Always a good read, John Z. Delorean Leadership Focus John DeLorean Father of Glamour Car Danny Hakim From the March 21, 2005, New York Times John Z. DeLorean, the flamboyant automobile industrialist whose dream of running his own car company dissolved into bankruptcy, died Saturday evening at Overlook Hospital in Summit, N.J. He was 80 years old and lived in Bedminster, N.J. The cause was complications after a stroke, his family said. Mr. DeLorean, a Detroit native, was once thought to be a contender for the presidency of General Motors but left the worlds largest automaker in 1973 and went on to start his own company, DeLorean Motor Company, with the backing of investors like Johnny Carson and Sammy Davis Jr. DeLorean Motor produced only one model, the DMC-12, but it made a lasting impression. In the early 1980s, with increasingly dull cars coming from Detroit, the unpainted, stainless steel-bodied sports car had doors that opened upward like a gulls wings and was featured in the Back to the Future movies starring Michael J. Fox. Although the car remains a collectors item, the life of Mr. DeLoreans company was brief, with about 9,000 cars produced at a factory in Northern Ireland before the company went bankrupt in 1982. Soon after came charges by authorities in the United States that Mr. DeLorean was selling cocaine to prop up its finances. Mr. DeLorean was acquitted in 1984 after a highly publicized trial. Although he was never able to rekindle his automotive dream-for a time he started a wristwatch company called DeLorean Time -he never let it go. His fourth wife, Sally, said in a brief interview yesterday that he had designed a sports car and hoped to start another automaker. Hes been working on it for the last couple years, she said. John Zachary DeLorean was born in Detroit on Jan. 6, 1925, the oldest of four sons of a Ford Motor Company foundry worker. Growing up in a working-class neighborhood, he graduated from the Lawrence Institute of Technology and went on to earn masters degrees in engineering and business. He joined the small Packard Motor Car Company as an engineer in 1952. With ambition, insight and an eye for the unconventional, he became a rising star, first at Packard, and starting in 1956, within G.M., the worlds largest automaker. At 40, he became the youngest general manager of G.M.s Pontiac division, and four years later the youngest manager of Chevrolet. In 1972, at 48, he became a G.M. vice president. He was an anomaly in an industry then dominated by buttoned-down executives. He dyed his hair jet black, wore shirts open to the navel, married a teenage starlet and subsequently a supermodel, and became a wonder at self-promotion. He wore long sideburns that violated the companys unwritten dress code, and even had the president of Ford act as best man at his second wedding. He also owned, for a time, an interest in the San Diego Chargers and played the jazz saxophone. He once told me that he placed enjoying life very high in his list of priorities, and he felt that contrasted with many other executives, said J. Patrick Wright, who collaborated with Mr. DeLorean on a book called On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors. His flair extended to business. He led the team that created Detroits first muscle car, the Pontiac GTO, beginning a wave of such vehicles. Many in the industry thought he would one day be G.M.s president, but he left G.M. in 1973, citing opposition to his unorthodox business style; others said he was dismissed. He told a reporter at the time, Theres no forward response at General Motors to what the public wants today. Mr. DeLorean became intent on creating a corporation in his image. If we were super, super lucky and did everything right, we might some day have another BMW, Mr. DeLorean said in 1977. He opened a factory in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland, in early 1981, which was to produce his $25,000 sports car, at a time when the average vehicle cost about $10,000. The British government sank $120 million into the $200 million project. But with the DeLorean plagued by quality problems, the company fell into financial trouble and was the subject of a British government investigation into financial irregularities. The inquiry found no evidence of criminal conduct, but on Oct. 19, 1982, the British government announced the factory would be closed. On the same day, in Los Angeles, Mr. DeLorean was arrested and charged with conspiring to obtain and distribute 55 pounds of cocaine. He was videotaped in an F.B.I. sting, overheard declaring its better than gold when presented with a case of cocaine by people he thought were investors but who turned out to be law officers. In his trial, Mr. DeLorean contended that he had been lured into a setup. A jury in Los Angeles acquitted him in August 1984. Shortly thereafter, he faced another trial, in Detroit, on fraud charges after a grand jury accused him of siphoning off about $9 million that investors had put into his auto company. He was acquitted in that trial as well. He and his third wife, Cristina Ferrare, the model and actress, were divorced in 1985. Legal troubles drained Mr. DeLoreans resources over the years. By 2000, he sold off his estate in Bedminster, which is now part of a golf course operated by Donald Trump. In addition to his wife, Mr. DeLorean is survived by two daughters, Kathryn Ann DeLorean and Sheila Baldwin DeLorean; a son, Zachary Tavio DeLorean; three brothers: Charles (Chuck) DeLorean, Jack DeLorean and George DeLorean; and two grandchildren. Although Mr. DeLoreans company long ago stopped producing cars, it survives today as a company in Texas that bought all of the remaining DeLorean parts, and repairs and refurbishes cars for collectors. You cant discount the value of the Back to the Future movies, James Espey, the vice president of DeLorean Motor, said yesterday. People who saw the cars in the movies in their teens, these are people in their early, mid 30s, well established, and they now can get the car they wanted when they were a kid. Although Mr. DeLorean was not involved with the company, Mr. Espey said he spoke to Mr. DeLorean once a month, including a talk Thursday shortly before the stroke. Mr. Espey said Mr. DeLorean was concerned about financial troubles of G.M. He had said that there were too many bean counters and not enough engineers in the management, said Mr. Espey. Mark DeLorean, a nephew of Mr. DeLoreans, said Mr. DeLorean was concerned that automakers were relying too much on rebates to sell cars that were not much to look at. Johns attitude was always, I want peoples eyes to light up when they walk through the showroom, Mark DeLorean said. © 2004 The Economist Newspaper and the Economist Group. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or copied by any means without written permission.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 17:10:24 +0000
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