Category: Reposts

Humble-based [fake] DeLorean faces $4.6 million judgment over electric car Alpha5

An Italian automobile design company has asked a federal judge in Houston to enforce a $4.6 million judgment against Humble-based [fake] DeLorean Motor Company, over claims that DeLorean failed to pay for work done to reimagine the famed car as an electric vehicle called Alpha5. The firm, Italdesign Giugiaro S.p.A., last year received the judgment in its favor from an international arbitration court and on Jan. 2 filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, asking Judge Keith P. Ellison to confirm the decision and have it enforced. The lawsuit seeks payment from the [fake] DeLorean Motor Company, the Humble-based business that since the ’90s has ‘owned’ DeLorean’s name and branding, and has operated mostly as a repair shop for the classic cars. The lawsuit doesn’t name DeLorean Reimagined LLC, the spin-off company based in San Antonio that advertised itself as the business behind the new Alpha5 model. Joost de Vries, the one-time CEO of DeLorean Reimagined, and Stephen Wynne, the founder of [fake] DeLorean Motor Company, were both involved in the litigation in Europe, according to public records and the arbitrator’s report. Representatives for Italdesign and [fake] DeLorean didn’t respond to a request for comment on Monday. [fake] DeLorean hadn’t filed a response to the claim as of Monday. An initial conference has been scheduled for April. Alpha5, [fake] DeLorean’s electric vehicle project – Italdesign was hired in 2022 to design an electric version of the DeLorean. In news releases announcing the partnership, the companies said the new four-seat sports car, the Alpha5, would feature the brand’s iconic gull-wing doors and be able to reach speeds of 155 mph. The Alpha5 was supposed to mark a rebirth for the company. Executives made appearances around San Antonio, hinted at the creation of a Texas-based factory and teased the car in a 15-second Super Bowl commercial. Italdesign’s founder, Giorgetto Giugiaro, designed the original iconic DeLorean DMC-12 in the 1970s. The Alpha5’s sleeker design was said to be based on a concept for a model the [real] DeLorean Motor Company had before going bankrupt in 1982. Despite initial claims that the car would be in production by 2023, a final model and official pricing have not been announced. Filings included in the complaint show that the dispute over payments began months after the public announcement of the new design. The company said it was hired to create scale models, show cars and styling models, to conduct pre-concept development and provide event support, according to the lawsuit. In July 2022, the design company billed [fake] DeLorean €4.3 million for the concept models that were revealed at the California car show. [fake] DeLorean made an initial payment of $500,000, according to the arbitrator’s report, which was included in court records. In September, de Vries emailed the firm promising full payment by October. The promises continued for months after that deadline, according to the report. In December 2022, de Vries wrote that he was hoping to receive good news regarding an investment. In February 2023, he reported that the company received “a couple of hundred thousand.” “Not enough to make a meaningful payment against our debt,” he wrote. A week later, he promised Italdesign that “big checks” were coming. They apparently never did. Italdesign took the motor company to court in early 2023. During the years-long process, [fake] DeLorean argued that it had never admitted to the debt “in full” and claimed it was unable to find documents related to its debts, according to the report. The car company’s arguments failed. The arbitrator in April 2025 decided in Italdesign’s favor, writing that the firm is the “undoubted victor” and “certain winner” under the law. [fake] DeLorean was ordered to pay its debts, along with interest. It’s unclear if [fake] DeLorean has taken any steps to pay the company since last year’s decision. The dispute over payments came amid other public struggles for [fake] DeLorean. In the years since the Alpha5’s announcement, the company scaled back its promises on how many cars it would initially build and was criticized for not updating customers who had made deposits for the Alpha5. In a sign of the times, early buyers were given NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, as their proof of purchase, rather than a receipt. De Vries stepped down as CEO in October 2023. In April 2024, the company closed its offices at Port San Antonio – where it had once received incentives to move amid promises of creating hundreds of jobs. The company’s new lead said it now planned to be a niche automobile maker, rather than a competitor to Tesla and other larger companies. Since then, there have been no new public updates on the development of the Alpha5. from January 12, 2026 – HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM, by John Wayne Ferguson, Staff Writer

