Tonight For the Love of Cars
What do you think? Back To The Future.
..we're rescuing a car that most of us
think is a time machine made in Hollywood...
Wow! Got to hit 88mph!
..but was actually born in Northern Ireland.
The best job I ever had in my life.
A unique sports car that was the 1980s on wheels
and captured the imagination of the whole world.
The product of an all-American dream...
Is that it? ..that became a very British nightmare.
A strange, flawed and unique car...
We've got something really special here.
..that can only be understood by learning about the strange,
Gull-wing doors have a lot of mystique and sex appeal.
A classic 1980s tale of a fearless entrepreneur,
tasteless excess...
Is that exhaust gold-plated? Yes. Does that come off?
..financial meltdown and massive quantities of cocaine.
Get ready for the greatest motoring disaster movie...
..ever told.
Looks awesome.
The DeLorean. Terrible car. Well, apart from Back To The Future.
I take it you're not a fan, Anthony. It was all a little bit half finished.
It was heavy, lumpy...
Yes, but it was a little bit quirky and it had those gull-wing doors.
OK, I give you that but it's going to be a nightmare to find.
Let me just stop you there, Anthony. I don't want excuses.
I want a DeLorean. I will find you a DeLorean. Thank you.
Love your work.
The DeLorean from me is all show and no go
My friend Stuart who owns a DeLorean loves his DeLorean. It's like a member of his family.
The incredible looking DeLorean DMC-12 was launched in 1981.
Tell 'em ,Gloria.
Well, for the last 18 months, this car has been one of the biggest
talking points throughout the world.
the most beautiful but controversial sports cars ever designed.
Manufactured entirely in the UK,
just under 9,000 were ever made
and almost all of them were sold in America.
I've spoken to the owner. It has been in a garage for 13 years
and I am hoping that it's not a bit of a wreck.
But Ant's not left our shores - he's headed to the wilds of Berkshire.
To a cul-de-sac in Ascot.
Hi. Hello. You must be Jean. I am and you're Ant. Yes, I'm here to see the car.
Jean Austin's late husband Michael
tucked his beloved DeLorean away in his garage 14 years ago.
It hasn't been moved since.
Here it is. OK. Would you like the keys? Thank you. OK. OK.
Let's see what we've got.
Well, the stainless work is fantastic.
This bonnet is flawless. I can't see a body flaw yet.
The DeLorean was made first and foremost for the American
left-hand drive market.
Very few were made for the leafy roads of Berkshire.
It's a right-hand drive. This is rare.
You just don't find these tucked up in garages.
This car is as old as me. This looks like it's brand-new.
It's been cocooned in this garage for so long that it's been saved.
I don't think we could find a better car.
Michael bought the car from a colleague in the '90s.
But he wasn't your typical gull-wing door sort of chap.
There he is in a Volvo.
This is a Volvo driver, sensible man,
and he comes home with a DeLorean.
I'm here to buy the car. How much is it? 23,000.
I wonder if his haggling skills have improved?
OK.
No. £23,000 for a car that's only meant to cost £12,000 new.
But for me? Well, you can't put a price on how different it is.
It looks like a car very much from the '80s. Extravagant, over the top.
When you look at other cars built in the '80s,
the DeLorean genuinely looked like it had landed from another planet.
It was made of stainless steel. It had flappy doors.
And even its name sounded like a far-off planet from Star Trek.
When they built it, they thought it was space age
and I think Ant hates it, which will be even more fun to watch him
finding love for this motor.
Ha-ha!
Come on, then. Get it over. What do you think? Back To The Future.
I knew you'd say that. It's in good nick. Looks it. Yes, it's not bad.
What saved this car is that it's been put away
so there's cars you restore and there's cars you re-commission.
This is a re-commission...
Well, there is still a lot of work to do.
I mean, there's unfortunately a dent on the panel.
The car hasn't run for years. Shall we have a sit in?
Ooh! They go up, don't they? This is the iconic part of a DeLorean. Jesus!
This funny little window bit here - is that...? That is the window.
Not good for one of those drive-in burger places, is it?
