The DeLorean isn’t coming back. And Mr. Fusion was never here.
The car that was the star of the Back to the Future movies was a stainless-steel-bodied gullwing coupe designed by John DeLorean, a former GM engineer and executive who was among those responsible for developing the 1964 Pontiac GTO, the car many consider to be the first muscle car and which without question inspired the creation of the dozens of other muscle car concept-emulators that followed. 
The car just unveiled by the current owners of the DeLorean name is a gull-winged electric car. Which means it is just the same as every other electric car and thus – unlike the original car created by the man, DeLorean – it isn’t anything new.
When DeLorean – the actual guy – designed the 1981 car that bore his name, gullwing cars were exotic . . . like the Benz 300 SL of the ’50s. And stainless-steel-bodied unpainted cars, unheard of. No one had done both before and so the result was not only new – it was unlike anything else.
It is what made the 1981-1982 DeLorean stand apart from the crowd.
Also the man, who is among the few who spent their working years designing cars whose names are remembered today.
And used to sell cars that bear their names.
The car being produced under the DeLorean name is, however, merely an imitator of the audacious original. Sans the audacity. It is of a piece with the use of another brilliant man’s name – Nikola Tesla – to sell cars that are not powered by free energy or wirelessly transmitted electricity. Like the “new” DeLorean, Tesla – the car – is just a rebranding of a pre-existing thing.
Right down to the font.
Back in ’81, DeLorean spelled out his name in the car that bore his name’s grill, using backwards-forwards elongated and scrunched lettering that was as distinctive in its look as the car, itself, looked.
Today? It’s just another reboot.
Elon Musk trades on the name of Tesla – just as “DeLorean” is traded on by the people who bought the rights to use the great man’s name. 
It all begins to seem the same – again.
Adulatory press coverage, of course – even by the automotive press, once manned (exactly the proper term) by men who knew cars and could smell bullshit better than the average man. The current man who heads up the company that bears the name of the man says: “The Alpha5 is for people that love to drive.”
Really? In what way, exactly?
There is not much driving to be done in any electric car, which requires next to no driving – beyond the pushing of an On button and the pushing down upon a ”gas” pedal that feeds data about the degree of pushing to computers that cause the electric motor to spin faster. 
Not much to do – nothing to hear. It sounds like time for a nap.
There is about the same degree of “driving” going on inside an electric car as inside an electric elevator. Plus also the indisputable fact that electric cars are connected cars – and not just to their physical umbilicus, the power cord. There is also the telemetry connection. The sending and receiving of new programming – of “updates” – which is what ultimately controls the electric car. The end goal being total control, re-branded more appealingly as “autonomous” or “self-driving” . . . driving.
Meat-sacking, in other words.
The antithesis of driving. 
Leaving that aside – as well as the “skateness” of all electric cars, which differ only in size and shape, having the same underlying function – there is another thing this car has in common with all electric cars.
It its exorbitant cost – which will apparently be in the range of $175,000 – putting this car far out of the price range of almost all men (and women, too). It is three times-plus the inflation-adjusted cost of the actual DeLorean, back in ’81 – which was around $40,000.
The man who designed it had trouble selling his cars – because $40,000-plus was a lot of money back in ’81. And back then, gas was only about $1 per gallon.
(NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
His company eventually went bust – because back in ’81, the government wasn’t forcing people to buy his cars, nor bribing others to buy them. The man ended up being “busted” for desperately trying to transform arbitrarily illegal “drugs” into cash, in order to save the company that bore his name. The company that bears the man’s name now uses government to transform other people’s money into revenue.
It’s apparently a more successful – because legal – business model.
The Alpha 5 – as the car that bears the name of the real McCoy is styled (it’s interesting to observe the correlation between the currently fashionable uber-macho brand-marketing of vehicles and the general decline in actual alpha-ness) goes a lot faster than the 88 MPH speed the movie car needed to achieve in order to travel through time. But – like the actual car used as the basis for the movie car – it actually goes only as far as the “fuel” it stores in its “tank” – which is of course its battery pack.
The car in the movie relied upon the conversion of almost anything into fuel – via Mr. Fusion, the small reactor that could be fed beer, banana peels, half-eaten burgers and other table scraps and thus disconnected the car from any kind of centrally-controlled connection, virtual as well as physical and financial.
One of the may key allures of the car in the movie was that it was free – literally – in terms of what you needed to make it go. So long as you had some beer, banana peels, half-eaten burgers, left-over salad (and so on) you were free to go – without any charge.
Now something like that would be new – and more in keeping with the using of the names of great men like DeLorean and Tesla.
. . .
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Forgot who did it, but someone rebuilt classic deloreans ages ago
Sure it’s cheaper than this crap, there’s even a company in French Town NJ that rebuilds military G-wagens for less with a diesel, stick and rag top for 20-25k less (https://expeditionmotorcompany.com/)
Future isn’t electric, its Retro
The new DeLorean looks like a modified Tesla Model X! Not very original.
The news from the gas people is the price will increase 10 cents per gallon for the next nine weeks into August. The price of gasoline will be 539.9 cents by the middle of August. Premium will be 579.9 cents.
Compare that to 19.9 cents per gallon in early 1970 CE. More than 25 times more. A half a gallon of milk in 1967 was 39 cents, 25 times 39 equals 975 pennies for milk. $9.75 for a half a gallon of milk when you compare prices for the times.
