John DeLorean kicks it
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Boy, this makes me feel old. Back to the over-the-top, snow-blown 80s.
John Z. DeLorean, the flamboyant automobile industrialist whose dream of running his own car company dissolved into bankruptcy, died Saturday evening at Overlook Hospital in Summit, N.J. He was 80 years old and lived in Bedminster, N.J. The cause was complications after a stroke, his family said.
...DeLorean Motor produced only one model, the DMC-12, but it made a lasting impression. In the early 1980's, with increasingly dull cars coming from Detroit, the unpainted, stainless steel-bodied sports car had doors that opened upward like a gull's wings and was featured in the "Back to the Future" movies starring Michael J. Fox.
Although the car remains a collector's item, the life of Mr. DeLorean's company was brief, with about 9,000 cars produced at a factory in Northern Ireland before the company went bankrupt in 1982. Soon after came charges by authorities in the United States that Mr. DeLorean was selling cocaine to prop up its finances. Mr. DeLorean was acquitted in 1984 after a highly publicized trial.