No, Happy Meal only.
What's special about this car is DeLoreans were actually made left-hand drive
because they targeted the
Now normally my input is mostly about the colour
but because every DeLorean looks the same - what do we do with it?
I think the approach that we need to take with this is that we
have got to go with its quirkiness, you know.
It's a little bit different. It's kind of unique.
Be grateful it's not an Austin Allegro or anything.
I'm going to embrace the quirkiness. I think we have to. Yes.
I'm looking forward to it.
Sure you are(!)
Ant's first job is to get this car started.
Then he can find out what parts of the engine,
gearbox and clutch need attention before this motor can move again.
He'll have to ensure the suspension is still sound
after 14 years of hibernation.
Check the mechanics behind our rare right-hand drive conversion.
Make sure the iconic gull-wing doors are up to scratch.
Fix the dents in the bodywork.
And give the unique stainless steel finish a good polish.
Ant's got just eight weeks...
Right, that should have power. ..to prepare this '80s icon
for an expectant gathering of DeLorean fanatics.
And its comeback appearance at auction.
Really smells of stale fuel.
I think he'd rather I'd chosen the Allegro.
But then the Allegro isn't one of the most famous cars in the world.
Hit 88mph.
It doesn't go to 88.
It goes to 85.
Look! Wow! I think it's back in the future. Back in the future.
We all know that the DeLorean
is the star of 1985 Hollywood blockbuster Back To The Future,
in which a young man narrowly avoids sleeping with his own mum.
But in the first draft of the script,
Marty McFly was due to travel through time in a large fridge.
But they changed it to a car after the producers worried that
And a bit cold.
They chose the DeLorean
because it already looked a bit like a space ship.
But long before Hollywood producers sent the DeLorean back to the future,
even before the DeLorean was a car,
DeLorean was a man.
Mr John T DeLorean! APPLAUSE
John DeLorean was born and raised in the home of US motoring -
Detroit.
The son of a Romanian immigrant, his father couldn't afford to send him to college,
so John worked in a factory to fund his engineering degree.
But once he graduated,
his rise from the shop floor to the boardroom was spectacular.
Today, I don't think there's a car running anywhere in the world
that doesn't have something that I created
An engineering genius and natural salesman, John had it all.
In 1965, at the age of 40, he became the youngest ever
head of General Motors' giant Pontiac Division.
He spent eight years at the very top,
earning the equivalent of 3.5 million dollars a year,
bought a gigantic estate, married a supermodel
and spent his weekends golfing with celebrity friends.
But at 48, having achieved all he felt he could with a large
company, he turned his back on the corporate world,
and risked it all on a lifelong dream.
business has dared attempt, to design, build and sell his very own automobile from scratch.
Most middle-aged men buy a sports car.
John DeLorean decided to build one.
To begin my journey into the DeLorean story, I need to drive one.
And despite there being only around
200 left in Britain, I've managed to track one down.
All right, I'm off to meet somebody in an underground car park.
If I'm not back up in half an hour, sublet my apartment.
Richard, you're a young man. What in God's name are you doing owning a DeLorean? I don't know.
When I was growing up, my father used to work for DeLorean
so when I was five years old, he occasionally got them
back from the factory, brought them home at the weekend.
30 odd years later, I thought... One day, I'm going to own a DeLorean. That's right.
'Better not break it, then.'
The handle's come off.
But this isn't just Michael's now-
Was it meant to be a sports car? Yes, it was marketed as a sports car.
It's the culmination of John DeLorean's dream.
'I'm going to get a good idea what he wanted from motoring.'
Quite heavy but it's actually quite a comfortable car as well.
It's a motorway cruiser. Is its comfy on the motorway?
Yes, I think it's great. Not too noisy?
I think it's probably designed for the California freeway.
There's all sorts of rude stories about the reliability of DeLoreans
but I'd be happy to drive in this and go to Edinburgh right now.
It would get me there. Really? Definitely.
'Now, I'm sure DeLorean wanted his car to turn heads.'
It is quite extraordinary seeing some people's reactions to it.