Sumthun’s up.
This stuff is probably pre-planned Armageddon. Treat it seriously, don’t take it seriously. Mock Klouse day-in and day-out. Hat whip the idiot to make sure he finally gets a clue.
Can’t afford gas, stay home. Can’t afford electricity to charge an EV, you won’t be buying one no matter what. Who wants one? You can’t win, never will. Buy an electric scooter, it’ll make more sense.
Hang on to the ICE, have to reduce miles driven.
Joe could care less. Demand destruction is happening.
We gotta work together, steal all of the fuel you can. har
Hi Drumfhish
Food, Fuel, & Inflation Crises All Stem From Globalist Policies
The globalists pushing climate change policies tell us there is no choice if the planet is to be saved from catastrophe many decades if not centuries from now. What they don’t tell us is that their prophecies of doom are based on computer climate models, all of which have proven false to date.
A dominant contributor to the famine is the supply chain disruptions caused by the globalists’ decision to abandon traditional responses to pandemics in favor of an experimental lockdown of much of the world’s economy. The chaos and costs from this decision by governments to apply their COVID-19 lockdown theory upended the world’s food distribution systems and soared the cost of food. The inflation created when governments printed money to support industries and individuals sidelined during the lockdowns then made food prices even more prohibitive.
Exacerbating the supply chain disruptions was the globalists’ decision to perpetuate the Russia-Ukraine war by providing Ukraine with billions in armaments, a departure from the past norm of pressuring combatants to resolve their differences through negotiations
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/food-fuel-inflation-crises-all-stem-globalist-policies
Speaking of Tesla the car company, a short seller posted an article about how overvalued the company is:
“For years I’ve said “Tesla is Blackberry”—the maker of a first-generation version of a product that—once the market was proven—would be supplanted into niche obscurity by newer, better versions; now I can provide a much more recent analogy: Tesla is Netflix.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2022-06-01/elon-musk-knows-tesla-next-netflix-here-what-happens-next
—————–
My pet peeve with Tesla is with Elon Musk, a global warming liar who is feeding at the public trough tax credits to become the richest man in the world. Like they say, behind every great fortune is a greater crime.
CO2 has no effect on earth’s overall thermodynamics, CO2 has never warmed the planet and this is proven in numerous ice core studies where CO2 ALWAYS lags temperatures up or down. So this idea we must have electric cars to save the planet is a utter hoax of Biblical proportions.
I think Tesla is just another DeLorean – a flash in the pan as they say and in a few years Tesla shares will be less than a $100 and sold off to another car company.
If you read the above linked article it is very revealing.
I used to think this too, Yukon. The company’s value is the gusher of government incentive subsidies and motivated consumer buying of the Tesla product. Stocks have momentum and rising prices beget rising prices.
The stock chart shows it peaked last November at $1,243 and sold off to a low of $618 last month. It found support in the $700 area as it has since the last hard selloff in March 2021. So a 50% or so retracement. It also seems Tesla stock mirrors the 3 major indices.
I think the interim short opportunity passed this April. For now it looks to be headed back to the $940 range.
Often stock prices don’t match fundamentals, nor does reality have much to do with pricing in the short term. Funds control the long game. Like any stock these days it’s best to stay for short whiles and stay nimble when the algos begin to program trade.
Me? I like medical realestate. Stocks are not for outsiders of which I’m one.
These people are uncreative as f***. Why the hell would anyone want to introduce a new, supposedly innovative high tech vehcile and use a name from the past? Not only that but a name that by all accounts was a failure? Sure it looked cool (but so did a lot of cars -especially European styled- in the 1980s), sure there’s nostalgia thanks only to Back to the Future, but otherwise what’s the connection? The DMC-12 wasn’t all that innovative, aside from the stainless bodywork (which made the plastics look terrible after a few years), it wasn’t much of a car. The engine that was used wasn’t the engine in the prototype design. It was suposed to have a high end Wankel, it ended up with a bog stock V6, which became a rear engine design that screwed up the handling. The factory was going to use some high-tech untested hydroforming for body panels, but it didn’t work and the design had to be changed for the worse.
And then they got a big subsidy to put the factory in Ireland, not exactly motor city.
As for the man, I think DeLorean got in over his head, over promised and under delivered, and probably got so focused on running a car company he forgot that you have to learn to walk first.
Why would anyone resurrect that name?
Here’s what will be lost with EVs:
My son had a dry rotted fuel line on his cummins.
He spent 2 weeks pulling the bed, cleaning the frame & coating it all, running new lines, then for the fun of it decided to address a rear cover oil leak.
Pulled the tranny, cleaned it all up, replaced the gasket & put it all back together.
EV’s aren’t a vehicle that you can (or would want to) take apart and fix up.
Turning wrenches and getting inspired, learning how cars work along the way isn’t a much of a thing when it’s all just throw away replacement parts, no matter how you dress it or what badge you put on it.
Thanks for giving it the work-over, Eric!
One cool thing about the original DeLorean in the Back To The Future movies, besides it’s awesome and unusual appearance, was the sound of the engine. I hear it was disappointing as far as the expected performance, but hey, it sounded premium!
Once in a great while, I see a DeLorean on the street, and it’s still a head-turner. It STILL looks like the car of the future, though we’re well past the “future” of Back To The Future (2015). Still no flying cars though. Most a pity.
