[DML] Re: DeLoreans (like you hadn't guessed!)

["Robert Rooney" <dmcvegas@xxxx>]

A handful of VERY early '81 cars had the flat hood w/no lines, and no
fuel flap. The way that you can tell these cars apart from the '82's is
that they will have absolutely NO badging on the front of the car from
the factory (no "DMC" grill emblem, and no "De Lorean" hood badge). As
it has been said before, the gas flap was dropped either because of
legal reasons (no DOT regulation stating that you couldn't put access
to the fuel cell in the trunk.), or because it was faster and cheaper
not to cut the flaps out on every bonnet. The lines were dropped
because too many hoods were cracking durring the stamping process. From
the looks of everything, the flap & the lines appear to be last minute
changes at the start of production, rather than the other way around.
Since DMCL already had the tooling for the flat hoods, that kind of
change in body production probably cost very little, if anything at all
to invoke. Or, one theory might be that while gearing the factory up
for production is when they made the flat bonnets that are so common on
some '82's, and all '83's. A last minute change to switch over to the
grooved hoods may have been yet another delay in starting production.
Later on as a cost cutting measure, perhaps it was decided to use up
existing stock rather than manufacture new. But this last part is only
a theory...

Some of the spoilers do look nice on the D, but it would probably be
best not to install one. A spoilers job is to place more down force on
the rear end of the car. On a car with a front mounted engine, AND rear
wheel drive is the only time that they will properly do their job:
prevent "fish-tailing" (sliding of the rear wheels). On a front wheel
drive car, they will do nothing, but on a DeLorean (rear to mid-engine
cars), I would imagine that by placing more force on the back, it could
possibly give the effect of even worse weight distibution, thus making
the car more unstable in wet weather. If I'm wrong about this, please
let me know.

-Robert


>I think all 1982 DeLoreans had a flat hood. The pleated hood with the
>flap was early 81, without the flap for late 81. They went totally
flat
(no lines) in 82. I have seen some cars with the DeLorean badge on the
>older style hood. Looks OK to me.

>I have a rear wing on my car. It looks good. If it was not on the car
>when I purchased it, I dont know if I would have added it. See
>http://remus.rutgers.edu/~mxl/dmc/Ser6-10.JPG for a shot of it.