John DeLorean was a rockstar. He spent a lot of time at GM and designed the Pontiac Firebird, Pontiac GTO, Chevrolet Vega, and various mechanical bits for GM and Packard. He married a model, and we can’t talk about the car without talking about his well-intentioned but very 1980s attempt to save his company. He had an interesting life, to say the least, and a couple of documentaries have been made about him that I encourage you to watch. His dream sports car was intended to be competitively priced ($12,000, where the “12” in “DMC-12” comes from), unique, and durable. Designed as the “forever sports car,” the DeLorean DMC-12 featured stainless steel body panels glued to a fiberglass frame. As a result, almost every DeLorean is in exceptional aesthetic condition, and this barn find is no different. You can find it here on eBay with a story almost as interesting as the car itself.
It’s nearly forty years old at this point, so there is some wear-and-tear on it. Some scratches on the brushed stainless bodywork, some dings and cracks in the paint, what few bits are actually painted. Inside takes the worst of the wear, but that comes with a big asterisk. The worst of the wear is on the steering wheel and takes the form of some discoloration. You can probably fix that with some leather cleaner. Or, if you want to make it your own, there isn’t a single vehicle out there that doesn’t look better when equipped with a Nardi steering wheel.
Mechanically, the car falls short of the “sports car” identifier, being powered by a rear-mounted Peugeot-Renault-Volvo V-6 engine driving the rear wheels through a five-speed manual gearbox. It produced just 130 horsepower and 153 pound-feet of torque when new. Pushing 2,718 pounds, it wasn’t fast by any stretch of the word, but arriving somewhere in a DeLorean is an event. The car isn’t meant to go fast, it’s meant to turn heads once you arrive. And it’s exceptional at that. The sleek brushed stainless steel bodywork is unique, at least until Tesla gets past Elon time and brings the Cybertruck to market, and looks striking under streetlights at night.
The doors. Everyone talks about the doors. Yes, they go up, yes they are amazing, yes, the windows are tiny. Luckily the seller states that the air conditioning works well, you’re going to be using it. The car is ready to be driven and shown, and the DeLorean community is friendly, extensive, and exclusive, and something you now have the opportunity to join. If you’re going to have a classic car, why not do it with some style?
I put it to you chaps in the USA…why do you drive on the wrong side of the road?
It’s so us right handed people can shift gears with our right hand. I can’t imagine shifting with your left!
2,700 lbs? I think he meant 3,700 lbs.
No 2700 is right. Cars were not as heavy back then and it would have been considered middleweight. Today it would be considered a featherweight
Because it’s the right side blog:)
Because we don’t praise the queen…and idk what a crumpet is…
Actually, we tried driving on the ‘wrong side’ as you do now, but we gave it up and went to the far superior ‘right side’.
For the same reason, the chicken crossed the road. Question for you – which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Why did the chicken cross the road, to prove to the armadillo that it could be done
Because the idiot we sent to the convention where all these things were determined did not speak French. He took a guess at which side, and that is why that happened.
Or so I was taught in college history.
Johnny Z supposedly had a coke habit. That would explain why the car could hug the white lines so well.
I don’t know if rarity has anything to do with Delorean values, but they made less than 300 of them in 1983.
Although this one is clean looking, you can find one with a lot less tan 70K miles on it.
It’s not hard to find one with less miles most of them broke down with less than 1000 miles on them! Call car but extremely unreliable.
Up to $40k now, i guess reserve has been met. Yes a bit high on the miles.
What cracks me up about the engine is that the oil pump housing is the block. So, if your oil pump develops too much clearance, you need a new block.
Located in:
Fallbrook, California,
The data plate Aug 82 why is it titled as a 83?