Another boring fast electric car………
I doubt this will ever hit the market. That’s ok, there isn’t a market for it anyway.
Image what could be developed with all this money. Could be great. But is not to be.
‘It’s apparently a more successful – because legal – business model.’ — eric
Here’s a gov-biz model that’s NOT legal. Indeed, at first glance, this sounds a LOT worse than the Watergate scandal, because it’s continued for a decade:
‘In response to a letter sent by Rep. Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan, Perkins Coie — the legal arm of the DNC and Hillary Clinton — admitted they have been operating an FBI secure workspace in their Washington D.C. office since 2012.’
https://tinyurl.com/2p94kf6u
And the person running this still-existing, FBI-sponsored spy terminal inside Perkins Coie?
None other than Michael Sussman, just tried by special counsel John Durham (and acquitted by a partisan Democrat jury) for lying to the FBI.
If anything is going to take down ‘Joe Biden,’ THIS IS IT — a corrupt conspiracy, leading straight back to Barky O’Bummer and Hillary Clinton in 2012, and extending to Hunter Biden and ‘president’ Biden today. They suborned the FBI, hijacking intelligence agencies for both partisan and personal gain.
I was watching a vid the other night of a guy who bought a $5K electric zero-turn mower that was supposed to be able to mow ‘up to’ 3.5 acress on a charge. The guy has 2 acres, and the first year he had the mower (last summer) it would mow the 2 acres and have about 20% charge left. THIS year….he can’t even get through his 2 acres on a charge. He has to mow about 2/3’s of his lawn…then charge the mower (Which takes many hours) then finish the job the next day…. Imagine next uyear, how gimped the thing will be? Imagine 5 years from now? (Can you say ‘landfill’?)- $5K. He would have been better off with $200 push mower, or a $5K GAS zero-turn, which would do the job consistently for many years…..
But ah. the DeLorean….. I mean, the ‘real’ one. I always thought it was a rare instance of committees actually doing something better than an individual- ’cause the GTO, which ol’ John The Drug Dealer had a hand in, was ultimately the product of committees and corporate culture- which usually screws things up and makes a mediocre-at-best product; but in the case of the GTO, they made a great product.
By contrast, John, on his own made his namesake car that seemed much more like something that was the victim of committee-think: A not so high-performance car that looked like a performance car; made of stainless steel, but was plagued with corrosion issues; was over-priced for what it was…and basically just had looks (assuming you find it attractive- I don’t) and eccentricity (gullwing doors) going for it, but no real substance.
This reminded me: Years ago, I was on the phone with a friend as he was driving down I-95, and as we’re talking he sees a DeLorean done-up like the one from the movie….he snapped a pic of it.
EV issues….
At the power plant water is boiled to create steam, this is fed through a steam turbine connected to a generator that generates electricity, that is sent out through transmission lines to distribution lines, which are connected to a charger, the charger is connected to the EV, the electricity goes through an inverter and batteries into an electric motor that pushes the EV down the road. This is a very complicated expensive way to power a car.
Thermal efficiency of power plants using coal, petroleum, natural gas or nuclear fuel and converting it to electricity are around 33% efficiency, (67% of the energy released is lost as heat), natural gas is around 40%. Then there is average 6% loss in transmission, then there is a 5% loss in the charger, another 5% loss in the inverter, the electric motor is 90% efficient so another 10% loss before turning the electricity into mechanical power at the wheels.
33% – 6% – 5% – 5% – 10% = 25% efficiency for EV’s.
NOTE: (under not ideal conditions, like when it is very cold out, it might be 12% efficient).
travelling 100 miles in an average EV uses 1.03 gallons equivalent of fuel = 34.7 kwh of electricity that is the net amount, but….at the power plant 4 gallons of fuel were burnt to get a net 1 gallon of fuel equivalent 34.7 kwh used by the EV.
travelling 100 miles in an average EV uses 1.03 gallons equivalent of fuel = 34.7 kwh of electricity @ $0.40 per kwh = $13.88, back at the power plant 4 gallons were burnt to get the net 34.7 kwh of electricity. NOTE: 4 gallons were burnt to go 100 miles.
EV owner uses 4 gallons to go 100 miles, that is 25 mpg, lots of ice cars get better fuel economy.
ice gas vehicle economy example that gets far more then 25 mpg……
Fiat 500 0.9 lt. gas 8V 51 mpg city, 69 mpg highway…
The Fiat used 1.44 gallons of fuel on the highway to go 100 miles @ $4.00 per gallon = $5.79
travelling 100 miles in a 50 mpg diesel uses 2 gallons of fuel @ $4.00 per gallon = $8.00 and it has a huge range……
There is an additional cost for the EV owner: the tesla $22,000 battery is used up, worn out in 100,000 miles. this works out to $22.00 per 100 miles it is costing you for the battery. Total cost: $13.88 plus $22.00 = $35.88
Each EV will use multiple batteries……
Remember that to get the same level of longevity that petrol and diesel cars an EV will go through three battery packs which is hell of a large carbon footprint, and very expensive the tesla battery is $22,000, it costs you $22.00 per 100 miles just for the battery.
3 batteries = $66,000, this makes ice cars look very, very cheap to own/run….haha
now you know why very few of the taxis are EV’s, charging times, higher fuel costs and very expensive battery replacement, hybrids or diesels are far better.