'Just as long as it was for the right reasons.'
Are we smoking?
No, I don't think so. I think the cameraman would tell us if we were smoking.
Yes. We'll have a check. Yes, we are hot.
Can we pull over somewhere, please.
We could not have picked a worse place.
but it's not going very well.
In fact, it's not going at all.
Not enough water in the tank.
They say it would take me to Edinburgh and back.
Yeah, it'll do that no problem.
It's just got to have plenty of water in the water tank.
We didn't get out of London.
Welcome to owning a car that's 30-plus years old.
Welcome to owning a DeLorean, maybe.
But our breakdown is proving one thing.
It's so recognisable. I remember when it was launched.
They don't make cars that are so exciting any more.
30 years on, and there's something about
John DeLorean's dream machine which leaves us misty-eyed.
I've only seen about three in my lifetime.
One was in Australia, one in the States,
and now this is the other one.
At the end of the day, it is an icon. It is a classic, isn't it?
Well, it's nice-looking. Bit of a poser's car.
Yay, beautiful. Rev, rev, rev.
It's clearly a car which can still pull a crowd,
but given that Richard's can't go 3 miles without overheating...
Bye!
..maybe Ant was right about one or two of those technical issues.
Right, what we're going to do is hook the power up.
It's Ant's first few days with his new best friend,
and our DeLorean is actually proving far from unreliable.
Oh, we've got a light.
Do you want to try the wipers?
Well, this car hasn't been started for 13 years,
and at the moment, everything's working.
But we all know it's not what's on the outside that counts.
Ant wants to find out if there are any problems on the inside.
What do you reckon? Only one way to find out.
ENGINE TICKS OVER
BLEEP! Stop.
Oh, dear. It looks like Ant's first job is to see why it's not starting.
ANT SIGHS
DeLorean. Right.
But that might not be an easy job,
because the engine was state of the art...
in the 1970s.
But before anyone had heard of global warming,
the DeLorean had an engine that had the environment in mind.
Most cars at the time saw a carburettor chuck fuel
straight into the engine -
the amount controlled by your foot on the accelerator.
DeLorean made his car far more efficient
by using a fancy thing called a computer
to govern the amount of fuel that went to the engine.
The system was called fuel injection.
Sound familiar?
But after 14 years standing in a garage,
it's completely bunged up.
To get things moving, Ant's hi tech solution
Keep going.
Come on, Dave, you're head tapper.
which is doubling up the fuel injection.
No. It's definitely broken.
Oh, you complete...
But if you think starting this DeLorean looks a bit tricky,
imagine trying to start the whole company.
John DeLorean needed $90 million to make his dream a reality.
He persuaded his business associates and celebrity friends
to invest but their pockets weren't quite deep enough.
The shortfall came from a very unexpected source...
In 1978 the British government, alarmed by spiralling unemployment,
handed over £77 million of taxpayer's money,
hoping that the dreamer from Detroit would create thousands of jobs.
and I've come to where John built his factory.
Hello?
Hi, it's Phil Glenister from Channel 4.
Can you speak up a bit?
HE LAUGHS
It's Phil Glenister from Channel 4.
OK, no problem.
The DeLorean had to be built in Northern Ireland.
What we have now is a generation who have been taught to hate.
Sectarian violence between Catholics and Protestants
had raged for over a decade, killing hundreds.
Unemployment was as high as 50%
and company executives were kidnap targets.
Of course not. If anything, the people here underestimate
what they have to offer.
The factory has long since changed hands,
but to get an idea of the scale of the task DeLorean faced,
I've come to meet a couple of blokes who were here at the very beginning.
Neil Barclay, like most of the employees,
had no previous car-making experience.
Dick Mulholland was the plant's engineering manager
and the most senior local man on the workforce.
This was the aisle I would have walked down with John DeLorean.
Down this one here?
Well, he was a friendly individual. He didn't hold himself aloof.
"Get to your work!" No.
'But Neil and Dick had to work fast.'
Under pressure to repay his investors,
DeLorean set out the most ambitious start-up plan
ever devised in car manufacturing.
