[DML] John Z in the news, May 3, 1999

["Case, Dean" <dean.case@xxxx>]

Hey, I finally found it............From the San Diego Union Tribune

Uri Berliner 
STAFF WRITER 
03-May-1999 Monday 
John Z. DeLorean 
John Z. DeLorean won't give up. 

At 74, he still harbors dreams of gull-wing doors and a sleek, supercharged
sports car that rocks the staid automotive industry. He's sure he will
build it, maybe not this year, but sometime soon, two or three years down
the road. 

"Cars are in my blood," said DeLorean, the quixotic figure known as well
for his courtroom battles as the stainless steel cult car he manufactured a
generation ago. "They're really the only thing I've ever worked at." 

Once, in another life, DeLorean spent a fair amount of time on a 48-acre
citrus and avocado ranch he owned in San Diego County's Pauma Valley. But
he transferred the $2.5 million property to the attorney who represented
him against cocaine trafficking and fraud charges related to his failed
DeLorean Motor Car Co. He was acquitted in the mid-1980s in both cases, but
prefers not to dwell on his legal odyssey. 

"I don't look back at all," he said. 

DeLorean now splits his time between a farm in Bedminster, N.J., and New
York City, still the visionary engineer obsessed with aerodynamics,
lightweight materials and speed. 

What's on the drawing board now? A 1,450-pound sports car made of
structural plastic that can blast from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3.2
seconds, starting at about $18,000. Equipped, of course, with DeLorean's
signature gull-wing doors. 

With his elegant manner, silver-maned good looks and flair for the dramatic
gesture -- the DeLorean Motor Car was built in violence-scarred Belfast,
Northern Ireland, the former General Motors executive has always made sure
to stand out in the crowd. 

"The key to the car business is generating some excitement," DeLorean said. 
"There are very few cars anyone's dying to own. It seems like they all have
this round, amorphous, droopy look." 

DeLorean turns elliptical when the subject turns to his partners or sources
of financing. When asked the name of his new venture, he responds: "If you
put the money up, I'll name it after you." 

Meanwhile, the original DeLorean Motor Car remains a symbol of iconoclastic
quirkiness, having been featured in the "Back to the Future" movies as the
launch vehicle for time travel. 

Aficionados trade in parts and DeLorean lore over the Internet, and
DeLorean himself receives letters and packages from DMC owners regularly. 

"I just got a glovebox door that a woman wants me to sign for her husband,"
he said in a recent phone interview. Though several thousand DMCs remain on
the road, the man behind the machine doesn't drive one. 

He prefers to look ahead, part engineer, part sci-fi fantasist, refusing to
go quietly in his twilight. 

Another DeLorean plan: an elevated rail system that would run about 100
feet above freeway right-of-ways in traffic-snarled areas like Southern
California. The rail line would feature lightweight cars made of aerospace
composites and could zip passengers along at more than 300 miles per hour. 
Travel time from San Diego to Los Angeles? A tad under 30 minutes. 

"You'd be sitting on the freeway in traffic and look up and say, 'Shoot,
there is a better way,'" said DeLorean, imagining the biggest breakthrough
in mass transit since the subway. "Right now, we're looking for a place to
do a test demonstration." 


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