Re: my attitude about DeLorean (long)

[DMCVegas@xxxx]

Where to begin. The old saying goes, "The truth is niether black or 
white, but shades of gray." If I were to sum up the operations of the 
man and the company, that is how I would put it. But still, we need 
to find a place to begin... I'll be frank, JZD wasn't the picture 
perfect exec, nor did he run his company idealy as he described how 
things should have been run by GM in his book "On a Clear Day..." But 
he sure as hell is in my opinion a more moral man than Iacoca, or Ed 
Cole (Iacocca was on TV denoucing the classic Mustang. What are the 
chances he would pull over to completment a Ford owner for having 
such a nice car!) I'm not going to attack or justify anything, but I 
will try to explain everything as best I can...

First, a little background info about Haddad is needed. JZD hired 
Haddad because he claimed that he had close ties to the Kennedy 
family (who is from Twinbrook), and this could benefit DMC/DMCL 
because the company would be going in with political links/ties to 
the area. And that could give the company some pull to get things 
done. He conviced JZD he could help him/the company in the policital 
realm of Northern Ireland, and was thus hired.

The "Gold Facets" memo that stated he wrote on Boxing Day (Dec. 26) 
was completely false. Later durring another one of JZD's trials, 
Haddad admitted on the stand under oath, that he did indeed forge the 
memo. He also conviced JZD's secratary Marion Gibson that everything 
in the memo was true. She ended up trying to alert the British Govt, 
and I beleive that Scotland Yard found no problems at that time (it's 
been a while since I've read Hard Driving, and I don't have a copy 
handy. bear with me). After she found out that Haddad lied to her, 
she was truly sorry for what she had done, and even appologized. 
Haddad does provide us with some interesting inside with his book. 
But, you must also take into consideration he is biased against JZD, 
and the fact that he went so far as to forge a public record in the 
process. Interesting insights, but we can't take everything he says 
as being etched in stone.

DMC/DRLP had no other choice but to agressivly go after any and all 
capitol they could. After all, they were starting up a new company. 
Manical, no. Very creative in creating tax shelters and complex 
investment plans to acquire money, yes!

As for the cars that were taken from the QAC in Jersey, I believe it 
was Roy Nesseth thate was present to take control of the cars. C.R. 
Brown was in California. But the loan was paid back. Of course it had 
to be for DMC to sell/floor plan cars. While Haddad "claims" he has 
no knowlege of what happened to the cars, they probably just went 
back to the QAC to be shipped. Haddad has a writting style that 
doesn't say things right out, but will plant a seed of doubt into 
your thinking.

DMC had no reason to falsify anything to the EPA. The PRV6 motor had 
already been tested for emissions, and was approved for use in the 
US. It did need to go thru a 5K mile test for it's application in the 
DMC-12 though. To pass emissions, the power of the engine was greatly 
reduced. That is why we have only a 130bhp engine, and the 
restrictive exhaust/emissions system on our cars.

JZD didn't pay as much attention to the car as was expected in as 
engineering. He was indeed a bit more concerned about cosmetic 
aspects of the car. Honestly, this makes total sense since he was 
paying Lotus to complete the engineering work! And it is something 
that I am very thankful for. The DMC-12 has a warm, quality, 
handcrafted feel to it. The amount of pre-moulded plastic and vinyl 
in most modern cars have all the craftsmanship of a $2.00 snap-tite 
model.

Both suspension recalls that I am aware of were not due to lack of 
concern over the car, but of GREAT concern. The front crumple tube 
was thought to be to riged, and it was believed it wouldn't 
crupmle/absorb engery properly in a front-end collision. They reduced 
it, but then made it way to thin, and it could be damaged simply by 
hitting a pothole. Thus the front-end recall was born. The training 
arm bolts were recalled because the company who made them didn't make 
them strong enough.

As far as Haddad's run-in's with Roy Nesseth, who knows. They sound 
to me like two people who didn't get along to begin with. And Nesseth 
always struck me as the type (from what I've read) who just had a 
gruff demeanor about him. Not nessisarily a mean guy, just one who 
seemed intimidating to most. Now that he has passed on, we'll never 
get a chance to hear his side of the story...


Logan Mfg is an interesting topic, and one that has even less 
answers. JZD took out a loan to buy Logan, but the angered the bank 
when he paid it off too early (they lost $ by not getting any 
interest payments). I was the person who originaly posted about 
people seeing cars @ Logan Mfg. I have heard stories from various 
people that go so far as stating that JZD had parts shipped to Logan, 
UT to build cars there as well as N. Ireland. I even heard rumors 
that JZD has a hidden cache of cars stashed away in an old warehouse, 
but can't sell them because of his bankruptcy. This was a story told 
to me by a stranger met @ Pep Boys. Honestly, I take it with a grain 
of salt. I've never seen the guy since, but he knew some pretty 
accurate info about JZD's trials and DMC's history. MUCH more than 
the average joe off the street. But hey, who knows. If I belived 
everything a stranger told me about my car, I'd have a helecoptor 
engine made by Ford, and my car would be illegal to drive because 
it's either too fast, or too shiny! :)

John Z. DeLorean had a dream, and he made it come true. Plus it was a 
dream that was shared by others. If no one had believed in that 
dream, then there would never have been a car. Besides, I don't have 
the motivation to vaccum my house, but JZD was able to build a car. 
Now that takes more than just motivation. It takes great courage!

Which leaves the final question: Why didn't DMC suceed?
As it's been discussed before, there is a long list of factors. JZD 
didn't bring down DMC all by himself. But it is true that he had more 
than enough help to colapse everything. "What if" will be the 
question that many people will always ask. What if the British Govt 
had given DMC export financing? What if JZD wasn't intimidated into 
going into room 501? What if they bypassed GMAC and provided 
customers with in-house financing? What if everyone lived happily 
ever after and DMC was still around today?

Everytime you ask yourself one of these questions, don't forget to 
ask yourself that one truely unspeakable question. The one that keeps 
me up at night.


What if there never was a DeLorean?

-Robert
vin 6585



--- In dmcnews@xxxx, Soma576@xxxx wrote:
> Hello All,
> 
> This last week i had the opportunity to check out the book "Hard 
Driving - My 
> Years With John DeLorean", written by William Haddad...
<SNIP>