2019 – Road Trip – 18 – Spokane Riverfront Park – DeLorean Expo – Car Show – 2 of 3
Image by Stand by Ukraine
Spokane’s 2019 DeLorean Expo – Car Show on Howard Street Pedestrian Bridge in Riverfront Park was the first time we saw this many Delorean in one place.
The infamous story of the DeLorean Motor Company is all about John Z. DeLorean, the founder and company’s namesake.
In the late ’70s, DeLorean departed GM at the height of his career to build “the new American sports car.”
DeLorean got 0 million in British Government investment and production began in Belfast Northern Ireland in 1981 on the sleek, stainless-steel, gull-wing DMC-12.
DeLorean had wanted to make an "ethical" sports car: safe, fuel-efficient and long-lasting. It was the Tesla of its day.
For the shape of the car, DeLorean approached Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro, who had styled sports cars for Maserati and Alfa Romeo, as well as a number of Volkswagen mainstays like the original Golf.
Giugiaro based the DeLorean on a 1970 concept car he had created for Porsche, called "Tapiro," which was similarly wedge-shaped and sported a stainless steel body with gull-wing doors.
In his Belfast factory DeLorean stockpiled enough parts to build nearly 30,000 cars, but ended up producing about 9,200.
The DeLorean was featured in the Back to the Future movie trilogy (1985, 1989 & 1990) as the model of car made into a time machine by eccentric scientist Doc Brown. DeLorean’s company had foundered before the first movie was made.
Approximately 9,000 +/- cars were made between January 1981 and December 1982, although actual production figures are unclear and estimates differ.
Some of the cars manufactured in 1982, but not shipped to the USA (the US arm of DMC had no money to ‘buy’ the cars from the factory in Northern Ireland), with 15XXX and 16XXX Vehicle Identification Numbers are actually 1982 models given later VINs and dated 1983.
A large number of the original cars are still on the road; most estimates put it at 6,500 surviving.
DeLorean battled many legal cases (stemming from the company’s bankruptcy) well into the 1990’s.
He declared bankruptcy in September 1999 and was evicted from his 434 acre New Jersey estate in March 2000.
DeLorean died of stroke complications at 80 years old 19 March 2005.