He gave the company just 18 months to build the factory,
train the workforce, and start making the car.
The mini metro took ten years, John.
But the boys of Belfast rose to the challenge.
I couldn't complain about the level of activity
of anybody at this factory.
People loved working here, believe it or not.
A lot of these guys had never had a job before.
In creating 2,500 desperately needed jobs,
Not least because of where John built it -
the opposing Protestant and Catholic neighbourhoods.
For you guys with all the trouble going on outside,
to come to work must have been a bit of a sanctuary.
Politics and religion never entered.
Basically you leave your politics, you leave your...
Left at the gate and that was it.
It was a place to really escape from the pressures from outside.
All you were thinking about was the car.
Against all the odds and just a few months behind schedule,
Belfast was working together
to build the world's most exciting new sports car.
So would you say working here
was kind of a special time in your lives?
It was fantastic. You didn't want to go home at times.
The guys who worked with me, they felt the same.
The best job I ever had in my life.
Good morning, it's 8 o'clock at the News Desk, Ken Johnston.
The first batch of 375 DeLoreans sports cars have arrived in America
after an Atlantic sea crossing.
In January 1981, John DeLorean's dream became a reality.
in such a short amount of time was unheard of.
For a new company to do it was miracle.
He'd risked it all and it was starting to pay off.
MUSIC: "Can You Feel It?" by Jackson 5
ENGINE RUNS
And there's another miracle.
but the wheels aren't turning.
So the clutch needs replacing.
The clutch is actually a basic bit of equipment.
Depending on which car, it can be a really involved job.
On a DeLorean, it's going to be a really involved job.
The reason it's such a mission starts with James Bond.
The DeLorean chassis was based on a Lotus Esprit -
the one Roger Moore drove underwater in The Spy Who Loved Me.
Lotus told DeLorean to put the engine in the middle
so it would handle better,
but John's other passion clouded his engineering judgment.
He wanted space for his golf clubs.
So to make room for them behind the seats,
he moved the engine to the back,
meaning the only place for the gearbox and clutch
was in front of the back axle,
where Ant can't get to them.
Access is really poor.
Oh, it's such a bad design.
Bugger!
..they've got the gearbox free...
We have success.
..and can now remove the entombed clutch.
That's one way of doing it.
Oh, it's completely worn.
The friction plate is completely worn, in fact you can hear it.
It's all loose and cracked.
You compare that to our new clutch plate,
it's got twice the amount of thickness,
lovely new surface.
That's good for the bin.
This clutch is off a Renault Espace people carrier.
Ant's Renault Espace clutch is perfectly in keeping
with John DeLorean's methods.
He gave himself so little time to get the car built,
he had to buy in most of the parts from other car makers.
front brakes from a Ford Cortina,
rear brakes from a Jaguar.
300 companies supplied parts.
This was an off-the-shelf sports car
complete with door handles from an Austin Allegro.
Funny though, they didn't mention all of that
in the TV ads used to launch the car.
Beautifully crafted for long life,
the DeLorean is one of the most awaited automobiles
in automotive history.
Drive the DeLorean.
Live the dream today.
Here was a shiny new car that reeked of the '80s.
Aimed squarely at the rising tide of bracer-wearing city-boys
able to fork out the equivalent of $60,000.
Even in his sales strategy DeLorean was ahead of his time.
In 1981, the American car market hit its worst recession in 25 years.
Car sales were crippled, forcing hundreds of dealers out of business.
John's car was too early for the loads-of-money market
it needed to survive,
and sales ground to a halt.
Thousands of cars were being stockpiled
as the message came through from America
that the model just wasn't being bought.
He needed cash to keep his dream alive.
The DeLorean motor car needs another £10 million.
He asked the bank. They said no.
He went back to the British government
and asked Margaret Thatcher.
She said yes...
..but only gave him half.
MUSIC: "Living In America" by James Brown
Desperate to keep his dream alive, DeLorean got a bit creative.
I've come here to the Peterson Automotive Museum
in Los Angeles to see what the great man was capable of
when everything he'd worked for was on the line.
