Title: DeLorean The Rise, Fall And Second Acts of the DeLorean Motor Company
Format: Hardbound
Author: Matt Stone
Publisher: Motorbooks Int.
Length: 192 pages
Price: $40
Review by Wallace Wyss –
I knew Matt Stone from Motor Trend, I worked there before he started. I think he worked his way up to editor. He is a genuine car collector–with De Tomsos and more exotics. As a MT editor he interviewed a lot of car executives and saw many a concept so he was the right guy to write this book.
The only trouble is–there were already half a dozen books on the DeLorean when he started writing his book – so he and his publisher entered a battlefield strewn with victims. But I think overall it’s a good summing up of the original car– what went wrong from the get-go and how the nation’s once most high profile car executive faded into ignominy.
I like the part about DeLorean at GM and how he felt he never fitted in with the other execs. Stone didn’t mention how DeLorean would deliberately make them look like fat old fools, one time being featured shirtless in a major magazine lifting weights in the gym and partying in Hollywood. They hated him and his penchant for driving exotic foreign cars like Maseratis. They couldn’t wait to edge him out the door.
The part about how the DeLorean car was designed was good–I had no idea Giugiaro did so many proposed variations–even a four door sedan. In the part about the factory in the UK, I think Stone soft pedaled it a bit-I remember DeLorean blaming the political strife for the factory’s production delays. He was at war with Britain’s PM Maggie Thatcher.
I am from Detroit and I remember a Chrysler engineer telling me DeLorean worked in the tank plant as an engineer, which would have exempted him from the draft, but there’s no mention of that in the book. The author took no stand on whether the choice of a meek French powerplant was out of character with the car’s daring looks, except to say it was to be marketed as a luxury car not a high performance sports car.
The book has many good color pictures but some of the black and whites are fuzzy and shouldn’t have been included. The dissolution of the original DeLorean car business is a sad chapter, especially the part about the set-up drug deal. DeLorean got involved in a drug deal, but got off scott free in court. Unfortunately by that time his reputation was in tatters.
The book then ends the old history and takes a turn into all the efforts to start DeLorean cars again, all the club activities, the trio of comedy movies starting with Back to the Future, and becomes a bit of a mis-mash yet for DeLorean fans who have budget for only one book–this book covers almost all the bases.
At the very end there’s two pages I have never seen in a car history, from a rival author who started his book on DeLorean and gave up. Though he’s glad to see Stone got a new book done on the subject. That second author–who was in touch with DeLorean in his final years–adds a poignant note –recognition that DeLorean, at age 80, realized the error of his ways, became religious and confessed to having been a jerk for much of his time at GM. It is a bit stunning in a car book where the lead subject is usually portrayed as a hero.
So this is three books in one–a history of the original company, secondly a story of the birth of the new fan base inspired by movies, and finally it focuses on the possibility a design based on the original is a dream worth bringing back.
When I wrote my DeTomaso bio, the company hadn’t hit the rocks yet, so Stone had the advantage of knowing the ending. Graciously he includes mini-reviews of the other DeLorean books, though if any are still in print, they could hurt his sales.
Keep the pedal to the metal, Matt Stone–you do your job well.
Let us know what you think in the Comments.
THE REVIEWER Wallace Wyss is now a fine artist doing commissioned portraits of exotic cars.
My grandfather was an executive at GM for 37 years. He worked with Mr Delorean in both the Chevrolet and Pontiac motor divisions. They vacationed together in Florida , where I was born. I had the opportunity to sit with them during a luncheon in Sarasota when I was about ten years of age. I can vividly remember Mr Delorean being impeccably dressed, having longer hair than most men wore, and an incredible suntan. The both chained smoked the entire time together. Funny the things the mind never forgets.