DeLorean - Stainless Steel Illusion

Exploring the eight year history of the De Lorean Motor Company (DMC) is like reading a fairy tale. Except this tale ends in a broken dream instead of happiness, with the hero carted off to face a possible jail sentence. With the hopes of 2600 Irish workers crushed, with a shaken British government staring at losses that may easily exceed 70 million pounds. How did it happen? What went so wrong so fast after being so incandescently right? What is clear is the step-by-step look at the incredible effort involved in bringing a car to the marketplace, and the extraordinary skill of John De Lorean at bringing together and motivating a highly talented band of engineers, marketeers and financial experts. Included are such titbits as master stylist Giorgetto Giugiaro's sketches on Polaroids of the full scale plaster mock-up, showing various window treatments. There's a comparison with the inspiration for it all, the Mercedes Benz 300 SL gullwing, and even a brief look at Malcolm Bricklin, whose tent was folding as De Lorean's star was rising. Played against the main story line—the De Lorean Sports Car's transformation from Allstate Insurance safety vehicle to rear-engine version of the exotic Lotus Esprit—is a personal look at the people inside the De Lorean executive suite through the eyes of former DMC PR Director Mike Knepper, who worked and traveled with De Lorean for 18 months prior to the layoffs of March, 1982. Against the bewildering turn of events which saw De Lorean arrested for allegedly financing a cocaine deal in an attempt to raise money to keep his company afloat, psychologist Dr. Keith Golay offers a penetrating insight into the De Lorean personality which led him, almost inevitably, down this path. While much of the De Lorean financial history and money raising efforts are shifting and elusive (as the bankrupt company's creditors are learning to their dismay as they attempt to determine which corporate shell the pea is under) the factory in Northern Ireland is stone, mortar and steel—not the stuff of illusion. Proudly built by local Belfast firms, the five buildings which house a Star Wars-style assembly line were a symbol of re-birth. But like their great grand fathers who carved out the invincible Titanic seventy years ago, the workers of Belfast now see the DMC plant going under, ripped open by forces as powerful, unseen and unpredictable as a cruel and silent iceberg. This, then, is the story of the De Lorean Motor Company. A story of a dream come true, story of a dream broken, story of success, story of tragedy.