JOHN DELOREAN DIED LAST NIGHT
 

NEWARK, N.J. -- John Z. DeLorean, the innovative automaker who left a promising career in Detroit to develop the stainless steel-skinned, gull-winged sports car bearing his name and was acquitted of charges he planned to sell $24 million worth of cocaine to support the venture, has died at the age of 80.

DeLorean died Saturday at Overlook Hospital in Summit, N.J., of complications from a recent stroke, said Paul Connell, an owner of A.J. Desmond & Sons Funeral Directors in Royal Oak, Mich., which was handling arrangements.

DeLorean, whose namesake car was turned into a time machine in the "Back to the Future" movies, was among just a handful of U.S. entrepreneurs who dared start a car company in the last 75 years.

DeLorean "broke the mold" of staid Midwestern auto executives by pushing General Motors Corp. to offer smaller models, auto historians said.

While at GM, he created what some consider the first "muscle car" in 1964 by cramming a V-8 engine into a Pontiac Tempest and calling it the GTO.

Although he was a rising if unconventional executive at GM, and was believed by many to be destined for its presidency, he quit in 1973 to launch the DeLorean Motor Car Co. in Northern Ireland.

Eight years later, the DeLorean DMC-12 hit the streets with its unpainted stainless steel skin and gull-wing doors.

Its angular design earned it a cult following, and the car was a time-traveling vehicle for Michael J. Fox in the "Back to the Future" films of the late 1980s.

However, the factory produced only about 8,900 cars in three years, estimated John Truscott, membership director of the DeLorean Owners Association.

DeLorean's company collapsed in 1983, a year after he was arrested in Los Angeles, accused in a sting of conspiring to sell $24 million of cocaine to salvage the company.

DeLorean used an entrapment defense to win acquittal on the drug charges in 1984, despite a surveillance videotape in which he was shown calling a suitcase full of cocaine "good as gold."

He was later cleared of defrauding his investors, but continuing legal entanglements kept him on the sidelines of the automotive world.



Rear mounted, liquid cooled - Light Alloy V6,
2.85 Liter - Single overhead camshaft - C.I.S. mechanical fuel injection - Cylinder Bore 91mm - Stroke 73mm - Displacement 2849 cc -
Power Rating 130 SAE NET HP @5,500 RPM -
Maximum Torque 208 Nm @ 2,750 RPM -
Compression Ratio 8:8:1



SO POST YOUR RESPECTS TO THIS GANGSTER/COKE DEALER/AUTO GENIOUS

MADE GTO FOR G.M.
AND THE DELOREAN

Re: JOHN DELOREAN DIED LAST NIGHT
 

shoulda turbo'd it O0

that car is so tight, he musta been a good man

Re: JOHN DELOREAN DIED LAST NIGHT
 

to bad he died.. but thats what happens to old people.

btw, I never did like the car at all. I drove one and thought it was so freaking slow, the thing had to weigh like 6000lbs??

Re: JOHN DELOREAN DIED LAST NIGHT
 

I put a clutch in one at my shop :-X what a piece of ----! I took it out to rip up the streets ::) A auto civic would own its ass ;D

Re: JOHN DELOREAN DIED LAST NIGHT
 

:(
now i know...
i was always wondering what car was is in the movie.

Re: JOHN DELOREAN DIED LAST NIGHT
 

Delorian was a gangsta. he built the 426 Hemi. Dodge has made millions off his design.

Re: JOHN DELOREAN DIED LAST NIGHT
 

you never rid in the factory turbo model did you?

Re: JOHN DELOREAN DIED LAST NIGHT
 

to much cocaine ^-^

Re: JOHN DELOREAN DIED LAST NIGHT
 

cokeheads dont last forever

Re: JOHN DELOREAN DIED LAST NIGHT
 

I doubt it, since the whole thing was made out of fiberglass.