So last month DMC-H(ouston- the modern incarnation of the DeLorean Motor Company which owns all the rights to the brand as well as the vast majority of the existing old stock parts) send out an email and changed their main website hyping some big announcement coming soon- and earlier this week some of the details about what they were hyping came out in a C&D article: DeLorean, Reborn as an EV, to Debut at Pebble Beach This August. Apparently 'DeLorean Motors Reimagined' (mostly owned, unsurprisingly, by DMC-H) planning on unveiling a new, electric 'DeLorean' at Pebble Beach this summer- as in, a completely new car that (per them) shares the 'DNA' of the original DMC-12. Someone in the comments noted that the promo images look a whole lot like ItalDesign's DaVinci Concept Car, right down to the logo.
Now, owning a DMC-12, I'm more familiar with DMC-H than most from having dealt with them in getting parts and having met most of the main players at the several DeLorean Car Shows (DCS) I've attended- and I am very skeptical of anything real coming out of this. I've owned my DeLorean for a bit over a decade now- and every couple of years, DMC-H makes a lot of noise about some new-and-improved DeLorean that they're planning on making and selling. At the DCS where I first got my car drivable, they were showing off and hyping a supercharged version; a bit later, it was an electric version they were going to sell. Then they started with the 'New Build' cars- where they took an existing (usually wrecked) car and pulled the minimum amount of parts (typically the plastic body and/or frame) and built and entirely 'new' car around them using NOS parts. When GM killed off Saturn & Pontiac, it was floated that they were in negotiations to buy the plant & and fixtures where the Kappa Platform (Saturn Sky/Pontiac Solstice) was made so they could build a new, modern DeLorean. When a law was passed that made it look possible to do so, they hyped building completely new original-design DMC-12's with a modern powerplant.
Of all of those things? Only the 'New Build' cars have remotely happened- and they were/are exorbitantly expensive and I don't know of any that have actually been delivered. Everything has evaporated after they got some press for the announcement. The SC & Electric cars existed- I rode in the SC one and looked over the electric at the main plant in Houston- but they were just for show (and there were rumblings that DMC-H had all but stolen the custom manifold the SC car used from someone who had developed it for their own personal car).
So, I will believe that any of this is actually real not once they unveil the car in August- but when I see them actually being delivered and people driving them around. I'm also expecting them to be pretty ridiculously expensive. It would be nice if they would put more effort into the promised updated-powertrain for the original cars- something which a great many people who own them would be happy about.
I know they had a "Stage II" DeLorean build that some people bought, one of the few automotive journalists had bought one. It was really just an Improvement of the PRV V6 as best as they could.
They had an electric swap DeLorean at one point they were showing off, but it was basically a body-swapped Leaf with a smaller motor to not rip the transaxel to shreds. Air cooled, 80 miles of range with the pack replacing the engine bay and middle fuel tank... not surprising they didn't push forward on EV when the technology has evolved like it has in the past decade. I hope they do it, but damn is the market saturated; they'll only have the name if they don't have the tech to back it all up.
As far as marketing plans go, you could do worse than an electric DeLorean with a fake flux capacitor in the cabin.
In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
Oh, they definitely sell a lot of good stuff- for people who want to keep the original powerplant their Stage upgrades are a great way to do it (expensive for sure, but they work). I just largely take issue with their constant promising of updates that end up being nothing more than publicity stunts.
It is surprising that they haven't tried to do more with the EV tech, but this circles back to my issue- in most cases I don't think they're serious about the updates and the work they would entail to actually put into production.
An EV powerplant is something I've been mulling for replacing the PRV in my own- and there is at least one person working on adapting a Tesla drive system to a DMC- but the biggest issue that I keep running into is cost... a good EV setup would run easily over $10k whereas I can get an engine from a junkyard and totally overhaull it for a fraction of that and not have to deal with completely changing all of the control setup.
Like most revolutionary renovations anything of this scope would be staggeringly expensive. It's not just a PRV turbo kit, updating the DMC-12 to electric would entail a 100% reimagination of the drive, braking and suspension systems as well as updating a lot of the dash. Marketing a co-op chassis with a niche unknown manufacturer and your established broadly known name would be kind of perfect. Essentially badging a new model and helping with advertising.
Well here is the opportunity for the reboot of Back of the Future, although Rick and Morty has sort of done that job lolz.
I wonder how much power it will have. Anything less than 1.21 jiggawatts will be a letdown.
QuasiMofo (John Brown) said:
Like most revolutionary renovations anything of this scope would be staggeringly expensive. It's not just a PRV turbo kit, updating the DMC-12 to electric would entail a 100% reimagination of the drive, braking and suspension systems as well as updating a lot of the dash. Marketing a co-op chassis with a niche unknown manufacturer and your established broadly known name would be kind of perfect. Essentially badging a new model and helping with advertising.
Given the future of ICE requirements all over the word, making new idea cars EV is the most financially realistic way to go. Especially since the early adaptor market has not been saturated, yet.
The biggest risk is to make the car high enough quality (in terms of everything, not just quality) to pay for the price of the whole car. IMHO, that's where Tesla hit the target with the S. Know what you are going to sell, and make it worth it.
In reply to alfadriver :
Agreed. And like I said, if they are just licensing the DMC name to a new vehicle on the market it could be a great plan.
Someone needs to start taking odds on whether the DeLorean, Elio or Cybertruck make it into production first.
One of those three vehicles has some real money and a powertrain behind it.
