PDA

View Full Version : John Delorean has died

theshark8777
03-20-2005, 02:29 PM
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/20/obit.delorean/index.html

(CNN) -- John DeLorean, developer of a futuristic sportscar that captured the country's attention in the 1980s, has died. He was 80.

DeLorean died Saturday at the Overlook Hospital in Summit, New Jersey, from complications from a stroke, said Paul Connell, owner of Desmond and Sons funeral home in Michigan.

DeLorean's stainless-steel, gull-winged car, which bore his name, became more engrained in American culture after director Robert Zemeckis used a DeLorean as a time machine in the 1985 film "Back to the Future" and its two sequels.
TheHappyBurgerMeister
03-20-2005, 02:30 PM
aww, that's sad.

RIP
Jrnygrl
03-20-2005, 03:04 PM
Interesting that they don't mention his high profile case that involved drugs.
TJL
03-20-2005, 03:09 PM
Interesting that they don't mention his high profile case that involved drugs.

:yeahthat
theshark8777
03-20-2005, 03:15 PM
Yeah really, what was it like $25 million in cocaine or something he tried to sell to cops?
theshark8777
03-20-2005, 03:23 PM
Here we go, from fox news:


DeLorean's company collapsed in 1983, a year after he was arrested in Los Angeles, accused in a sting of conspiring to sell $24 million of cocaine to salvage the company.

DeLorean used an entrapment defense to win acquittal on the drug charges in 1984, despite a surveillance videotape in which he was shown calling a suitcase full of cocaine "good as gold."

He was later cleared of defrauding his investors, but continuing legal entanglements kept him on the sidelines of the automotive world. He declared bankruptcy in 1999.
Brian
03-20-2005, 03:25 PM
Yeah really, what was it like $25 million in cocaine or something he tried to sell to cops?



He became a victim of entrapment. From what I remember, he needed money and these cops got him to sell drugs and then arrested him. The Supreme Court ruled that because he was forced into committing a crime that he wouldn't normally commit (he was clean), his arrest was invalid.
Cactus Jack
03-20-2005, 04:00 PM
RIP :(
*Pleasant Tomorrow*
03-20-2005, 05:13 PM
:(
Steve M.
03-20-2005, 05:33 PM
Imagine how different automotive history might have been if his car company had made it! :eek: :(
theshark8777
03-20-2005, 05:47 PM
Imagine how different automotive history might have been if his car company had made it! :eek: :(


And time travel
Steve M.
03-21-2005, 05:36 PM
One innovation of his I'm not to crazy about was the radio antenna embedded in the windshield. I had 1970 Chevrolet with that feature. Sometimes the reception was bad, and I couldn't adjust it course. Also, my radio was AM only, and I would have had to hae a whole drilled into the car just to install an FM antenna; I got an FM adapter instead. What can I say, I'm not into talk radio.
musicradio77
03-21-2005, 10:14 PM
I might as well watch all three "Back to the Future" movies and see how I remember the Delorean. RIP:(
Seth
03-21-2005, 10:22 PM
http://www.nwywre.com/cars/delorean.jpg
theshark8777
03-21-2005, 10:24 PM
http://www.nwywre.com/cars/delorean.jpg


Makes me want to go back to 1955.
Steve M.
03-21-2005, 10:29 PM
I saw an article somewhere that said DeLorean's stlying and construction innovations were ignored by everyone else and remain so to this day. Geez, even Preston Tucker's innovations - like fuel injection - got picked up by the big companies. :(
theshark8777
03-21-2005, 10:45 PM
I saw an article somewhere that said DeLorean's stlying and construction innovations were ignored by everyone else and remain so to this day. Geez, even Preston Tucker's innovations - like fuel injection - got picked up by the big companies. :(


Well he did make the GTO when he was with GM.
Steve M.
03-21-2005, 10:55 PM
True. But why hasn't anyone copied his stainless steel body construction? That was a good idea!