DeLorean NAPA Exhaust Systems Ad

This NAPA auto parts ad for a NAPA exhaust system, featuring PROTO-1, was found by Chris Miles in a 1979 parts flyer for NAPA Auto Parts store owners, Vol. 47, No. 11 January 1979 was printed for Rock Rapids Auto Parts at 108 South 2nd Ave. in Rock Rapids, Iowa. We made it sound as good as it looks. The world’s newest production sports car. Contemporary European styling. Newly developed high performance engine. The DeLorean Motor Car. Why did DeLorean, a former director of advanced engineering at General Motors, choose us to design the exhaust system? Quite simply, because we had the expertise to do the job. The same kind ofexpertise it takes to design and build thousands of different exhaust systems for the aftermarket… for your customers. NAPA systems are designed to fit …to fit various engine characteristics and body configurations. It makes your job easier. And your customers happier. What’s more, NAPA systems complement the type of car they’re designed for. So a performance car exhaust system sounds powerful. And a luxury car has its own quality sound. DeLorean came to us not only because he wanted a top quality exhaust system. He also wanted one that performs as well as his car does. America’s Finest Exhaust System

Meet the DeLorean Owners Who Hate ‘Back to the Future’

From Cracked.com – June 27, 2025 Brian VanHooker Please stop asking them if they have a flux capacitor “Tell me about the time you first got your DeLorean up to 88 miles per hour.” This was the original query I posted on a handful of DeLorean Facebook groups a few weeks ago, hoping to get some fun stories in time for the 40th anniversary of Back to the Future on July 3rd. (For those who need a refresher on the iconic film: 88 mph is the speed necessary to activate the Flux Capacitor in the DeLorean time machine.) But I quickly realized I made two big mistakes: 1) My central idea was really dull. “I went fast” was how most answered the question. One conversation went verbatim like this: DeLorean Owner: I got pulled over.Me: Did you get a ticket?DeLorean Owner: No. And 2) I didn’t read all the terms on the DeLorean owners Facebook group, which clearly stated: “No BTTF or Time Machine Posts.” Because I violated that rule, I was quickly met with scorn. “You’re in the wrong group,” scolded one DeLorean owner, along with a screenshot of the “No BTTF” rule. “That movie is a blight on DeLorean owners and is no longer relevant. Less than 3 minutes of DeLorean on screen. It features more incest than car,” wrote another. That’s when it became crystal clear to me that many DeLorean owners hate Back to the Future. Okay, obviously, not all DeLorean owners hate Back to the Future, but DeLorean Fanatics group member Vincent, who has owned DeLoreans since 2006, says there are essentially two types of DeLorean owners. “There are those who enjoy the car, drive it and use it,” explains Vincent. He puts himself in this category, along with others who appreciate the DeLorean as a unique classic car. “Then there are the people who like the movie,” continues Vincent. “The movie people are the most vocal online, and maybe they’ve owned the car for three or four years and they take it out for ice cream once in a while.” Vincent notes that these movie-obsessed DeLorean owners are also the first people to get rid of their DeLorean, oftentimes after they’ve spent thousands on renovations to make it look like the movie — sometimes even drilling holes in the steel. “The longer you own the car, the more you hate the movies,” Vincent gripes. His fellow group member Angela backs him up, saying, “Honestly, I didn’t mind it when I started out with my car in 2017. I used to have a Back to the Future personalized plate and played along with it for a while. It’s the fandom and their cult following of the movie I grew to hate.” The biggest problem Back to the Future-hating DeLorean owners have is the constant barrage of comments in the form of movie quotes and lame, repetitive jokes. “Most interactions are people telling one of the same three jokes over and over while laughing to themselves,” Angela says. “It’s either ‘Where’s the flux capacitor?’, ‘Can you take me back 20 years?’ or ‘Where’s Doc?’” “I get asked about the stupid flux capacitor so many times, and what really irks me is everyone that asks thinks they’re being original,” says Michael, who has owned his DeLorean for 16 years. “I don’t like when I’m asked where the flux capacitor is 43 times a day — and this number is a real number from a car show,” Viktor, another owner and group member, tells me. The comments from movie fans often come at the least appropriate times, too. “When I got my first one, I was on the side of the road trying to put out an engine fire, and some guy slows down, screams out the window, ‘Check the flux capacitor!’ and then drives off,” recalls Vincent. “Having owned a lot of classic cars, I know that, normally, if somebody catches a photo of it being damaged in an accident, you’ll get sympathy and condolences. But if a DeLorean gets wrecked, it’s just: ‘Go back in time before the accident!’” But it’s not just the comments from Back to the Future fans that Vincent and Angela take issue with. “There’s this incredibly weird thing that — because it’s mostly known for a movie — people feel that at car shows they have a right to go up, sit in it, touch it and take photos sitting on it,” Vincent says. “I’ve owned classic cars my entire life. I’ve had probably a thousand of them, and no other vehicle have people felt so entitled to touch and sit in.” “Back to the Future fans are one of the most obnoxious crowds I’ve ever had the displeasure of dealing with,” adds Angela. “They feel entitled to sit in and on your car for photos. If your doors are closed at a show, they will try to open them. I even had one weirdo I’d never met before say we were dating — creepy. The movie draws in nerdy geeks who don’t take women who like the car seriously.” Both Angela and Vincent are convinced that the creepiness of the fandom stems straight from the movie itself. “There’s about seven minutes of screen time dedicated to the weird incest relationship between mom and son and about three minutes of the car. That’s literally one of my favorite facts,” says Vincent. Similarly, Angela takes issue with how the movie glosses over sexual assault, referring to the car scene with Biff and Lorraine. But if owning a DeLorean makes you a magnet for creepy, relentless movie quoters and amateur comedians, why hold onto the car at all? Vincent has an easy answer to this question. “DeLoreans aren’t without charm,” he explains. “You sit in them, and they feel well put together and well composed. There’s no other car like it, which is why, despite the fact that many of us hate the movies, we stick around and stay with the cars.”

