De Lorean | Collecting Model Cars

De Lorean DMC-12

The De Lorean was not well received by the car buying public and automotive magazines kind of gave it the snub. The first vehicles had impressive waiting lists of anxious consumer’s. The sticker price of $25,000 was not in reach for the majority of the buyers. The general public considered it to be an under-powered and impractical toy. Road & Track labeled it as not a “not a barn burner" with a 0-60 mph time of 10.5 seconds. With sad numbers like that it was just not quick enough for a sports/GT car in this price category. The stainless steel body panels may have worked well for the “flux dispersal” and was an attractive design. Even the concept was impervious to corrosion. But in practice the surface tended to show fingerprints.

The cars could not be easily painted. The dealerships painted their cars on delivery to help make them more distinctive. De Lorean was testing the use of a translucent paint to provide different color options on the cars. This was to allow the stainless steel grain to show through. There was only one factory option initially available, and that was an automatic transmission. And somewhat later a grey interior was available, later in 1981 as an alternative to the standard black. Some other accessories including pin-striping and luggage racks appeared later for individuality.

The De Lorean DMC-12 made it to the list of one of the worst 50 cars ever produced. The car was too heavy and the 2.8 liter Peugeot V6 was just not enough power to push the over-priced car.

The Giugiaro-designed DMC-12 sure was cool looking, though. As of August of this year, a Texas company that controls the rights to the name announced it will build a small number of new DMC-12's. What do you think about that for time travel?

We have located a few collectable models of this very cool time machine to add to your collections.