De Lorean DMC 12 Front - Source Thilo Parg, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Table of Contents
DeLorean DMC-12 History
Sports cars from the 80s and 90s were and still are special for collectors and those who know their real values. However, the DeLorean DMC 12 is among the rarest examples of a car that shot to fame while being the least sporty. The DMC-12 was John DeLorean’s dream, passion, and mental efforts put to reality. With his long association with General Motors, and being an automotive engineer himself, John dreamt of setting up his car brand.
Moreover, he aimed to launch a sports car directly as the first product from his brand as well. With plenty of planning and investments, he finally rolled off the DMC-12 from the factory in Belfast. However, due to multiple unfortunate reasons, his success with the DMC-12 was quite short-lived.
11. The DMC-12 has food-grade stainless steel body panels
Relatively uncommon for cars even at present, the DMC-12 was built with brushed SS304 austenitic stainless steel. Not only stainless steel panels, but the quality was a bit of overkill for a car’s exterior body panel since it is of food-grade quality. For reference, SS304 stainless steel is extensively used in items as cookware, cutlery, and kitchen equipment. No wonder why it shines like my flatware.
10. The gullwing doors have space tech behind them
Another iconic thing about the DeLorean DMC-12 is its gullwing doors. As we know how John DeLorean put his best efforts into building his dream car, the torsion bars of the doors were developed by Grumman Aerospace. To keep things in perspective, Grumman Aerospace was responsible for the legendary F-14 Tomcat and the Apollo Lunar Module!
9. The DMC-12 was planned to be priced at 12k, hence the “12”
Surprisingly, among plenty of John DeLorean’s high hopes, pricing the DMC-12 at $12,000 was one of them. As such, the initial prototypes were named internally as DMC-12. However, the rising production costs ultimately led to the car’s price being set at $25,000, more than double the intended price.
8. The DeLorean DMC-12 was unreliable and fragile
The DeLorean DMC 12 was notorious for its reliability issues during the initial batches. Even though most of the issues were resolved by the later batches in 1982, other issues persisted. Some of the common issues include poor wheel alignments, maladjusted clutch pedal, the accelerator getting stuck, and weak engine alternators. Moreover, the stainless steel body panels of the car meant that it was easily dented and the panels did not have any paintwork as well.
7. Father of Lotus designed and developed the DMC-12’s chassis
The original concept of the DeLorean DMC-12 required extensive engineering changes to its chassis before its launch. The initially planned elastic reservoir molding feature of the chassis was also deemed unfit at that time. Hence, the further development responsibilities of the chassis were handed over to Colin Chapman, the Founder of Lotus. Chapman employed techniques then used by Lotus such as using steel backbone chassis.
6. There exist a few gold-plated DMC-12s!
After its launch, DeLorean got involved in a campaign with American Express for Christmas, which turned out to be unsuccessful in the end. However, for that purpose, a couple of DMC-12s were 24k gold plated. Both the cars are carefully preserved in a museum today. Also, a private businessman gold-plated his finished DMC-12 using a similar 24k gold but it cost him much less than actually buying the original gold-plated DMC-12s.
5. None other than Giorgetto Giugiaro designed the DMC-12
Giorgetto Giugiaro is a living legend and he is responsible for giving us some iconic cars such as the Lotus Esprit and the BMW M1 concept car. He also worked his magic and designed the DMC-12, the sole reason the car still looks timeless. Inspired by the Porsche Tapiro, a concept car built by Porsche in 1970, which was also designed by Giugiaro.
4. The DMC-12 isn’t sporty at all
The DeLorean DMC-12 was originally intended to be a sports car, however due to the heavy design changes and launch timeline pressures, the car lost its sportiness. Moreover, the decision to equip it with the SOHC Peugeot-Renault-Volvo (PRV) V6 engine resulted in a weak performance as well. With 130 horsepower and 153 lb-ft of torque on tap, the car was barely powerful enough to compete with its sportier rivals with a real-life 0-60 mph sprint time of 9.5 seconds and a top speed of 120 MPH. Transmission options included a standard 5-speed manual and an optional 3-speed automatic.
A handful of European cars pushed 154 horsepower as these remained in Europe and didn’t need to be federally tuned.
3. The car became more famous due to Back To The Future Trilogy
DeLorean created quite the hype before the launch of the DMC-12 and several excited buyers booked their cars with a full downpayment of the car’s price. However, the car’s popularity died quite rapidly and the brand was left with excess finished units than it could sell back then. After the brand was shut down in 1983, the Back To The Future movie sparked back the popularity of the car in 1985.
2. DeLorean DMC-12 had a production run of below 10,000 units
After DeLorean filed for bankruptcy, there were a few attempts to clear the stock of the unsold cars. However, the plans did not work out as intended and the brand was still left with surplus units. During the two years of production run, 9,080 cars were produced. As of 2015, an estimated 6,500 cars are still on the road.
1. DeLorean DMC-12 Current Value
As mentioned earlier, the DeLorean was original estimated to be priced at $12k however ultimately ended up showing $25k on the window sticker. When adjusted with inflation, it is equivalent to around $80k with 2.7% annual inflation rate for the United States.
As per CLASSIC.COM Market Benchmark, the average value of a DeLorean DMC-12 in 2024 is around $59,772 which is still surprisingly high. Some of the modified models over the years have fetched as much as $243,000 in auctions resulting in the high average value of the car. If you own one of these, DeLorean Classic is offering to purchase the DMC-12 in any condition and mileage.
