John DeLorean was born in Detroit, which gave him a good engineering
background to begin with. His father worked for Ford, and was a union leader back when unions were not looked upon favourably. He constantly fought the management there to let the workers have more money, or just to keep their jobs year round. (Most car companies tended to make too many cars early in the year, and lay off workers when they had made enough cars.) His father would frequently come home drunk, but despite this DeLorean grew up with respect for his father's abilities as a carpenter/woodworker.Later, he attended Cass Technical High, which gave him a huge head start in college, and he coasted through the first two years, still managing to bring home top grades. During this time the country was in the middle of WW2, and DeLorean was drafted. He "did not get along with the military," and was sent back to basic training many times.
After his honourable discharge, he came home to find that his parents had divorced. His mother was working at a General Electric plant which got them more money and afforded a better life for them all. He retuned to college to finish his degree, and then moved on the the Chrysler Institute. There he completed all his training, and was ready to take ajob at Chrysler. At graduation the head of the engineering department gave a horrible speech and disillusioned DeLorean along with most of the other graduates, so he accepted a job at the rapidly failing Packard plant. While there he developed the Ultramatic transmission, which was put into nearly all of Packard's cars. But later, when he saw that Packard was dying and not coming back, he started to look for a new job.
He got call from one of the USA's top transmission designers who convinced him to take a job at GM as an engineer in the Pontiac division. At that time Pontiac was slowly going the way of Packard, and he was part of the team to help turn it around. While there he made a friend out of his supervisor, Pete Estes. Later Pete Estes was promoted to general manager of Pontiac, in lieu of legend Semon "Bunkie" Knudsen. With this happening, DeLorean was promoted to Chief Engineer, the youngest man to ever acheive that position.
While there, DeLorean changed many things, but his most lasting influence was the GTO, which he helped design. He took a Tempest (Pontiac's lightweight family sedan) and put a massive engine in it. The car was so much fun to drive that he went to Estes for permission to further develop the car. He gave it the green light, and the GTO was born. A couple years later, Estes was promoted to the head of Chevrolet, and DeLorean was the youngest man to ever take the postition as head of Pontiac. This didn't last long before he was promoted again to take over as head of Chevrolet. His job was the same as what he did at Pontiac, turn the company around, and start making money again. He did a lot of research on why Chevrolet wasn't selling anymore. One of the bigger problems was quality control. He fixed this among other problems, and finally put Chevy back on the charts as the 3rd best seller in the USA, although his unorthodox methods and being a very outspoken civil rights advocate were really starting to tick the management of GM off. So, they promoted him to the place where he could do the least harm, manager of North American Car and Truck Divisions. The difference here was that if he wanted to do anything, he had to go through all the other managers, who all vetoed anything they didn't like. By now he was getting frustrated with the people at GM and he quit. This ended his days of being a high paid excecutive, but also gave him time to pursue his lifelong dream to build his own sportscar.
For this he started by going to some companies like Allstate Insurance to fund his research. For the actual body design he went to one of the most respected car designers in the world, none other than Giorgetto Giugiario of Ital Design. Then came the harder task of finding a suitable site for the new factory. DeLorean originally considered Puerto Rico, but in the end turned to Northern Ireland. He went to look at the site where his all new factory would be built, and it was quite literally a swamp (and cows still in it to boot!) Despite this, the factory was built in a record time of 18 months. During that time he worked with legendary Lotus founder, Colin Chapman to design the suspension, and later the whole workings of the car. The engine in the prototypes was at first a Citroen V4, and then a Ford V6, but in the last ones it was changed to the production 2.8L Peugeot-Renault-Volvo V6.
One of the interesting things about the DeLorean was that it was a Rear Engine, Rear Wheel Drive car that was built at the beginning of the front wheel drive craze (which still continues to this day.) This can be easily explained though, John DeLorean hated front wheel drive cars. For a good reason, though. When accelerating heavily with a front wheel drive car, the wheels spin as weight is lifted off of them and put onto the rear wheels. The rear engine was from his solid logic that said put the weight over the wheels.
So the car went into production midway through 1981 to an extremely high demand for the it, with orders for one backed up for at least 2 years. This is one of the myths about the DeLorean, the company went bankrupt because of lack of demand. Actually, the revese is quite true, but more on that later. For the first year, production steadily increased, trying to keep up with all the demand. During that time, plans were being made for a family sedan (the DMC-24) that would go on sale in late 1982, early 1983. This car never got past the design stage because the company ran into financial problems. Not the least of these was the fact that suddenly for no reason, the British Government decided to impose an export tax only on the DeLorean. This among other things like the Government backing out on it's agreement for more money for the company and a failed attempt to start another section of the company (DeLorean Motor Holdings, Inc.) due to a faked memo that would incriminate DeLorean, all contributed to the eventual downfall of the company. Then in a desperate search for the money to keep his company going DeLorean slipped into a biased attempt by the FBI to catch him doing a drug deal. This was lead by the convict-turned-informer James Hoffman, whose criminal record was quite extensive. This was a big reason why the case against DeLorean fell apart in court. But as soon as the word went out, that John Z. DeLorean was caught on tape supposedly discussing a drug deal the company was almost certainly doomed.
The story of all this goes something like this. In a search for money, DeLorean got a phone call from a man he met three years ago and talked to for ten minutes in his driveway, James Hoffman. Hoffman said that he wanted to meet DeLorean to talk about money for the company. DeLorean met with him just like he would any other potential investor. Over the next few months or so the talks slowly turned to drugs and DeLorean realised that he was dealing with some big time criminals. He slowly backed out of the deal and just when he thought he was free, he got a threatening phone call from Hoffman. He was told to meet with him or else Hoffman would bring home DeLorean's daughter's head in bag. The FBI mysteriously missed this phone call, and wasn't found on any tapes. DeLorean had no choice but to comply, and the meetings resumed. In the last meeting they came out with the sacks of cocaine to show him that the deal was ready. The FBI had been watching them for months, and had (supposedly) recorded every meeting. This when they saw the bags being brought into the room was enough for them, they arrested John DeLorean on the spot. The next couple years were tied up in the courts, but DeLorean's innocence became surer and surer as the Government's case cracked and slowly fell apart, as the truth was finally brought into the light. Finally the day came when DeLorean won the trial and could safely go home to his family.
This is a late-model prototype DeLorean, as you can see there are a lot of differences, not the least of which is the windows that actually opened sideways, allowing easy access to the outside, not to mention drive-through windows which were impossible in the final version. Also note the missing louvre on the back of the car, instead just a plain window was used.