Chris, hi, I'm Phil.
Chris Brown is curator of some of the rarest cars on the planet.
So this is what we call the Vault.
Oh, wow. There's a few quid's worth down here.
This was Elvis's. No!
Yeah, Elvis Presley actually owned this car
and shot it when it wouldn't start.
The Popemobile!
That's a bit tricky for the Pope, I would have thought.
It's basically an office chair, isn't it?
'But DeLorean hadn't put his faith in God to save his company.'
HE GASPS Is that it?
MUSIC: "Gold" by Spandau Ballet
He planned to raise some much-needed cash by building gold cars.
Not gold painted, but proper 24-carat gold-plated cars.
I thought it would have its own plinth that's all gold-plated.
DeLorean hoped to sell 100 of these dream cars -
generating cash and publicity.
It sort of smacks a little bit of desperation on DeLorean's part
to have to go to this length to keep the company afloat.
Well, you know, you have this start-up company
and you're trying to make it work.
You're going to try and get the sales anywhere you can.
Even the door seals are gold-plated.
Yeah, they gold-plated all the bolts, all that kind of stuff.
Even the bolts!
Is that exhaust gold-plated? Yes. Does that come off?
The dream to see hundreds of America's millionaires
driving around in gold cars
was a typically bold DeLorean move,
but there was one slight set back.
You're now looking at 50% of the total sales.
Yup, he sold two of them.
And as Ant's discovering,
the shine is now coming off the standard models too.
So, basically, all of my friends in the DeLorean world tell me
that the front lower wishbones on the car are insufficient.
They're not actually strong enough.
So when it goes under a really heavy load, they buckle.
Just as his marketing strategy unravelled,
John's dream car started falling apart.
All yours.
The first 2,000 sold were so quickly thrown together
that when you drove them, the nuts holding the suspension
started coming loose and the front of the car collapsed.
DeLorean was forced to recall of them.
They fitted a new nut and sent them back out again.
But that nut broke too,
and John DeLorean made automotive history...
he ordered a recall of a recall.
but the suspension was still regarded as weak.
Ant plans to make history of his own by creating a suspension
for a DeLorean he thinks you can rely on.
Right, here we are.
Laser cutter.
He's come to a bespoke car parts manufacturer...
How's it going? Great, you?
..where a man called Paul is going to strengthen the suspension
using something that John DeLorean could only dream of...
I want to put a reinforcement panel on the bottom,
but I need it curved at the front so I can still relieve the... Yeah.
Access hole in the middle,
and then a nice curve at the back so any water
that gets trapped in is relived.
Ant plans to weld this strengthening plate to the front suspension,
guaranteeing that if you drove this 30-year-old sports car
like a sports car, it wouldn't collapse.
Getting this stuff laser cast is going to save me hours,
rather than doing it by hand.
Paul's PC can send Ant's design to Mark's laser...
So you've gone for two mil then, yeah? Yeah.
..which can cut the part form sheet steel accurately
Yeah, that's perfect. Look, they're all identical.
Finally technology can make John DeLorean's dream
a reliable reality.
It's perfect.
But 30 years ago the suspension was yet another nail
in the stainless coffin.
The car's reputation had been severely damaged.
And DeLorean, once the golden boy of the American car industry,
desperately needed money to buy enough time to repair it.
With bankruptcy just weeks away,
the man who was once called the Detroit dream-maker
was facing a financial nightmare.
John DeLorean, superstar automotive playboy
and friend to the stars got involved in that most 1980s of commodities.
You see on the table a portion of the cocaine
negotiated by Mr Hetrick and Mr DeLorean,
and it resulted in their arrests.
a very 1980s story of ambition and excess.
The story of the DeLorean dream, that by 1982,
was rapidly turning into a nightmare.
Near here, with his company on its financial knees,
John DeLorean walked into suite 501
of the Los Angeles Sheraton Plaza Hotel.
What happened next would seal the fate of his company
and destroy his reputation for the rest of his life.
In the middle of the room was $6.5 million worth of cocaine.
