Saturday 19th March 2005

John DeLorean, an innovative auto industry executive and founder of the DeLorean Motor Company, died in New Jersey at the age of 80. In the early 1980’s, his DeLorean Motor Company produced just one model, the DMC-12. It was a sleek sports car with gull-wing doors that opened upward. The company’s brief and turbulent history ended in receivership and bankruptcy in 1982. Near the end, in a desperate attempt to raise the funds his company needed to survive, John DeLorean was filmed appearing to accept money to take part in drug trafficking, but was subsequently acquitted of charges brought against him on the basis of entrapment. Approximately 9,000 DMC-12s in total were produced. The car later became a collector’s item and received a big publicity boost when it was featured as a time-travel machine in the “Back to the Future” movies starring Michael J. Fox.