SUMMIT, NEW JERSEY.- Car designer and businessman John DeLorean, 80, died. John DeLorean designed in 1981 a sportscar with a silver stainless-steel body and doors that looked like gull-wings. The car was named DeLorean. John DeLorean worked at General Motors and quit in 1973 to form the DeLorean Motor Company. The company closed down in 1983 due to financial difficulties. Less than 10,000 DeLorean cars were built. The DeLorean car was driven by actor Michael J. Fox in the 1985 film Back to the Future. In 1999 DeLorean was forced to declare bankruptcy. The U.S. authorities charged DeLorean of selling cocaine to help his finances. He was acquitted in 1984.

John Zachary DeLorean was born in a modest home in Detroit, Michigan on January 6, 1925. He was the eldest of four sons born to Zachary and Katherine DeLorean (nee. Pribak). His father was an hourly Ford Motor Company employee for over forty years.

From this humble beginning John became a powerhouse in the automotive industry due in large part to his parents and his uncle, Earl Pribak, stressing the value of education and dedication.

After graduation from Cass Technical High School, he served in the US Infantry during WWII. He attended Lawrence Institute of Technology where he formed a dance band and wrote a humor column for the school paper. He graduated with highest honors.

The many innovations pioneered by John…including the GTO…. propelled Pontiac from a ho-hum car to third place in auto sales and the highest profit GM Car Division. John was rewarded for his contributions by being promoted to Chief Engineer and them General Manager of Pontiac.

John’s proven ability to lead and his dramatic achievements resulted in his being promoted to General Manager of Chevrolet Division, a division that had become an underachiever.

John had a management philosophy of giving responsibility to the lowest possible level (“the janitor knows which broom is best” - was John’s motto). John’s flamboyant life style was frequently at odds with GM upper echelon and John decided he would be happier running his own car company….and thus the “Back To The Future” car, The DMC was born. The project was backed by the British Government and the plant was located near Belfast. The DMC was a great success, the public was enamored with the vehicle and dealer orders were piling up.

John was pleased with his contributions to the automotive industry. He is credited with over 200 patents. Every car built in the world today contains at least one of his creations.

John Z. DeLorean's Death Boosting Prices on GTOs and DeLoreans

The market for the classic Pontiac GTO and the DeLorean Motor Cars gull-wing coupe already are feeling the effects of John Z. DeLorean's death, according to the Volo Auto Museum.

"I consider John DeLorean the father of the muscle car," Museum President Greg Grams said. "He was an artist, and the value of his work will increase with his passing just like Picasso, Rembrandt or any other artist."

In addition to displaying antique, muscle and famous Hollywood cars, the museum sells about 80 classic cars each month. When DeLorean became terminally ill, news spread fast among the collector-car market, Grams said.

The museum has sold three GTOs in the last four days, including a 1969 GTO convertible for over $100,000. Grams said the price of DMC gull-wings, which have sold for $15,000-$20,000 since 1983, also are likely to increase in the next few days. The museum's most current GTO prices are available at http://volocars.com.

Along with Carroll Shelby, creator of the Shelby Mustang, and a handful of others, DeLorean revolutionized the automotive world in the 1960s by taking seriously the truism "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday."
The press published this in memory of John DeLorean:



John DeLorean, who died on Saturday aged 80, was best known in Britain for his disastrous scheme to build his famous stainless steel gull-wing sports car, the DeLorean DMC-12; brilliant at self-promotion, he was less assiduous when it came to other people's money, and he did nothing to enhance the reputations of car salesmen anywhere.

"Surface glamour was DeLorean's forte. He was 6 ft 4 ins tall and had matinee idol looks (embellished, it is said, by a chin implant). He loved the Hollywood lifestyle, and had squired Tina Sinatra and Ursula Andress before taking as his third wife Christina Ferrare, a striking model and actress."



"John DeLorean, who died on Saturday, was an American idol. But behind his glitzy image was a crook who spun a web of deception, writes Ivan Fallon".

“Seldom had there been a more public, dramatic, fall from grace. The images of John Z DeLorean, the glitzy, silver-haired "acceptable face" of the American car industry, flashed around the world, soon to lead every news programme and front page. There he was, ruffled and ashen-faced, hands manacled behind his back, walking towards the police car that would take him to jail and disgrace.

“It was 20 October 1982; DeLorean was 59, a legend to a generation of Americans who had been brought up on the story of the man who conceived the Pontiac GTO. That car had caught the imagination of the youth of America in the 1960s and inspired a singing group called Ronnie and the Daytonas, whose record about the car went to the top of the hit parade. By an odd irony, it was also election day in Northern Ireland where DeLorean had built what had become the most talked-about car plant in the Western world, manufacturing his "dream" DMC-12 stainless-steel sports car with its distinctive gull-wing doors (as seen in the Hollywood film Back to the Future).”



“John DeLorean is famous for three things:

• his work on the Pontiac GTO in the 1960s
• the gull-wing sports car that he created in the early '80s (used as the time machine in the Back to the Future movies)
• his arrest for money laundering and drug trafficking.

“The arrest was the result of a U.S. government sting operation. A 1986 trial showed that John DeLorean was a desperate man because of his car company's impending financial collapse, and, as such, wouldn't have committed a crime if he hadn't been enticed by federal agents. This was a violation of the guidelines for federal sting operations, so DeLorean was acquitted of all charges. Unfortunately, his car company had already folded by 1983, and his name was sullied by the arrest.

“Since that time, John DeLorean has stayed out of the limelight. He has been married and divorced more than once, and he's currently a bachelor in his 70s. He's been entangled in about 40 legal cases stemming from his company's bankruptcy. He personally declared bankruptcy in September 1999 and was evicted from his 434-acre estate in New Jersey in March 2000, although he is reportedly still".

“Sir Kenneth Bloomfield, permanent secretary at the Department of Commerce in Northern Ireland when the company closed, said DeLorean was an extraordinary individual.

"On the one hand, he was a very striking, charismatic, like a motor industry executive acted by somebody in Hollywood," he said.

"If he wanted to, he could turn on the charm offensive, but at other times he could be very abrasive and unpleasant."