DeLorean in Coventry, UK

by Enda Mullen-BPCoventry Live – November 29, 2019 Look: Coventry connection with Back to the Future iconic sports car by Steve ChiltonCoventry Live – October 21, 2015 It is the world’s most famous time machine with its trademark gullwing doors atop a stainless steel-clad body. The DeLorean DMC-12 sports car is instantly recognisable to even the most clueless car enthusiast after becoming the iconic star of the Back to the Future movie trilogy. And now its creators are gearing up to celebrate a milestone anniversary for one of the best loved cars of all time – which is one of Coventry’s lesser known motoring success stories. This year will marks the 35th anniversary of the construction and first public showing of the production version of the vehicle in 1980 – the ‘Visioneering Show Car’. But what many people don’t realise is that the star of the science fiction comedy which transported Marty McFly back to 1955 life in the fictional California town Hill Valley has strong Coventry connections. The Belfast company’s British headquarters and procurement office was based in Christchurch House in Coventry city centre from 1979 to 1982. Staff were hired to set up new supply deals in the UK and the DeLorean even underwent endurance testing at the city’s head office. And next year the remarkable creation of John Zachary DeLorean will be celebrated with a reunion of former employees based in Northern Ireland and Coventry. Organised by the firm’s previous director of purchasing, Barrie Wills and financial controller David Adams, the reunion has been arranged for next year’s May Bank Holiday weekend at The Culloden Hotel at Cultra, near Holywood, County Down. Mr Wills said: “We are hoping that staff and shopfloor workers alike from Dunmurry, Coventry and the Adelaide Industrial Estate plant of CP Trim will attend the reunion. “We have also arranged a conducted tour on Tuesday 5 May of part of the former Dunmurry plant, now utilised by the French automotive foundry group, Montupet.” The story of the iconic car started in April 1973 when John left General Motors where he was vice president of car and truck production, to follow his dream of creating his own company and building a car that GM would never make. With help from Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro, who worked on the new car’s styling, and Lotus Cars, which undertook the engineering of the car, the first running prototype was quickly completed. Its groundbreaking technology took the media by storm and the company set up a greenfield production site in Dunmurry, near Belfast, before John then focused on the UK and opened the Coventry headquarters. When the DeLorean rolled off production lines it received promising reviews but when the recession hit, the expected sales failed to materialise and unsold vehicles started to mount up. In February 1982, the receivers were called in and a rescue bid was devised. However when the FBI arrested John in a Los Angeles hotel room for ‘narcotics violations’ the DeLorean dream ended. Despite its brief time in the city, the two former company executives believe the anniversary is a good reason for a long-overdue reunion of its former employees. Those interested in attending the reunion should contact barriewills42@gmail.com for more information.

