John DeLorean: Full obit
Posted: Monday, March 21st, 2005 11:11 pm
John Z. DeLorean, 80, the brilliant but troubled automaker who arguably was as flamboyant as his car designs, died March 19 at a hospital in Summit, N.J., after a stroke.
Mr. DeLorean, the son of an autoworker, reached the executive ranks of General Motors Corp. with an astonishing series of successes that revolutionized the industry. …
He won acclaim by introducing sports-car sexiness to conservative Pontiac with his GTO muscle car in the 1960s. He also brought Pontiac its first compact vehicle, predicting a trend to more fuel-efficient models. Ceaselessly inventive, he was credited with creating the overhead-cam engine, concealed windshield wipers, the lane-change turn signal, vertically stacked headlights, racing stripes and an emphasis on cockpitlike driver consoles. …
With his overconfident, often dazzling demeanor and a string of innovations behind him, he widely had been expected to take over GM.
Instead, he left to form his own, eponymous company with the hope of creating an economical, “ethical” sports car. …
Mr. DeLorean’s dream was crusted with problems with the start, from undercapitalization to mechanical flaws in the car’s design. It took seven years to create the DeLorean DMC-12, a sleek sports car with a stainless-steel body, gull-winged doors and a rear-mounted, V-6 fuel-injected engine.
The cost overruns raised the sticker price to more than $25,000, well beyond the reach of most car-buyers in 1981. The British government, under Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, demanded that Mr. DeLorean raise more money to keep the project solvent. When he was unable to meet the price of business, the plant closed in late 1982, having produced about 9,000 cars. … Read full obituary