What John didn't know was that these new business partners
were actually agents from the FBI.
to build his own futuristic sports car
is in jail on charges of trying to finance a cocaine deal
to save his car company in Northern Ireland from collapse.
John's final, desperate bid to raise the millions
needed to save his dream car ended in scandal and humiliation.
Just six days after his arrest,
the company filed for bankruptcy,
and the factory closed its gates.
Did you know that his company
was shut down today by the British government?
I've heard that.
Just shy of two years
since the car first rolled off the production line,
the DeLorean dream was over.
Well, it's the fact he's gone.
As far as I can see, it's finished, you know?
But while John had been pursuing
incredibly, behind the scenes, a group of employees
had been working on their own to save their jobs.
When the DeLorean
they planned to sell them over here.
To do that, they had to make them into right-hand drives,
converting 12 cars before DeLorean's arrest scuppered the plan.
Since then, others have attempted conversions
with varying degrees of success.
The question is, is our DeLorean
or a dodgy one?
Hello?
Hi. You must be Chris.
A right-hand drive DeLorean. Now, there's a rare beast.
This right-hand drive element
Absolutely. Right-hand drives are just so rare.
The way this has been moved,
the way pipes have been clipped.
Everything has been done neatly.
Yeah, it's a proper job. It looks like a proper job to me.
Chris keeps a list of all the successfully converted
right-hand drive DeLoreans.
This is a list which I keep updated.
So every time I heard of a right-hand drive,
and I'm sure of my source, it goes on here.
But 15 years ago,
Chris lost track of one of the cars on the list.
Can I just have a quick look at your VIN number? No, no, go for it.
That's a bit forward, Chris.
249A. July '81.
This is your car.
You're on the list. Isn't that a bit exciting?
We're looking at about 35 cars in the world.
You can't find many cars when there's only 35 of them, can you?
Um, it puts it in the rare and exclusive category for me. Yes.
In fact, so rare and exclusive,
it makes our car one of the rarest in Britain.
We've got something really special here. Absolutely.
Any DeLorean's special. A right-hand
And one that's been done to this quality is super special.
While Ant's finally starting to appreciate the DeLorean,
once he was forced to stop making them,
and his dream had turned into a nightmare.
And everything was in shambles.
But my father never wanted to worry the kids.
He never brought the stress of what was going on with him
to the family life.
Although John was eventually acquitted of the drugs charges,
up until his death in 2005,
that destroyed his reputation and his beloved sports car.
People always used to ask me, "Do you have one?
"Why don't you have one?"
And I said, "Imagine that that went wrong in your life
"in your childhood,
"and it would remind you of your parents getting divorced,
"and your father going to jail, and your family losing everything..."
There it is in the driveway. Would you park it in your driveway?
Because I don't think you would.
But over the past ten years, I've been going to the DeLorean Car Show,
interacting with all of the owners
and getting to know all of these people so very well,
And they love my dad.
And to them, it represents somebody who dared to dream,
and followed that dream, and so it's changed for me.
Now, to be able to embrace it, and to love it,
and be proud of the car,
not just my dad, it's nice to be able to let that go and to enjoy it.
Do you think about having one now? Yes.
Would you? Mm-hm.
I definitely would.
What was life like for your father post the DeLorean saga?
So when he got an idea,
he was chasing down that idea,
and he was feverishly writing.
He would take notes, endless notes,
and he was happiest when he was inventing something.
With the disastrous tale of his downfall,
it's easy to overlook what lay at the heart of John DeLorean.
Yes, he was a maverick and a dreamer.
But beneath that, he was an engineer.
And to celebrate the legacy of DeLorean the inventor,
Hi, Peter. Ant. Good to see you. How's it going?
Over a 30-year career,
he's worked for Jaguar, Lotus and McLaren,
and feels there's one reason why the name DeLorean
should be up there with the best of them.
When the DeLorean was first designed and made,
it was the beginning of crash-testing.
It was apparent that cars had to be made safer.
Before the US government introduced safety legislation
in the early '70s, cars were death-traps.
That will leave a mark.