NOTE: tesla battery lasts 100,000 miles and costs $22,000 ( someone said there is also a $4500 recycling fee….haha) $4500 recycling fee…lots will probably get thrown in the bush…
EV vans are worse as they will burn through five or six battery power packs to last as long as the existing ice vans. 5 times $22,000 = $110,000 very very expensive, makes zero sense….lol
EV’s are a very complicated expensive way to push a car down a road, skip the very big and expensive power plant and power grid, the very heavy, expensive, dangerous lithium fire bomb battery, the charger, converter, electric motor.
A better idea: just burn fuel in an ice engine inside the car to move the car down the road, a far, far more simple, cheaper, proven and cleaner solution.
EV’s.are 25% efficient
NOTE: (under not ideal conditions, like when it is very cold out, it might be 12% efficient).
Gas engine are 35% efficient (an F1 Mercedes ice gas engine is 50% efficient), a diesel engine is 50% efficient, a new steam engine is over 50% efficient.
NOTE: The power plant emits far more pollution then the exhaust on a new ice engine, an EV is not zero emission, that is a lie, it is remote emission, back at the power plant……
The EV uses twice as much fuel, costs more and pollutes more then the ice engines.
NOTE: A steam engine burning hydrogen is zero emission, an EV is not zero emission.
Re: EV semi trucks
There is zero EV heavy duty semi trucks. Why? ….charging times, these trucks quite often run 24/7, worse fuel economy, with batteries it would drop 50%, very high battery replacement costs, NOTE: these trucks easily go one million miles with ice diesel engines.
NOTE: EV vans are worse as they will burn through five or six battery power packs to last as long as the existing ice vans.
So in one million miles the semi truck would need 10 to 20 battery replacements, these trucks weigh 5 to 10 times as much as a tesla car much so if the battery cost 5 times as much it would = $110,000 per battery replacement.
The only thing that works in these big heavy trucks is ice diesel engines, that will not change.
There is zero EV heavy duty semi trucks, because these buyers aren’t stupid, they can do the math/research, they know about the EV bad fuel economy, very expensive cost to replace batteries, long charging times, fire risks, huge purchase prices, very short lifespan compared to a one million mile diesel…..only the general public is stupid enough to buy an EV.
Anon, if Rube Goldberg were still alive, he’d be claiming -and rightly so- that they stole one of his ideas!
I believe the new pickup EV’s coming very soon will start to tell the tale to the masses. They just aren’t going to get the job done in how ‘believers’ think they will, assuming they try to do real truck work like hauling/towing. Hopefully this will start to turn the tide in EV vs gas/diesel propaganda.
Standing on the shoulders of giants…
Most famously attributed to Isaac Newton, although the phrase is much older.
Newton was himself a giant, he was being humble & modest when he said that.
DeLorean was a giant.
Mental midgets are in charge of what seems like everything.
Good lord, deliver us.
“Standing on the shoulders of giants” and shitting down their backs for a quick subsidized dollar! You know the auto industry is gone to crap when you get excited about anything bigger than 2.0 litre and they are breaking their necks to go bankrupt with the battery propelled car that 99% cannot afford save the wealthy and government officials (sorry for repeating myself)!
Hey Eric…
De Lorean brought you your Firebird….
In the 1970s John Z. DeLorean branched away from his successful career at General Motors where he was credited for managing the production of the GTO and Firebird.
Hungry for his own success and eager to manage his own entrepreneurial interests, John opened up DMC, the DeLorean Motor Company, in Northern Ireland.
The “Back to the Future” movie car is driven down Sunset Blvd during the 88th annual Hollywood Christmas Parade in Hollywood, California on December 1, 2019. (Photo by Mark RALSTON / AFP) (Photo by MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images)
The DMC- 12 would be the crowning car of the new DMC, and as the only car the company ever put into production, would later become known simply as the DeLorean.
While the car is usually noticed from it’s stainless steel body, gull wing doors and unique design, it’s not as unique as most people credit it for. In fact, the DeLorean has some very common characteristics that it shares with another car of that generation: the Lotus Esprit.
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/who-really-designed-the-delorean/
Chapman and De Lorean
the British government granted £54 million to John DeLorean in 1974 to build the factory in Dunmurry to revitalize the depressed areas south of Belfast. The following year, DeLorean signed an agreement with Chapman for the logistics and development of the suspension of a cutting-edge grand tourer: the De Lorean, the car destined to travel through time in the Back to the Future saga.
In January 1982, the British government discovered that DeLorean had built just 8,500 cars and that the equivalent of 23 million pounds, almost half the funds received in 1974, had been transferred to a Panamanian account under the name of General Product Development Services, the company intended to subsidize Lotus.
This caught the attention of the FBI who also started their own investigation. Chapman, however, was only interrogated by the British authorities and then abruptly died. The judges in Belfast later asserted that had he been in the dock he would have received a sentence of at least 10 years.
Everything surrounding the history of DeLorean Motor Company and all of the players involved is fascinating. Besides the widely known history of John DeLorean and his run in with undercover FBI agents regarding his between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place drug trafficking charge, there are a few tales of shady activity not too far removed from him. One in particular is with his business partner, Colin Chapman of Lotus.
