Slashdot Mirror
Delorean Time Machine Replica Up For Auction
PunkerTFC writes "I'm sure most of you remember the movie Back To The Future. Well, now you have a chance to own your very own 1982 Delorean, fully equipped for time travel. It has a "Flux Capacitor", "Time Circuits" and "exterior Flux Dispersion Banding". This thing is clearly a chick magnet, and if you can't get them on the first pass, you can always crank it up to 88 mph and go back in time to try it again! Seriously though, this car is amazing, definitely worth a look to see the details. Nothing has been missed, and my hat goes off to the builder."
This baby lacks a Mr. Fusion. I take it that the car also doesn't fly for use in 2015... :-(. Oh well, whoever buys it has much happy modding ahead of them!
Somehow I've got a feeling Steve Ballmer is going to buy that thing too.
way to fuck up a perfectly nice and rare car.
Great Scott!
There. Now I've gotten that out of my system.
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
This thing is clearly a chick magnet, and if you can't get them on the first pass, you can always crank it up to 88 mph and go back in time to try it again!
Please use phrases in the story outline the average slashdotter can understand. All this talk of "chicks" and making a "pass" is incomprehensible gobbledegook to the average Slashdot nerd. Though "you can always crank it" is perfectly OK.
P.S. The birds won't be impressed by a replica DeLorean, just like they were probably unimpressed with a glow in the dark TRON costume. Except that hacker goth chick Raven.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
What a pity Deloreans never came into the full success they deserved.
Stainless steel body that couldn't rust. Light, efficient and well designed midmount engine. Gullwing doors. Brilliant weighting and suspension that were 10 years ahead of what was in anything but supercars...
The fact that so many great ideas start off in this country and are killed before they can get the success they deserve is what's driving america down the drain
Car is amazing... But I think I'll stick to my flying train...
Does anyone know the availability of replacement parts in this time-line? Willing to travel up to 15 years. Cash waiting.
Imagine that: stepping out of that car in your brand spanking new spandex Tron suite. The girls would be over you like bees on honey...!
you can always crank it up to 88 mph
...if you can get it to 88mph. Those things were heavy (1200kg/2700lb) and underpowered (130bhp), and the build quality was pretty poor. And yes, I have seen one in the flesh.
Ydco co
He was neither Irish, nor a junkie. He was an American of French decent, and was charged with conspiracy to traffic cocaine, and aquitted due to the cop's obvious attempt to entrap him.
Shame the designer was a junkie ;[
Actually, he wasn't a junkie, he was accused of dealing cocain but was aquitted on all charges because he was entrapped.
IMHO, the real shame is that such a great designer didn't pair up with a great business manager who could make his ideas successful rather than a footnote in automotive history.
Narrative
Is this the old one or the new one?
To put it in different words do I have to feed it plutonium or bananas?
If it's plutonium then it has too be overpriced, really difficult to get at your local gas station.
But seriously, nice job man!
The 80's are calling. It wants its fanboy back. Good thing you have that delorian there McFly. :)
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
This guy obviously banged his head in the toilet.
This thing is clearly a chick magnet
Maybe if you filled the cup holders full of chicken feed.
Little Bricklets
You sure you mean "pothole" and not "plothole"?
That's the trouble with time travel, the probable development of a predestination paradox to irritate with outdated hype.
The Interceptor of Mad Max is on Ebay! Ford big block, supercharged, the baddest of bad ass movie cars by a long, long way.
Sheer
Brutal
Horsepower
Actually, he wasn't a junkie, he was accused of dealing cocain but was aquitted on all charges because he was entrapped.
This guy is right. John DeLorean got teamed up with someone who he thought was going to fuse a large amount of cash into his company in order to save it (after his original loans by the royal family were spontaneously and unfairly called.) He had no idea that this guys plan was for him to sell coke in order to get the money.
DeLorean attempted to back out, but the man threatened his daughters life. With this in mind, he agreed to go through with the deal. Only at this point did the true facts come out. This gentlman was ACTUALLY a very over zealous cop who did all of this deliberately.
Entrapment.
DeLorean was (very appropriately) acquited of all charges.
