Stainless-steel body panels, tough mechanicals, many rust-free low-mileage examples and fast-improving parts supply: a DeLorean DMC-12 makes a promising classic car purchase. And if you’re tempted, don’t hesitate: against the backdrop of rising values for desirable old motors, this year’s 40th anniversary DeLorean celebrations (the first cars rolled off the Belfast production line in early 1981) are sure to burnish the DMC-12’s reputation with a consequent impact on prices.
Only last month, a 1982-registered example in good condition and with 61,000 miles that was estimated to make between £26,000 and £35,000 at auction eventually went for £42,750. That’s an impressive result but one that was achieved when, from £39,000, only two bidders remained, each trumping the other in £250 increments. A desire to win at all costs? It’s always a risk with auctions, so let’s just hope the victor is pleased with their DMC-12.
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They ought to be. If nothing else, the story behind the model is like something out of Hollywood. Dashing and brilliant General Motors executive John DeLorean quits to realise his dream of building an ‘ethical’ two-seat sports car: one that will be safe, durable and sustainable, albeit with a mid-mounted V6, gullwing doors and a stainless-steel body. He recruits Giorgetto Giugiaro to style it and Lotus’s Colin Chapman to engineer its chassis and suspension. He persuades the UK government, desperate to create jobs in a divided Northern Ireland, to pour millions into the project. But complaints quickly surface about the car’s poor build quality and performance, and a new administration opposed to private sector support is elected. Within months, DeLorean’s dream is shattered, the final nail in the coffin his arrest on drug charges when caught trying to raise enough cash to keep the company afloat.
And there, but for all the legal and financial complications that followed, the story ends. Except that, happily, DeLorean’s dream lives on in the form of thousands of extant DMC-12s. More than 9000 were made, although of the roughly 6500 remaining, most are in the US.
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Why do we like cars?, nobody has the right answer, we just do, we are prepared to put up with the little niggle faults than turn up on a regular basis, some people, as said buy them as a project car, something to do like a hobby almost, join owners clubs who are like minded, when the firms came out this was a futuristic car, the same with the Pontiac in the Tv series "Night rider" , Dodge Charger in the "Dikes of hazard", these were all cars which for blokes of a certain age now drooled over, the DeLorean was one mans dream, and he got them made, yes, it had a gutless engine, wasn't built all that well, but most were bought because of the films, and, and I'm not sure about this, it's the only car that all the parts are available, from bolts n screws to body panels which are original old stock, so, like I said, why do we like old cars?, maybe that's why?
I dont get what people see in these old dogs.
Awful design, stainless steel finish always looks tired (did when new too). Crappy, wheezy old Renault engine, and poor build quality - all financed by us (the tax payer), at the time for a bunch of crooks.
I get the feeling that if it hadnt been in a film no one would even have remembered it.