[DML] Left Front Fenders and other thoughts

["David Swingle" <dswingle@xxxx>]

"Stian Birkeland" <dmc_norway@xxxx>
WROTE
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 16:36:43 PST

>Some talks recently about the availability of the left front fenders.
>Now, this is a serious problem to all DeLorean owners. ....
>Now, what can be done with this problem? As the years go by there will
>always be higher risk that an accident may occur and where you, the
DeLorean
>owner, is left with a DeLorean and no left front fender to be had...
>
>My question is this - is it possible to make the left front fender
from a
>sheet metal in stainless steel by a skilled craftsman? Obviously it
will
>cost too much to produce a new mold or???

I've heard this concern repeated, and I don't believe it's really a big
deal. As time marches on, what happens to old DMCs? Nothing much
different
from any other interesting older car:
---Cars that are kept as drivers and not specially maintained eventually
deteriorate to the point where they get scrapped. With normal everyday
use,
at some point it's cheaper to replace than to fix. With northern (i.e.
road-salted) DeLoreans, this is usually the point where the frame rots
out
from under it. (This is not unique to DeLoreans, ask anyone who has
worked
on old Corvettes.) In the south, its the interior, facias, and soft
running
gear take heat deterioration. When this happens-another source for
sheetmetal parts, i.e. a parts car, is born! And of course, the most
salvageable part of a DeLorean is the sheetmetal! Frames rust and
interiors
crack, but the stainless is forever. I expect at some time it will start
making a lot of sense reconstructing cars from southern frames and
northern
bodies. The sheetmetal is the least of our worries.
---As the cars in general are driven less, fewer are statistically
likely to
be involved in accidents so fewer crash parts are needed. The leftover
parts
of cars that are crashed become replacement parts for other cars as
well.
---The museum-quality dry-storage collector cars (trailer queens) never
need
crash parts.

I suspect that over time the parts vendors sell much more in maintenance
repair parts than they do in crash parts. And as time goes on this will
be
even more true due to the above factors.

As for the left front fender in particular, I think that the commonly
accepted "value" of $5k is a myth. I've seem them offered in (used) in
the
$2k range, a price which probably reflects the true demand. If the
sheetmetal was in enough demand to support extreme prices, people would
be
scrapping marginal cars more than they are now. I would expect it to
be a
very long time, on the order of decades, before it would be worth the
effort
to reproduce body sheet metal. In the very long haul for those who want
to
keep driving, I'd be more worried about the lack of spare frames than
sheetmetal. At some point the economics of Bryan Pearce's stainless
steel
frame will make a lot of sense. At present, good used frames do not
seem all
that hard to find either.

Dave