Lotus had earned quite a bit of success in motorsports throughout the 1970s and have been hailed since their birth as masters of chassis engineering. They shook hands with DMC in the late-70s because nobody else would work with DMC to bring their iconic DMC-12 to production. They had also partnered with other brands on a couple of cool vehicles, such as the Ford Lotus Cortina and Talbot Sunbeam Lotus. Anyway, before I digress any further…
I use the word “tales” above because the following doesn’t exactly hold much journalistic integrity, but it’s fun to think about, nonetheless. It’s an automotive industry conspiracy theory that was posted to Formula1Blog.com, and was recently brought to my attention. To briefly summarize: Colin Chapman might not have died of a heart attack in the early 80s, but instead took $8.5 million dollars of the Queen’s money and fled to Brazil. The article has some strange formatting and the years are slightly misconstrued, but a fun read regardless.
Pretty wild to think about! If he indeed continued to live happily ever after on the other side of the equator, what do you think he would’ve thought of automotive and motorsports development for the rest of the 1980s, the 1990s, and possibly later?
Lotus is now owned by chinese, soon it will only build EV’s, it’s next new car will be a 4000 lb. EV abortion. The new De Lorean car: the same thing a 4000 lb. EV.
https://tcct.com/news/2020/04/the-mystery-of-colin-chapmans-death-the-man-who-created-the-lotus/
Framing John DeLorean goes deep, doesn’t pull punches
Tamir Ardon is a DeLorean car enthusiast and historian, as well as a bit of a fanboy of the late John DeLorean. That didn’t stop him from taking an unsparing look at the automotive entrepreneur in the newly released Framing John DeLorean, starring Alec Baldwin as DeLorean. Ardon is the film’s producer, and Hagerty contributor Don Sherman (who was on the original DMC-12 press launch) is also featured in the film, providing background snippets to help frame the context of the DeLorean story.
Reenacted scenes with Baldwin and fellow actors playing his associates and family members are interspersed with archival footage and modern-day interviews to tell the history of DeLorean’s rise through General Motors as a gifted engineer and capable business manager, his decision to leave GM to start his own car company, that firm’s subsequent bankruptcy, and DeLorean’s legal difficulties and court trials for cocaine trafficking and embezzlement.
While DeLorean’s descent from grace and denouement ends with him as a lonely old man in a single-room apartment in New Jersey, providing the dramatic arc of the film, the most emotional scenes are interviews with DeLorean’s son Zachary and daughter Kathryn with their recollections and feelings about their father. Zachary expresses ambivalence about how his father’s risky behavior broke up their family and radically changed his lifestyle. Kathryn found comfort in the community of DeLorean DMC-12 buffs and convinced her father to do the same.
Though the movie doesn’t give DeLorean the kid-glove treatment, he’s not portrayed as a villain; rather, he is someone who was ethically compromised and singularly focused on a life’s dream, and thus willing to do whatever needed to be done to keep that dream alive. If there is a bad guy in the film, it’s the late Colin Chapman, founder of Lotus.
With pressure on to get the DMC-12 ready for production, DeLorean turned to Chapman to have Lotus engineer the car, pushing aside Bill Collins and some of DeLorean’s other associates. DeLorean and Chapman also set up a shell company in Switzerland to apparently embezzle about $18 million that DeLorean had earlier raised selling stock. Chapman died of a heart attack before he could be prosecuted, but his associate Fred Bushell served time in prison for his part in the scheme.
An alliance between two people with strong indications of psychopathology and narcissism, as John DeLorean and Colin Chapman undoubtedly were, two men known to play angles and cut corners, was not likely to end well. They may have been talented engineers and managers, but they were far from saints.
Framing John DeLorean
Sundance Selects
A jury acquitted John DeLorean of the embezzlement charges, but the film implies that his hands were not clean in either case.
The title of the film, Framing John DeLorean, references the drug charges but also has a double meaning. The jury acquitted John because it felt that the U.S. government had essentially manufactured the case, setting up a desperate man to get headlines in the war on drugs, but it’s also a real attempt to frame a picture of this man with all his strengths, weaknesses, and idiosyncrasies. Framing John DeLorean gives us a lot of behind-the-scenes views on the making of the film, and a recurring theme in the movie is puzzlement that nobody has produced a feature biopic on DeLorean. It’s genuinely a great story, though there are quibbles with the film itself.
Baldwin is the only actor in the film who wears prosthetic makeup to look like his character and it becomes distracting. Baldwin does a good job reproducing DeLorean’s speech and mannerisms, though.
More time could have been spent on the car itself and the major differences between the original composite monocoque DeLorean concept, and the rear-engined variant of the Lotus Esprit that was the production car.
The film doesn’t seem to address that DeLorean was acquitted on the financial charges.
Cristina Ferrare, DeLorean’s ex-wife, is prominent by her absence, the only major protagonist of the story who is not interviewed, but if she did not want to participate, it’s understandable. She divorced John, remarried within a year, and made a new career as a host on local Los Angeles television.
Complaints aside, the film is very well done. Framing John DeLorean does an outstanding job telling that story and getting the history correct, while at the same time it works as an entertaining and engaging movie about a talented, but flawed human being.
https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/framing-john-delorean-goes-deep/
I always had the sneaking suspicion that GM arranged for De Lorean to get busted in the cocaine “story”. GM never took any prisoners. Once there was a court ruling that assured GM it wouldn’t be charged with some sort of crime the FTC covers and makes law on. Once they were free to sell cars anywhere to anyone, one of the biggies was asked what share of the automotive market GM would assume. He laughed and said “90%”. And at that time they most likely could have done that but it would have been a blight on their reputation.
