The Past and Future of the DeLorean | Hacker News Reader

The Past and Future of the DeLorean

popularmechanics.com

54 pointsskellertor13 comments

Argh, this is very interesting, but they don't say what it is! Does anyone know? What was the update? Did that really single-handedly (or almost) bump price 12k->25k?

"To make things worse, an update to the prototype's design added an unexpected 500 pounds to the car, creating more cost overruns and a much pricier car at $25,000."

A 500 lb. design update seems a little crazy. What did they add? A 500 lb. spoiler?

Lotus insisted on a structural redesign because the original design was neither sensible nor safe.

Details here: http://www.lotusespritworld.com/EHistory/DeLorean.html

Thank you for the explanation and the link!

Unfortunately the article skipped over the prototypes, named DSV for 'De Lorean Safety Vehicle'.

Looking around for funding for his sportscar concept he didn't have much success in the fuel-conscious mid-70s until he had the genius idea of promoting it as a safety-first vehicle, emphasising handling and crashworthiness. That was a good enough sales pitch to earn him $500,000 from Allstate Insurance Company who were interested in associating themselves with something safe but exciting. Not a lot of cash but enough to bootstrap De Lorean.

Allstate still own at least one of the DSVs but sadly not on display in the museum at their HQ, though there are a couple of other interesting cars there; a Sears Allstate sedan and the very first car insured by an Allstate policy.

Since the DeLorean evolved to such an iconic car, why didn't any manufacturer bought the brand and revamped the car (like VW did with Bentley or BMW with Mini and Rolls-Royce)?

It's only iconic as a movie car, so why not just buy the rights to the Batmobile instead?

I’d agree with this point to some extent too, with the caveat that the DeLorean was always a production car people could buy, the batmobile not so much.

It’s also really just a single model that’s iconic, the brand itself I don’t think has the same value. One could make similar arguments about BMW’s “MINI” brand I guess, but that’s a significantly simpler mass market car.

“Gull wing” style doors (which inevitably any relaunch would need to copy, I can’t see how you could avoid it) have a long history of causing production issues in mass produced vehicles too, which is a factor in why almost no one besides Tesla tries to do it anymore, and Tesla too ran into some trouble there.

One problem is that the DMC-12 was a pretty crappy car. It was supposed to be a sports car, but it was ridiculously underpowered. It had few other virtues other than looking cool, which is a good thing for a car, but not enough to carry it on its own.

A modern “remake” a la the Mini Cooper wouldn’t have to repeat that mistake, but they’d be fighting uphill to convince people that the new one was different.

The DeLorean is an iconic and beloved car, but I don’t know that many people are actually pining to purchase one.

Also the Mini and Rolls were successful sellers for many years, the DeLorean less so.

"A storage facility in Columbus, Ohio"

At the time known as Consolidated Stores, now known as Big Lots Stores.

The VTOL aircraft would be cool if they get it going.

They missed the most impressive DeLorean rebuild ever.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNIDcT0Zdj4

Reply on news.ycombinator.com