Thanks Slashdot, now everry nerd will be watching this. There goes my chances of snipering it on the cheap....
"Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun."
Actually, according to the link you provided, it wasn't John Delorean (the CEO) that swindled the money out of the UK, it was Arthur Andersen, the U.S. accounting giant that handled DeLorean accounts.
The Delorean had so many problems with tariffs and shipping and just a mess that many of the 9,000 cars they made sat in parking lots waiting to come to America.
To call John Delorean a thieving bastard is to not understand everything that happened. John DeLorean has stayed out of the limelight. He's been entangled in about 40 legal cases stemming from his company's bankruptcy. He personally declared bankruptcy in September 1999. He was evicted from his house in 2000.
So much for the "thieving bastard".
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
At inopportune moments, the engine might not start. Especially at around 10:04pm on dark stormy nights.
from IMDB, trivia about the Delorean Time Machine:
# The time machine has been through several variations. In the first draft of the screenplay the time machine was a laser device that was housed in a room. At the end of the first draft the device was attached to a refrigerator and taken to an atomic bomb test. In the third draft of the film the time machine was a DeLorean, but in order to send Marty back to the future the vehicle had to drive the DeLorean into an atomic bomb test.
# The device originally considered for use as the time travel machine was a refrigerator. Director Robert Zemeckis said in an interview that the idea was scrapped because he and Steven Spielberg did not want children to start climbing into refrigerators and getting trapped inside.
# The "Mr. Fusion Home Energy Converter", which is sitting on the DeLorean when Doc returns from the future, is made from (among other things) a Krups coffee grinder.
# The script never called for Marty to repeatedly bang his head on the gull-wing door of the DeLorean; this was improvised during filming as the door mechanism became faulty.
The DeLorean time machine is a licensed, registered vehicle in the state of California. While the vanity license plate used in the film says "OUTATIME", the DeLorean's actual license plate reads 3CZV657
When Marty is trying to re-start the DeLorean in 1955 as he prepares to return to 1985, the car's headlights flash the Morse Code for "SOS".
# The DeLorean used in the trilogy is 1981 model with 6-cylinder PRV engine, and the base for the nuclear reactor was made with hubcap from a Dodge Polaris. It is incorrectly quoted as being a 4 cylinder on the 2002 special edition DVD.
free online diet tracking.
Im going to have to watch back to the future again as I don't remember the car being that ... sucky.
What car is it that Biff is driving in 1955? I seem to remember being told it was a Ford '48 Ragtop, but can't remember...
SpamNet - a spam blocker that really works
Theres no back seat! :P
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I saw a DeLorean with Back to the Future trimmings on the road a few months ago. It was in Boston on Mass Ave headed north. In that direction lies MIT, where a DeLorean may indeed be considered a babe magnet.
So in some contexts, and dependig on what babes you are looking for...
Actually, it's a modified F-350 with a GE jet turbine.
More information
As cool as the DMC-based Time Machine is (and I have to admit, the original B-T-T-F movie is a good memory of my teenage years), the whole BB stuff just rocked. Soooo much more wacked, and so much more fun.
Now, if I can just get Kaneda's Bike from Akira...
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
It was an utter pile of shit, by all accounts. Basically, they built a show car with no regard for how to make it suitable for production, and got Lotus in to make a proper car out of it. Colin Chapman took one look at it and said "right, we'll basically have to start all over again", and it was a total rush job with nowhere near enough money spent on it. It was never meant to be made out of stainless steel, so it's slower and therefore heavier than it was meant to be. The perfect illustration of what a balls-up it was is the windows on the gullwing doors - it didn't occur to anybody until very late on that the windows couldn't actually be opened because of the door design, so they had to cut out those little windows-within-windows you can see if you look at the photos on the auction page.
It says it's automatic transmission, but I distinctly remember in BTTF, Marty changes gears on the run up to the lightning wire.
The builder (an architectural designer) of this replica time machine actually only sold it at a public auction for $22,000. Less than the price of a new refurbished DMC-12. The seller is now trying to sell this car for $35,000.