I hated the way the company was run, like a prison camp practically, but they made the best lines of cars and that’s what sold.
My grandparents always drove Ford’s and they just pretty much sucked. For reasons I never knew, they bought an olds and that was like being in a 747 after getting out of a Piper Cub.
When I bought a 67 Malibu with a 327 everyone argued with me that you couldn’t get 450 hp out of a 327. Well, I couldn’t but Zora Arkus Duntov could and that car would outrun everything on the road except for the ‘Vette with that engine. It did take a toll on the driveline. I hated to change from a Muncie M21 to the 22 because of the gearing. Put too large a tire on it and that 10 bolt rear-end was toast too. It would break clutches, motor mounts(not just the rubber part but break the bolt in the block. It ended up with nearly everything from the engine back taken from C 50 trucks. I had a Schaefer racing clutch that broke everything from the throwout bearing to the pedal on the floor although it never broke the pedal. More than once a DPS tried to catch me and they’d be so badly beaten they’d set up a roadblock. The only time I knew they’d done that was when the guy I had been racing came through the small town I stopped in for fuel and a cold one. He saw me and drove in to tell me the surprise he’d gotten. I empathized with him but not much else I could do. His Nova was pretty hot, just not fast enough.
I bought a 77 SS El Camino with a trailer tow package. I finally got tired of the original engine, a 350, and had a local racing shop build me a 400+hp 355. My wife and I left a house in the mountains north of Rui Doso. We left and as soon as I got close to the Texas line I readjusted the carb and got a tank of premium. I had to hang out a while there because the wife was sick from the ride. I gave her a Valium and took off. It was 345 miles to our house and we made it in 2 hours and 40 minuted. It had a beefed up transmission with extra capacity and cooling holes through the pan. It already had a big radiator so the heat was fairly taken care of. We ran Some Racing Pirellis and would have used the Centerlines I bought to put them on but the wheels weren’t rated for the 6700 lb behemoth. I did have WS 6 TA parts on the front end so it drove more like a TA than an Elco. I loved that vehicle.
Lotus is now owned by chinese, soon it will only build EV’s, it’s next new car will be a 4000 lb. EV abortion. It will be a full on nanny state car, the new De Lorean the same thing, a full on nanny state EV, these are the complete opposite of the cars Chapman (Lotus) built.
The Lotus Super 7 will be the car Chapman is remembered for, it was the 2nd most copied car in history (The Cobra is number one), 160 companies made copies of it.
The super 7 was the ultimate anti nanny state car, (that is why the prisoner drove one in “The Prisoner” series), give the finger to the nanny state buy one. A good car for Eric…
they are small, very light (1200 lb.), tube frame construction, the frame weighs 100 lb., no air bags, ABS, no safety features of any kind, mechanical art made for one purpose to go fast, the closest thing to an old F2 car for the street, very fast,
(a super 7 clone a Donkervoort had the record lap time for street legal cars at the Nurburgring in 2003, 2004). 50/50 weight balance, some had engines with no computer, just points and condensor,
no power steering or power brakes, some no heater, no doors, some had no windshield, no roof (some had a convertible top), the ultimate analog driving experience, buy one. You are the prisoner now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAwNfgvF_Ww
‘Adulatory press coverage, of course – even by the automotive press, once manned(exactly the proper term) by men who knew cars.’ — eric
Now the adulatory press coverage comes from girly-men who literally don’t know a volt from a kilowatt:
‘The preferable DC fast chargers deliver power at 150 kW or higher. 150 kW is about 400 volts. Vehicles that can take more are less common, but better: 350kW equals 800v.’ — Mark Phelan, USA Today
https://archive.ph/xh5qO#selection-1005.0-1005.279
“150 kW is about 400 volts.”
“350 kW equals 800 V.”
No, Mark. Wrong, Mark. If you had taken even the first class of Intro to Electric Power 101, you might have learnt this equation:
P (power, kW) = E (voltage, V) * I (current, amps)
But you didn’t. And despite being so ignorant that John DeLorean or Nikola Tesla would burst into laughter at your basic errors, you feel entitled to scribble and broadcast your hopeless confusion to mislead others.
Our worthless Lügenpresse: cheerleading war, vaccines and EVs … for the people! /sarc
‘The son of an engineer, Mark Phelan studied journalism at Michigan State University.’
https://www.freep.com/staff/2646841001/mark-phelan/
Sad … young Mark didn’t learn jack at pappy’s knee.
Thanks John Re: P (power, kW) = E (voltage, V) * I (current, amps)
It’s amazing to me what people will believe or what they want to believe.
Was recently out on a bike ride with a friend when we were shooting the crap, he said he was going off grid temporarily and his roughly 2x2ft solar panel was going to charge his deep cycle battery and run his stuff. I said no it won’t unless you have a few days and probably more. NO way he says, it can do 6amps!!! and I can charge a battery on 6amps in a day.
I tried to explain the w = V x A thing to him and that the salesman who sold him the panel either lied or didn’t know either.
Of course he argued with be, so I said, just test it dude, before you go. Let me know how you make out and ya better get a few more much larger solar panels.