Looks like the "small volume reproduction" law got through, so DMC could start making actual Deloreans from scratch with modern drivetrains now.
Keith Tanner said:
One of those three vehicles has some real money and a powertrain behind it.
Looks like the "small volume reproduction" law got through, so DMC could start making actual Deloreans from scratch with modern drivetrains now.
I just have zero confidence that the DaVinci DeLorean will ever be anything more than a concept. To my knowledge DMC-H does not have any kind of production line where they could build them, and I don't know a whole lot about ItalDesign but I don't get the impression they're in the production car assembly line business. I'll be quite happy to be wrong- but I will also be completely unsurprised if after the big 'unveil' at Pebble Beach that nothing else happens.
They've been talking about the 'small volume reproduction' thing for years now, and not a peep regarding a plan for a modern drivetrain- something that they could very easily sell to existing owners who are interested in a more powerful/efficient powerplant. Again- I'd be quite happy if I'm wrong, but so far history says I'm more likely to be right that nothing will really happen.
Well, small volume reproduction only just got passed so it was theoretical until now.
Seems to me this would be a perfect use for a repurposed C8 drivetrain.
Keith Tanner said:
Looks like the "small volume reproduction" law got through
I saw that yesterday. That has huge potential for all sorts of cars to make a reappearance. First thing that came to mind is a new/retro Nissan GTR. But why not a Delorian. The current iteration of DMC is positioned to take big advantage of this. If nothing else they could take there parts pile a screw together new cars with a modern power plant. Or complete power train. A Delorian with a modern V6 pushing 3-400 Hp with modern transmission options would be cool. I think the production limit under that law was between 3-400 units a year. That sounds about perfect for DMC.
*Curtis looks on the DMV website to see if "1PT21JW" vanity plates are available
RossD
MegaDork
3/7/22 11:12 a.m.
Keith Tanner said:
Well, small volume reproduction only just got passed so it was theoretical until now.
Seems to me this would be a perfect use for a repurposed C8 drivetrain.
I'd like to see either a turbo 4 or turbo 6. Keep it one step cheaper/smaller/lower key than an average priced C8 that's on a dealer lot.
I don't see why a very limited production recreation of an iconic car would have to be cheaper than a mass-produced Corvette. Packaging the intercoolers for a turbo might be fun. Another V6 would work well, you could pretty much use any longitudinal FWD drivetrain - which says Audi to me without thinking about it much.
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:
*Curtis looks on the DMV website to see if "1PT21JW" vanity plates are available
[nerd] it would be GW, as J is the abbreviation for Joule. It's Gigawatt, not Jigawatt. Stupid Doc, single-handedly delayed adoption of the metric system.[/nerd]
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
perhaps I should look into "JGAWAT" or "FLUX ME"
Keith Tanner said:
I don't see why a very limited production recreation of an iconic car would have to be cheaper than a mass-produced Corvette. Packaging the intercoolers for a turbo might be fun. Another V6 would work well, you could pretty much use any longitudinal FWD drivetrain - which says Audi to me without thinking about it much.
DMC (the original) had a twin-turbo test car which I believe didn't use intercoolers. An intercooler would almost certainly have to be mounted on the rear of the car since piping it all the way forward would be pretty impractical. It's part of why I was looking at the supercharged 3800 for what to swap into mine, since it did pretty well without needing an intercooler.
I saw a DeLorean once a long time ago that was painted bright yellow. It looked pretty nice.
Ashyukun (Robert) said:
Keith Tanner said:
One of those three vehicles has some real money and a powertrain behind it.
Looks like the "small volume reproduction" law got through, so DMC could start making actual Deloreans from scratch with modern drivetrains now.
I just have zero confidence that the DaVinci DeLorean will ever be anything more than a concept. To my knowledge DMC-H does not have any kind of production line where they could build them, and I don't know a whole lot about ItalDesign but I don't get the impression they're in the production car assembly line business. I'll be quite happy to be wrong- but I will also be completely unsurprised if after the big 'unveil' at Pebble Beach that nothing else happens.
They've been talking about the 'small volume reproduction' thing for years now, and not a peep regarding a plan for a modern drivetrain- something that they could very easily sell to existing owners who are interested in a more powerful/efficient powerplant. Again- I'd be quite happy if I'm wrong, but so far history says I'm more likely to be right that nothing will really happen.
So the new company started making waves here in San Antonio last month for this new production facility right after the big game, so that's the where and "how."
SWMBO mentioned it to me last month and I went digging because it's local to us.
I couldn't figure out the ties to DMC-H with the new company, so I thought it was someone new just running with the name.
https://www.tpr.org/business/2022-02-14/the-future-is-here-san-antonio-eyed-for-delorean-hq-with-450-jobs
SWMBO got excited at the idea and I was a buzz kill who mentioned Ellio Motors to her and my confidence in this coming to fruition being about 0%.
VolvoHeretic said:
I saw a DeLorean once a long time ago that was painted bright yellow. It looked pretty nice.
That usually means it's been in an accident, because repairing those stainless body panels invisibly is pretty difficult.
In reply to spacecadet (Forum Supporter) :
Interesting- chalk me up as more curious, but still massively skeptical that they'll ever make a real production car from all of this.
So they've apparently posted photos ahead of the reveal: https://www.ign.com/articles/delorean-ev-revealed-back-to-the-future
Still can see the DaVinci origins, but they've changed it a modest bit. The price is definitely a non-starter for me (and I imagine most people).