John DeLorean was one of the first car designers
to make keeping his customers alive a priority.
But you'll never guess how he did it.
So the DeLorean door opens up this way, and what we get...
Try twisting that box.
You'll discover that, even though I've cut a hole in it,
it's still pretty... Now, if we go with this one...
So this is a standard A pillar. Oh, my goodness. Look at that.
It's just amazing how much of the strength gets taken away.
Because we've got this stiffness there...
So even though the top portion's removed from the roof... Yeah.
..it's just the higher sill that makes it stronger? Yeah.
So, gull-wing doors -
bit gimmicky?
Why did you choose gull-wing doors?
Well, with the high sill, the driver is protected from side impact.
Not really.
It seems John DeLorean was less dodgy salesman,
and more engineering mastermind.
But no car is immune from the occasional ding.
And ours has had its own side impact.
While Ant's playing with boxes,
he's asked Chris Nicholson,
the number one DeLorean stainless steel repairer in the world,
to fix it.
I've probably worked on thousands of DeLoreans in my time.
I've honestly lost count.
I tend to work in Chicago, New York.
Pretty much fixed every conceivable dent
on pretty much every single DeLorean I've worked on.
Small areas at a time is the best way to work on a panel.
Just randomly banging up areas
will cause lots of problems later on down the line.
You need to make sure the surface is perfect.
Only when I'm totally satisfied
in pretty much every conceivable light I can see it in,
do I actually stop the process.
And then it's just simply putting the panel back onto the car
and making the owner happy.
And it's this stainless steel finish that protects DeLoreans
from the serial killer of old cars - rust.
Remarkably, for a car that's almost 35 years old,
of the 9,000 DeLoreans ever made,
two-thirds of them still survive.
I'm on my way to Bradley, Illinois,
How are you? How are you doing?
Richard Weissensel lives and breathes DeLoreans,
with a collection of over 20 -
mostly in pieces.
Because for Rich, John DeLorean isn't just a man -
he's an inspiration.
So you met John DeLorean.
I met him at the DeLorean Car Show back in 2000.
I started off by just talking about my regular cars that I had.
Then I told him I had some other project ideas
that I was thinking about, and he said,
"Well, if you think you can do it, go for it".
So for the last 14 years, Rich has been busy
making his very own personal tributes to the DeLorean.
This is the convertible project.
The observant among you might notice that it's not quite finished.
Wow.
As you can see, it definitely looks a little bit different,
but it definitely still has that DeLorean look to it.
But that's not finished either.
Well, there's not too much to take a look at right now.
Where are the seats?
The seats are right on the other side over there.
But one is finished,
and Rich has kindly agreed to let me have a go in it.
# Hey, little thing, let me light your chemicals
# Cos, mama, I'm sure hard to handle now... #
In 2001, Rich saw a half-finished DeLorean monster truck online
and promptly bought it.
Well, you would, wouldn't you?
And he finished it.
Whoa-ho-ho!
Bump it, baby, bump it.
Start bouncing and you start smacking your head.
You need to make the roof taller.
Yeah. Either that or just put a helmet on.
Yeah.
This is absolutely insane.
For Rich, it seems the DeLorean marketing slogan still lives on.
"Dare to dream".
And then getting out, of course, gracefully.
Although a set of steps would help.
There's only one way down.
Ant and his boys have got just a couple of days before facing
the scrutiny of some of the DeLorean's biggest fans.
I've learned to maybe not take for granted the fact that the car
might look OK, but underneath, it really had problems.
Lift up. Let me get my end in first.
Fixing the clutch took a bit of patience,
but we got there in the end.
I certainly wouldn't recommend doing one again.
Something's not right.
We fitted the crumple panel on upside down.
Let's take this off, spin it round,
have a good luck at ourselves in the mirror, put it on the right way.
Before embarking on this DeLorean project,
I was not a fan of DeLoreans.
As a motor vehicle, it massively underachieves,
Right, this should go.
It's almost like a dream, this car.
There's jam doughnut here! I'm probably guilty.
We have put a car back on the road that otherwise would have
been hidden in a barn.