The frame is badly rusted, and little mechanical work was done to it to ensure its reliability as a driver's car. Not to mention, the electronics were in a large part fabricated by someone without an electronics degree (stainless steel incinerator, anyone?).
As far as movie accuracy, it's very close, but far from perfect. Many details were left out since this car was built to generate income rather than be accurate to the films.
There's actually some legal dispute going on right now between the seller and the builder, being that the seller is using the builder's own photos to promote the item, i.e., copyright infringement.
Most of the comments I've seen so far here about the DeLorean as a car have been pretty misinformed. Stainless does corrode, but only in an environment that lacks oxygen. The chromium forms a protective oxide that protects the carbon steel component from rusting away. Gull-wing doors on it only take about 1 foot of clearance. The engine is heavily based on the Volvo B27 and B28F and was used for many years by them. It has a reliable track record seeing as there are real timing chains, not timing belts, that are used on it, as well as a very accurate, albeit, primitive, mechanical fuel injection.
While the car itself is not necessarily practical, the concepts behind it are. Can you imagine the reduction in paint fumes released into the environment if every car built was stainless steel? Not to mention, when some jerk comes and keys your car, not only will he destroy his key, but with some sandpaper, you yourself can remove the scratch. I'll admit the car has its flaws, but nothing that can't be corrected by someone knowledgeable about DeLoreans.
Seriously though, everyone knows that magnets have two poles...and this one is definitely on the repelling side. Chicks will run away so fast that not even a time machine can catch up with them.
If you look at the pics the design similarities are quite obvious.
___FutureShoks___
Funny thing about the DeLorean. You can't keep them in lane, they want to drive inbetween lanes (to suck up the white line.....)
Yes, they are what are referred to as "receivers". The .gov.uk had to sue them to get their JZDeLorean money back. Which they didn't manage to do.
He also designed nearly everything that we drove in the 70s and 80s in Europe. VW Golf, Polo and Scirocco, Fiat Uno, Citroen BX, Fiat Panda, Lotus Esprit, Lancia Delta, SAAB 9000, Audi 80, Alfasud. He practically invented the "folded paper" school of auto design, those that weren't his were copying his.
Sorry but it's GIGANTIC compared to the mint 1988 fiero GT I have in my garage. and even a 300lb man can sit comfortably in a fiero... I know, my uncle who is QUITE large drove it off the assembly line for me in 1988 and handed me the keys. It is one of the last 100 made.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If any of you do live in Buffalo......Im sorry
"Insert Sig Here"
The car from the movie was a 1981 delorean, i believe, and this one is a 1982. Pretty major detail for someone who claims he researched everything for 5 years.
So far, other than big screen flat panel TVs, Robert Zemeckis' vision of the future is not panning out. No flying cars. No Jaws 17. No hovering skateboards.
Then again, Buck Rogers was supposed to leave on the last of NASA's deep space probes in 1987, the moon was to hurtle out of Earth's orbit in 1999, and the exploration of Jupiter's moons began in 2001.
Of course, we still have 11 years left. But even if we get Mr. Fusion, who will control the world's supply of banana peels and Old Milwaukee cans that supply its fuel? I say to you now: No Blood for Banana Peels.
> stepping out of that car in your brand spanking
> new spandex Tron suite. The girls would be over
> you like bees on honey...!
Unfortunately, if you look closely, you'll see that the girls are all dressed in white and are carrying syringes. You probably won't have much time to conteplate it.
He was neither Irish, nor a junkie. He was an American of French decent, and was charged with conspiracy to traffic cocaine, and aquitted due to the cop's obvious attempt to entrap him.
That's right. I used to have a DeLorean (rare, 1983 model, note the fuel fill door on the hood) and still have a driver's side gull wing door kicking around my garage. Lemme tell you, they're already a pain in the ass to work on - the engine is in the back and there are the little "sail windows" which give it the rough profile of a hatchback when it isn't. I can't imagine how it is to try to get at the motor with all the BTTF props on it!
Anyway, I read a lot about DeLorean. Here's the problem. DeLorean was a former Pontiac executive, and one of the creators of the Pontiac GTO.