ChrisN My tax-dodge solar system peaks at 6KW. The 18 panels are series wired with optimizers and send up to 480 VDC to the inverter. The inverter backfeeds the main breaker panel with a 35A dual-position breaker. That’s it. That’s all you get for all that roof space. A 10 KWh battery backup option would probably charge in one cloudless spring (after equinox) day from completely flat, but you never want to discharge a battery to 0 or it will be damaged. LifePO will handle about 5000 discharge cycles if you keep above 20-25% depending on manufacturer. So I could run 100% off battery for a few hours after sunset but without using heavy loads like stove/oven or clothes drier, and for sure no A/C if I had it. Microwave would be OK but would drain the battery quickly. So lights, electronics and hand tools. For 100% off grid with all the niceties of modern life I would probably have to double the size, and even then in the dark days of December I would probably need to supplement with a generator.
Hi RK
Someone suggested an old Ford inline six with a gasifier (running on wood), hooked up to a generator for off the grid power…..
Wood powered cars have advantages over gas, diesel or electric vehicles.
The worst choice is electric vehicles.
There is lots of free wood someplaces, you can drive around the world with a saw and an axe.
In a very remote location this would be good, if there is lots of trees.
When/if they cut off our gas or diesel we can use these.
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/01/wood-gas-cars.html
I know RK, thanks though. I am just a novice and you are obviously an expert, but as an engineer (non-PE) I know how to get around.
My kid came home from middle school one day and had to do a paper on how great solar is. Sooooo, I said let’s design one for our house for how we use our house today. After a week of research with a little help from me he came back with “wholly crap dad, we would need like two of our backyards of panels with tons of extra equipment”. All in $40K +/-, payback assuming no maintenance (yeah right), 25-30 +/- years. And assuming the sun shines all day which it doesn’t of course in most of the country.
The sad/funny part was the teacher gave him an F, and wouldn’t let him prove his results. Soooo, i said bring your paper to the principle. A few days later he got an A and the teacher hated him forever. What fun…………. This is the teacher from prior comments here that eventually got fired, so a little win.
And the second sad part is 95% of these classes, every year get this crap rammed down their throat till they believe……………………
Is he pulling these numbers out of his ass? Most houses have 200 amp services, which equals 24kw, max. Where the hell are they getting 150kw, never mind 350. Most pole top transformers are only rated at 100kva, going by the assumption that not every connected load will be drawing its maximum.
‘Most houses have 200 amp services, which equals 24kw, max.’ — Mike+in+Boston
As the power equation indicates, it depends on both the voltage and the amperage.
‘In October 2017, the Society of Automotive Engineers made 400A at 1,000V the new official DC limit for the SAE J1772 standard and CCS Type 1 plugs.
‘The new higher amperage limits are enabled by liquid cooling of the charging cable and plug.’
https://electricrevs.com/2018/04/10/how-does-800v-charging-work/
To deliver 400 amps requires HEAVY cable and — as the article notes — liquid cooling of the cable and plug, so the cable won’t melt its insulation or burn unsuspecting EV drivers.
Power delivered at 400 amps x 800 volts is 320 kW.
As you noted, this implies industrial-scale transformers for multi-bay charging stations. Ain’t gonna happen in your garage.
But no worries: kindly Uncle Joe is picking up the tab. Message: I care! 🙂
John DeLorean was set up by the FBI. His company was struggling. The FBI intentionally targeted him believing he might be desperate enough to go along with an illegal drug deal to save his company. DeLorean was eventually acquitted due to the FBI entrapment but after years of lawyering and costs which eventually killed him.
My comment today is about the FBI:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/the_fbis_role_in_the_jan_6_capitol_fracas_is_absolutely_disgusting.html
And with the recent Buffalo shooting it appears the FBI was up to their old games by encouraging a young loner into rage and hatred to commit an act of violence so the FBI could be heroes and claim they stopped another one…except they forgot one thing… to call it in when the kid told him he was on his way to commit violence. Way to go…A-Holes.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/05/no_author/buffalo-ny-mass-shooter-had-been-coached-by-former-fbi-agent/
The joke at the time: How can you tell if you are following a Delorean down the highway? The white lines are missing.
I read a story of a woman visiting Yellowstone National Park. She approached a buffalo, the buffalo gored her and sent her sailing 10 feet into the air. She was 25 years old.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Young people are dying faster than the old boomers these days.
https://newsbeezer.com/a-woman-was-impaled-and-thrown-by-a-bison-after-approaching-the-animal-in-yellowstone-national-park/
Is that actually true?
Young people are not exactly known for good judgement. This is why we need old people, to provide wisdom and advice. The old Boomer adage about how “the children will show us the way” was ass-backwards. Probably inspired by the Bible verse about the lion lying down with the lamb, and a little child shall lead them…which was talking more about an idyllic, ideal state of affairs which, need I point out, we don’t actually live in.
I would say shame on the older generations for abdicating their responsibility, except it turns out that when the chips are down most of them aren’t worth shit anyway (case in point: covid).
It’s all about balance.
On the one hand, it makes sense to think about foreseeable negative outcomes, and plan around that (suicide missions don’t help anyone).
On the other hand, there is literally nothing that a person can do that entails no risk. So if you dwell too much on the bad things that might happen you end up paralyzed and a basket case, which is basically a suicide mission by any other name.
There is a certain amount of screwing up (and learning from the experience) that builds that kind of wisdom.
That is what childhood, adolescence, and even to some extent young adulthood is for.
Most of us have to pee on the electric fence for ourselves at least once.
As a culture we have become so afraid of screwing up, we don’t let kids actually do anything that might be dangerous, adolescence has been extended out way too far, and this is the kind of shit that happens as a result.
