03-20-2005, 03:49 PM
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#1
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Regular User
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Hellaware USA
Posts: 3,865
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John Delorean (inventor of the GTO) dead at 80
Update 1: Car Developer John DeLorean Dies at 80
03.20.2005, 01:15 PM
John Z. DeLorean, the innovative automaker who left a promising career in Detroit to develop the stainless steel-skinned, gull-winged sports car bearing his name and was acquitted of charges he planned to sell $24 million worth of cocaine to support the venture, has died at the age of 80.
DeLorean died Saturday at Overlook Hospital in Summit, N.J., of complications from a recent stroke, said Paul Connell, an owner of A.J. Desmond & Sons Funeral Directors in Royal Oak, Mich., which was handling arrangements.
DeLorean, whose namesake car was turned into a time machine in the "Back to the Future" movies, was among just a handful of U.S. entrepreneurs who dared start a car company in the last 75 years.
DeLorean "broke the mold" of staid Midwestern auto executives by pushing General Motors Corp. to offer smaller models, auto historians said.
While at GM, he created what some consider the first "muscle car" in 1964 by cramming a V-8 engine into a Pontiac Tempest and calling it the GTO.
Although he was a rising if unconventional executive at GM, and was believed by many to be destined for its presidency, he quit in 1973 to launch the DeLorean Motor Car Co. in Northern Ireland.
Eight years later, the DeLorean DMC-12 hit the streets with its unpainted stainless steel skin and gull-wing doors.
Its angular design earned it a cult following, and the car was a time-traveling vehicle for Michael J. Fox in the "Back to the Future" films of the late 1980s.
However, the factory produced only about 8,900 cars in three years, estimated John Truscott, membership director of the DeLorean Owners Association.
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.
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http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/...ap1894637.html
I'd argue no single car designer had a larger effect on car design of the late 60s/early 70s. He was oft entertaining with the coke thing and the delorean sports car. Too bad we wont see what he could have come up with next.
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03-20-2005, 05:30 PM
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#2
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Regular User
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Just south of Confused
Posts: 7,647
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RIP, John Delorean. Thanks for a car that captured imagiantions everywhere.
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my carbon footprint is bigger than yours
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03-20-2005, 05:36 PM
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#3
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Regular User
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: London, England
Posts: 123
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Yeah man that's sad news, i never really thought highly of him because of the whole drug thing, but no matter how shit a car the DMC-12 was/is, i'd still love to have one, and i think a lot of people would...and that makes it a little bit special.
RIP
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"The Scientist explores what is,
the Engineer creates what has never been."
- Theodore von Karman
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03-20-2005, 05:41 PM
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#4
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Regular User
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Texas
Posts: 15,413
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The horsepower wars would never have happened the way they did, when they did if not for this gentleman.
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03-20-2005, 07:58 PM
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#5
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Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 117
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RIP cool guy
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03-20-2005, 08:05 PM
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#6
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Regular User
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Just south of Confused
Posts: 7,647
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Originally Posted by RC45
The horsepower wars would never have happened the way they did, when they did if not for this gentleman.
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I think the only thing your post is lacking is that little smiley pulling out the American flag 
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my carbon footprint is bigger than yours
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03-20-2005, 08:31 PM
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#7
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Regular User
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Detroit
Posts: 9,929
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this is really sad news... even though i knew in the back of my mind that his future cars would likely never see the light of day, i hoped tremendously that his marquee would make a triumphant return. even in the time he was here, he left a mark that will forever echo the automotive industry
RIP John Delorean
http://www.home.no/delorean/dmcltd.htm
http://www.delorean.com/
as late as 2003, John was working on two new cars, a lightwieght mid engine V6 gullwing, and a 13 liter V12... unfortunately we wont have a chance to ever see those prowl the streets 
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03-21-2005, 12:47 AM
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#8
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Regular User
Join Date: Sep 2004
Posts: 330
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A great man who created a great car. If it weren't for him we wouldn't have fast and fun old cars to talk about and enjoy. It could even be argued that we wouldn't have the cars (hp wise) we do today. RIP
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"At a given day and a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit, and you touch the limit, and you think 'okay, this is the limit.' As soon as you touch this limit, something happens in you so that you can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct and your experience as well, you can fly very high" - Ayrton Senna
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03-21-2005, 08:24 PM
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#9
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Regular User
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Toronto
Posts: 4,252
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Just read this in today's paper, RIP so sad to see you fail like tucker  hope your in a better place.
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