Angered with GM, he wrote a scathing book, "On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors" in which he detailed how the first Chevy Vega tore itself in half after only 8 miles on the test track.
(The Vega and its twin the Pontiac (dis)Astre, was the predecessor to the Chevette, produced from 1971-1977, and is probably the single worst car ever made by Detroit - still not so bad compared to lots of early Japanese and Eastern European cars, though... Renault Beep-Beep Dauphine!)
DeLorean decided to make his own personal luxury car, the ethical luxury car. Stainless steel body that would never rust, best of the best materials (yeah, as a former DeLorean owner, tell me how to fix dents in the stainless steel!). By the time he'd arranged for the production (factory in Ireland for the tax breaks), it was 1981.
When the Guigaro (same styling house that did most VW, Hyundai, Audi) styled the DeLorean, it was the mid-1970s. Such a simple rectangular, clean car was unheard of.
In 1978 Ford introduced the Ford Fairmont and Mercury Zephyr, also the restyled "Fox-body" Mustang. GM introduced the super-square Impala about this time - all of these are things that we associate with 1980s cars, versus the rounded and skirted shapes of 1970s cars. All of a sudden, the DeLorean's simple clean angular body wasn't so cutting-edge.
In 1981, inflation was rampant, and the economy was doing poorly. Chrysler was on the verge of bankruptcy. When you factor in inflation, gasoline was more expensive then than it is now. People were not in the mood to buy luxury cars; people were buying Chevettes and Ford Escorts and Plymouth Reliants. DeLorean's nascent car company launched at the wrong time.
By 1983, he was running out of money. The cars were already looking dated as the simple early 1980s angular shape was giving way to the "Aerobird" shapes of the new 1984 Thunderbird, Cougar and Tempo, all premiering in the 1983 car show circuit. There was no money to restyle and retool, and DeLorean started to look for other ways of keeping the company afloat, at least for a little while.
The car had been produced with massive subsidies from the (North/South - can't remember which) Irish government. When the company finally folded (with a little over 2,000 DeLorean DMC-12 sports cars produced), the government destroyed all the stamping dies and tooling to ensure that no more DeLoreans would ever be made.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
John Delorean did have his scrapes with the law.
He went to school at Lawrence Tech, where my ex just happened to have gone and shared with me stories that have been passed down about the man.
One such story is that he typed up letters claiming to be from the power company, saying that the company had underpaid by $5 and to remit payment to a PO Box.
He sent these letters to a number of companies -- the PO box being his own personal box.
He was tried for it and levied a fine... ironically the fine was LESS than the money he made from the whole scam.
So I'm not saying the man was guilty of everything accused, but he definitely was not a total angel.
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
The pictures make it very clear. There are 3 pedals in the car, and the shifter knob is manual.
Unless those pictures are of the "real" one from the movie, then the one up for auction is a manual 5-speed, and someone goofed up the auction listing.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
At some point, he must have realized that what was being discussed were illegal actions and an upstanding person would have backed off then.
This proves exactly how much you don't know about what happened. John did back off. Once he found out drugs were involved, he told the guys - who were undercover FBI agents - "No deal."
Do you know how they responded? They told JZD that if he didn't follow through, they would murder his wife and his children. He didn't know they were FBI agents. He thought they were gangsters, so he cooperated. He even sent letters to his attorney before going to meet with them explaining everything, "in case they kill me." Then he meets them and lo and behold, they're FBI agents.
All of this came out in court. There were statements made by several reputable people that one of the agents in question had bragged about "bringing down someone big... someone like John DeLorean" long before any contact was initially made with him. So our own FBI screws up this guy's life - forever - because someone wants a cheap thrill. And people like you have the gall to come on a public forum 20 years later and spout off about how immoral and awful DeLorean was, without doing any research whatsoever.
He's an innocent man. Always has been.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Any prospective buyers who might be interested on the history of the car being sold:
Should check out the discussion on the car by the original creator
And the creator and his timeline on building the car
In short, its a re-sell and the original creator is getting no credit. In fact the person re-selling the car is using copyrighted images on ebay (which is why the auction was previously pulled).