People in the News

SAN DIEGO (AP) – John Z. DeLorean, better known for living in lavish homes than for painting them, took brush in hand to help spruce up a house for the homeless, recovering alcoholics and drug addicts. The former automaker, who was found innocent last August of charges that he bankrolled a $24 million cocaine shipment to aid his failing car company, appeared at a painting party this week for the New Start in Life Center in San Diego. ″I’m here because I believe in New Start and (its director) Rev. Johnny Carter and because I feel it’s one of the outstanding facilities of its type anywhere,″ said De Lorean, who said during his trial that he had become a born-again Christian. DeLorean, 60, who is divorced from model Cristina Ferrare, lives in Los Angeles. He recently signed over an estate valued at about $2 million to his attorney to cover legal fees, and said he is exploring business opportunities and writing a book about his trial. He also has reportedly signed a deal for a movie about his life. ″Hey, it’s been difficult, but life goes on,″ said DeLorean. ″I feel very strong. Certainly with the spiritual strength I draw from people like this, I can’t imagine how anyone can ever touch me.″ ″The last few months have been very tough,″ he said. ″But as my daughter says, anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.″ from People in the News | April 25, 1985    

DeLorean project unfairly maligned

September 20, 2018 | Belfast Telegraph / PressReader The Venice Film Festival review in the Belfast Telegraph September 15 (Cocaine, Catastrophes, and Crazy Cars: the battle to make the John DeLorean biopic Driven) is disappointing. It appears to overdose as a critique of the DeLorean car, manufactured in Dunmurry in the ’80s, in preference to focusing on the movie itself. Better the story itself than the facts, it appears, following in the wake of Bruce Gardyne’s statement in the House of Commons, under the protection of parliamentary privilege, that John DeLorean was a “conman”. As many of your readers, who were former employees, know, 6,500 cars of the total manufactured of 9,080, shipped almost exclusively to the USA, remain in use 36 years later – across the world from the west coast of North America to New Zealand. That is a remarkable statistic which is testament to John DeLorean’s aim to develop the ethical car. Whilst my 2015 book, John Z, the DeLorean & Me – Tales from an Insider, sets out to correct the many myths, it is critical of my former chairman. It does, however, lay the blame for the bad press towards the DeLorean project in the UK fairly and squarely on the seeds sown by Bruce Gardyne. BARRIE WILLS Former CEO of DeLorean Motor Cars Ltd Warwick

THE DE LOREAN. LIVE THE DREAM

Your eyes skim the sleek, sensuous stainless steel body, and all your senses tell you, “I’ve got to have it!” The counterbalanced gull-wing doors rise effortlessly, beckoning you inside. The soft leather seat in the cockpit fits you like it was made for your body. You turn the key. The light alloy V-6 comes to life instantly. The De Lorean. Surely one of the most awaited automobiles in automotive history. It all began with one man’s vision of the perfect personal luxury car. Built for long life, it employs the latest space-age materials. Of course, everyone stares as you drive by. Sure, they’re a little envious. That’s expected. After all, you’re the one Living The Dream. Start living it today at a dealer near you. A dealer commitment as unique as the car itself. There are 345 De Lorean dealers located throughout the United States. Each one is a stockholder in the De Lorean Motor Company. This commitment results in a unique relationship which will provide De Lorean owners with a superb standard of service. For the dealer nearest you, call toll free 800-447-4700, in Ill., 800-322-4400.

Uber’s San Francisco DeLorean rides

In 2013 Uber hired DeLoreans to give free rides to a few lucky Uberites… here’s the reprinted page from Uber… DeLorean Time Machines in San Francisco September 6, 2013 | Posted by Tess Uber hasn’t introduced a time travel option yet, but you might see shades of 1985 when you open your app today. For this weekend only, Uber has partnered with GE to bring DeLoreans to the streets of San Francisco. GE’s Brilliant Machines campaign uses real-world examples to demonstrate how GE’s advanced hardware and analytical software can revolutionize the way cities are powered. In other words, the GE technology in your DeLorean might predict and meet an entire city’s power needs someday (but don’t worry — these cars won’t be hitting 88 miles per hour on Market Street). How to snag a free ride: Open the Uber app anytime from noon to 9 p.m. on Friday or 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday Supply will be very limited, but if your timing is right, you’ll see the DeLorean option Maximum of 15 minutes per trip and one person per vehicle Brilliant Machines are transforming the way we work, and Uber is transforming the way we ride. History is gonna change!

