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KF5JRV > TODAY 19.10.18 12:31l 48 Lines 2496 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 23339_KF5JRV
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Oct 19
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<IK6ZDE<VE2PKT<N9PMO<N9LCF<KF5JRV
Sent: 181019/1121Z 23339@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA BPQ6.0.16
On October 19, 1982, the automaker John Z. DeLorean is arrested and
charged with conspiracy to obtain and distribute 55 pounds of cocaine.
DeLorean was acquitted of the drug charges in August 1984, but his legal
woes were only beginning. He soon went on trial for fraud and over the
next two decades was forced to pay millions of dollars to creditors and
lawyers. Nevertheless, DeLorean occupies an important place in
automotive history: Thanks to its starring role in the 1985 film “Back
to the Future,ö his gull-wing sports car is one of the most famous cars
in the world.
DeLorean grew up in Detroit and began to work for Chrysler while he was
still in college. His career was a promising one: He worked his way up
the corporate ladder at General Motors, where he is credited with
designing the GTO and the Firebird, and became a vice-president in 1972,
but he left the company just a year later to pursue his own business
interests. In 1978, he started the DeLorean Motor Company in Northern
Ireland—the British government, along with investors like Johnny Carson
and Sammy Davis, Jr., paid the bulk of his start-up costs—to build his
dream car: the DMC-12, a sports car that was like nothing anyone had
ever seen before. Its stainless-steel body was unpainted; its doors
opened up, not out; it had a 130-hp Renault engine and could go from
zero to 60 mph in eight seconds.
But not many people actually bought a DeLorean car. They were much too
expensive: Each one cost $25,000, compared with $10,000 for the average
car and $18,000 for a souped-up Corvette. The company’s financial
trouble, DeLorean’s attorneys argued, was the reason the FBI had been
able to entrap him in the $24 million drug deal–the authorities knew he
would do anything to save his business.
DeLorean was already mired in legal problems by the time director Steven
Spielberg chose a DMC–12 to serve as Marty McFly’s time machine in “Back
to the Future.ö Spielberg had originally planned to use an old
refrigerator instead of a car, but had changed his mind at the last
minute. (The director liked the DeLorean’s futuristic look, but more
than that he was worried that young fans of the movie might accidentally
get stuck in refrigerators and freezers while playing make-believe.)
While the DeLorean’s instant celebrity did not do much to revive its
creator’s fortunes, it granted him a permanent footnote in pop-culture
history.
73 de Scott KF5JRV
Pmail: KF5JRV@KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
email: KF5JRV@ICLOUD.COM
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