Dressed to kill. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
She looks fantastic. Right. We can't do any more here.
I'm on my way to see our DeLorean.
Last time I saw it, it was covered in a thick layer of dust
after 15 years hibernation.
The engine wasn't working and there were dents in the stainless steel
body work. I can't wait to see what Ant has done
to awaken our DeLorean dream car from its slumber.
Anthony!
Morning. I've got something for you. Come over there.
Promises, promises.
Oh!
ENGINE SPLUTTERS
HE LAUGHS Ant's just stalled it. That's a good start.
What do you reckon?
You haven't done anything.
It doesn't look any different. It's shinier.
All the work on this car is underneath the skin.
What we've done is we've taken a car that's been off the road
for so long, we've recommissioned it. Now you can use this car everyday.
So, you've basically brought it back to the future. Yeah, kind of. Yeah.
Boom boom. Now, the engine bay has had a great deal of work.
Not recognise the difference now? Well, it's cleaner.
Yeah, it is cleaner. But not only that, it runs better.
Worst job, new clutch. Wouldn't want to do it again. OK. I take your word.
Right. Jump in. I wouldn't go as far as jump.
So, you weren't a huge fan of these cars, were you, to begin with? No.
So, where do you stand now on your view of them,
having worked on it?
Engineering wise, it still has a hat full of flaws.
But as a whole package, a classic car in its own right...
they're pretty cool.
Shall we take here for a spin? Yeah, let's. Beautiful.
We're on the open road! I'm already pressing the imaginary brake pedal.
Don't panic, Ant. You're fine, kid.
Look at all these people looking at her.
Did you hear those people? What are they saying?
They said, "That's a DeLorean."
but this gets looks as well. Absolutely.
# Baby, you're the best... #
I tell you what is really nice, the fact it's been in a garage
for 13 years, hasn't moved, hasn't turned a wheel...
Here we are. This is its maiden voyage. She's back on the road.
How do you feel about that? I'm absolutely over the moon.
# You're the best... #
They are mad cars, aren't they?
# Baby, you're the best... #
'Eight weeks since he found a monster in a barn,
'Ant's resurrected a disaster...
'..and turned it into a car we can all be proud of...
'..good enough to hold its own in the exacting ranks
'of the DeLorean owners.'
It's great to see a car on the road that's been hidden away
for goodness knows how many years. Good job? Out of ten?
Ten of ten. I think it's very good, actually.
I think you've done a good job. I think it's a fascinating history
and a fascinating motorcar
and the next generation.
All the cars available in the world, why have you chosen DeLorean, guys?
The doors. Is it the doors?
cos the car was different and I can almost guarantee that
if you get filled up in the garage, someone will come and say,
"Oh, is that a DeLorean?"
And it's all down to this man.
Good work, fella.
MUSIC: "Don't You (Forget About Me)
Well, I don't think you could make the story of the DeLorean up
I mean, a story of a fellow that had it all,
risked it all and ultimately lost it all on his dream.
But from that dream, he created a car that over 30 years later
endures to this day.
HE LAUGHS
Welcome to the world of DeLorean.
Makes people smile, makes some people laugh.
I mean, it's not a perfect car, we know that.
It's not a perfect car by a long shot. They've lost a car. Why?
Broken down!
In a way, those imperfections are sort of what makes it...
endearing...
maybe gives it that iconic status
and John DeLorean himself, sure, he wasn't the perfect guy.
But you know what? At least he followed the dream
and in a funny sort of way that has to be admired.
'Next time...
'we say goodbye to the cars...'
Don't go!
'..and find out if it's all been worth it...
'when they go to auction.'
Battle of the titans. Who will blink first?
I'm scared! I'm very scared!
'Can they hold their own against the big boys of the motoring elite?'
I mean, we're pitching it against a Porsche.
'Or have we made a terrible mistake?'
Have you got any tips for selling at auction?
Well, yes, I think the first rule is don't.
One more. That's the trouble with these, once you start eating them...
They're moreish. Have that one, I'll have the yellow.
I think it's nice.