A Living Legend

https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2005/0919/090.html#1b13189f6299 Forbes.com Sep 19, 2005 Christopher Helman The last DeLorean rolled off the assembly line 23 years ago. But Stephen Wynne can build you one, better than new. John Z. Delorean died in March, 23 years after his sports car venture bit the dust. Yet DeLorean Motor Co. survives today, in ghostly form. This zombie was resurrected by Stephen Wynne, who acquired the name and the spare-parts inventory of the bankrupted company. He has a waiting list of fans eager to pay $40,000 for an overhauled specimen–renowned for its stainless-steel body and gull-wing doors–and a warehouse piled high with enough stuff to build 500 cars from scratch. It’s still a small business. Wynne, 49, earns an estimated $700,000 pretax on sales of $2.5 million. But there’s plenty of room for growth. In 1981 DeLorean buyers were drivers sensitive to style but not to price tags (the $27,500 is equivalent to today’s $61,500). Fans these days tend to be geekier types whose first exposure to the car was in the Back to the Future movies. Cool, yes; speedy, no. One way to bring more customers into the fold is to boost horsepower. At 135hp the DeLorean is less peppy than the average family sedan. Wynne now charges an extra $5,300 to soup up a model to 195hp. After a recent meeting with Gildo Pallanca Pastor, race-car driver and owner of a tiny car company in Monaco called Venturi, Wynne will soon be able to move up to a 300hp engine with better turbochargers and a wider exhaust system. That might cost an owner $10,000. “In time,” says Wynne, “we could even do 400hp for somebody who’s psycho enough.” Some might say the same of Wynne. In 1980 he immigrated to Los Angeles from Liverpool in the U.K. to help run a European car repair shop. A year later DeLorean launched his car factory in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland–and problems, like melted electrical systems, quickly emerged. “Because of a lack of competition we were doing good business [servicing DeLoreans],” says Wynne. Even after the motor company went bankrupt in 1982, Wynne and his partner had their hands full. They renamed the shop “DeLorean One” and opened a second garage in Houston in 1987. When the partnership soured eight years later, Wynne went his own way. What to call the new shop? Wynne discovered that while DeLorean Motor was still tied up in Chapter 11, registration of the company name had lapsed. Before grabbing the name and logo, he called John DeLorean, who told him, “I hope that you have better luck with it than I did.” Then he hit the jackpot. Like all DeLorean mechanics, Wynne had been buying replacement parts from Kapac Co., which had acquired the liquidated inventory from the Dunmurry factory. By 1996 Kapac decided to get out of the business, and Wynne started scraping together a bid. With a wealthy brother-in-law like John Hargreaves–who founded British retailer Matalan and taught Wynne how to run a business–Wynne thought he’d have it made. But when Hargreaves didn’t bite, Wynne talked a friend into investing, and in 1997 they acquired the entire warehouse and contents, in Columbus, Ohio, for less than $1 million. The retail value of those parts, Wynne says, is $35 million. He moved all those parts–50 truckloads‘ worth–to Houston three years ago, where they sit in a new 40,000-square-foot warehouse. Financed with family money and cash flow, the move and construction cost Wynne $1.2 million. Even with annual carrying costs of $100,000 a year (including interest payments, property taxes and utilities), every sale of parts is virtually found money. A fully overhauled car that Wynne sells for $40,000 starts with a dilapidated DeLorean, for which he pays maybe $10,000. Then his mechanics install parts that cost Wynne $6,000 or so. Throw in $7,000 in labor costs, plus overhead, and Wynne’s gross profit on a rebuilt model approaches $17,000. He can even make money on junked DeLoreans into which his guys put just enough work to get them running. Price: around $10,000. But you’ve still got to bring in the customers. “Everything we do is geared toward selling more parts,” says Wynne. “Unless you’ve got the marketing to do something with it, it’s a million dollars of trash.” That marketing consists of [their website], a showroom, warehouse tours and a quarterly magazine called DeLoreans, which gives owners step-by-step photographic instructions on how to install various parts themselves. Wynne has also licensed the DeLorean image and logo to Sony for use in the videogame Gran Turismo 4. There will be other markets for all those parts. In March Wynne sold his first DeLorean franchise to a customer in Florida whom he’s known for years. Still, the move initially made him a tad nervous: “It was like letting somebody take your wife out to dinner.”

DeLorean shop steels itself against time

May 22, 2005 | CHICAGO TRIBUNE | by Steven Kurutz, New York Times News Service