light up when they walk through the showroom," Mr.
DeLorean said.




            
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