DeLorean DMC-12
DeLorean
DeLorean DMC-12: The Stainless Steel Time Machine
The DeLorean DMC-12 is a gullwing sports car with an unpainted stainless steel body, built for just two years before the company collapsed, and made permanently famous as the time machine in Back to the Future.
The DMC-12 arrived in 1981 with two features no rival had: doors that opened upward on cryogenically preset torsion bars, and body panels of brushed stainless steel that were never painted. The design came from Giorgetto Giugiaro, the chassis engineering largely from Lotus, and the car was assembled in Northern Ireland.
What it did not have was speed. The rear-mounted PRV V6, a joint Peugeot-Renault-Volvo engine, made about 130 horsepower in US trim, and contemporary tests put 0 to 60 mph around 10 seconds. Reviewers liked the look and questioned the price. The company was bankrupt by the end of 1982 after roughly 9,000 cars.
Back to the Future rewrote the ending in 1985. Doc Brown''s modified DMC-12, flux capacitor and all, is arguably the most famous single movie car ever, and it converted a commercial failure into a cultural icon. Because the panels are bare metal, scratches can be sanded out with a grain-matching pad, and because a Texas firm bought the entire parts inventory, the cars remain unusually supportable for a dead marque. Values have climbed for decades, powered by a film franchise that never seems to age.