This is what the saaafety brigade must want, because this is what happens to human beings who don’t properly understand and appreciate risk. They do stupid shit, and expect everything to be fine.
I hope the girl (isn’t that weird to call s 25 year old s girl? But that’s what she is, she’s clearly not a woman yet) survives, and learns an important lesson from the experience.
I’m an old Boomer and while some still call those that are 15-20 years younger than me, they are clueless as a waterbug. When we moved the last time, I had installed some really expensive light switches in the house we lived in. They were too expensive to leave so getting down to the nut-cutting, i handed my spare electrical kit to my wife and we both went to work and removed 15 and replaced them with the old ones in record time. I was proud she could do just about anything.
I was headed to work in the Nissan pickup one morning when she asked if it would be ok if she used the 3/4T 4WD Chevy. I told her the water pump was out but I picked up a new one on the way home. If she wanted to change it there was plenty of antifreeze and distilled water . I got home late that evening and she had used my best friend to help her haul rock(riprap)from a newly drained lake to our newly built tank. I got home and the spillway was covered in 9-12″ rip rap. I was glad she did it because the Nissan would get pushed around a corner with that load(we’d already tried it}. That week=end we made a couple more loads with the Chevy and we had 150 feet by 25 feet of rip rap on the spillway and had increased the depth of the water by a foot. Not a bad deed considering. It’s still there although neither of us can do much more than just look at it.
I hope everyone here isn’t suffering the 104 -110 temperature we have for over a month. We’re supposed to get a respite today and only reach 93.
Speaking of being 25 and not knowing anything, I sure liked those girls from when I was in school, long before reaching 25. Men taught their girls to operate tractors back then and they didn’t have cabs on them. They sure were pretty with that heavy brown tan and blond hair that hadn’t been blond before they became field hands. They worked out in the fields cultivating with us boys.
I knew a few people from the WWI generation but (what was left of them) were very very old when I was very very young, much like the WWII generation is now. My grandparents were WWII generation. I learned a great deal from people who were their age, that I can take with me. I learned a lot from the Korean War generation (scoutmasters etc.). My parents are baby boom. I can’t say I’ve learned nothing from their generation, but I’ve learned less that is of value, and from far fewer people. I’ve figured out a lot myself, the hard way (although I still make plenty of mistakes, and have much to learn).
I can’t say much for my peers (millennials), in general. There are a few good ones, but most of them soaked up leftism like a sponge and can’t seem to get away from it. “Gen Z” I can’t quite make heads or tails of, but I think a lot of them are still working stuff out & trying to find their place. I see a lot of them with good work ethics, but their expectations seem to be lower (this is both a good and a bad thing). After them…well, the demographics pretty much fall off a cliff. There’s no one (to speak of) coming after them. The birth rate cratered in ‘08, and never recovered. Anyone who wasn’t born then, would be entering high school now.
Less meat for the globo-Corp-MIC grinder, I suppose.
She survived the attack, an update yesterday.
Great…Just great.
All we got in the future was the Cubs winning the World Series, a marginal hover board that doesn’t even hover…and President Biff!
What separates this monstrosity from the other glorified, soulless golf carts except its doors and the name bought by the grifters who commissioned this concept car? Quick answer, nothing.
Reading the automotive “press” (more like stenographers) and you’d think Marty and Doc would be ready to “reboot” their adventures in time travel in this machine. Instead, it’s like everything in this society, a simulacrum (an unsatisfactory imitation or substitute).
We have fake elections to make people think their votes count and that their government “works for them.”
We have fake music designed in a studio electronically by the same 4-5 producers and “sang” via autotune by some starlet.
We have a fake pandemic that was a threat to no one except the infirm and the elderly, yet our ruling class took a blowtorch to our “just in time” supply chains (where the redundancies were stripped for parts and sent overseas to add a few zeroes to the bottom line for our greedy, depraved plutocrats), made us wear pointless diapers on our faces and forced us to live as prisoners in our homes while devising a “vaccine” that doesn’t prevent infection and has deleterious side effects.
We have fake movies and TV shows filled with CGI-enhanced diverse heroes and heroines that are as empty as the heads of the people who write and direct them.
We have fake news as “journalists” follow the narrative given to them by their paymasters while obscuring or distorting the truth.
Now we have fake cars that allegedly run on rainbows and unicorn farts that our rulers can shut down on a whim with one keystroke. It’s an over-the-air update, they say.
We have a fake climate crisis that our rulers say will increase sea levels and heat up the planet unless we ditch our standard of living, start eating bugs and grass, living in mud huts while our ruling class jets around the world in their Gulfstreams eating Kobe beef and drinking champagne. Socialism is always for the people, never the socialist.
Reminds me of that quote from Solzhenitsyn:
“We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying.” – Attributed to Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
Meanwhile, the Psychopaths In Charge warn us about grid failure. Turning your $175k car into a very expensive, very large paperweight that might spontaneously combust. The only way to reach “carbon neutral” is to kill off more than half the world population, and make miserable all left alive that are not members of the chosen few who are meeting in Davos. Where is a natural disaster when you need one?
Natural disasters have been replaced by geo manipulated weather events. They can be seen everywhere these days. Nothing about the weather seems natural anymore. Anywhere
$175K in bidenbucks won’t even buy you half a zagnut by the time dementia joe has finished Nixon’s quest of destroying the currency.