The father of the GTO has died at age 80.

John DeLorean.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationw...an_lat,0,1302980.story?coll=la-home-headlines

 

Hats off to dear John. I will give him a minute of silence, or something like that. Why couldn't it have been Ralph Nader.

A sad day in automotive history.

 

Not much room in today's sterile motor industry for those who throw away the rule book .... another throwback to the good old days when an enthusiast's instinct put a car on the road.

www.fluidimages.co.uk

 

He started the factory Hot Rod revolution. We will fondly remember those magical years of '60s and '70s muscle forever.

RIP John.

 

Delorean Specs:

Type: Light-alloy 90deg V6 with two overhead camshafts
Displacement: 2.85 Liters
Bore & Stroke: 91x73mm
Block type: Light alloy with cast-iron cylinder liners
Cylinder heads: Light alloy cross flow with hemi-chambers
Cooling system: Water/Ethylene Glycol
Fuel System: Bosch K-Jetronic C.I.S. Fuel Injection
Ignition System: Bosch Electronic Breakerless
Emission Control: Lambda Sond/catalytic. Unleaded fuel

Max Horse power: 130 @ 5500 rpm
Max Torque: 153 ft LB @ 2750 rpm

0-60 in 8.5 Sec 1/4 in 17.6
, for a guy who crammed a V8 in a TEMPEST and gave us the first muscle car. i wonder what he was doing with this car , my buddy has 2 of them, i like the fights he had with GM management ,better stories than his government drug problem or what the hell really happenend ,any one that can get a factory dream of theirs put together is doing something instead of sitting on their ***

 

he was a good man, a crook yes, a drug kingpin maaaaaybe, but a good man never the less.

 

Thank's for the thrills Mr. DeLorean. The world needs more people who can think clearly, and cut through the extraneous ****.
Thanks for hearing what we were only dreaming of.

(I owned a 64 GTO Hardtop with a 4spd and a 421 from a Catalina. I've got a couple crummy pictures of it somewhere)

 

I've owned four GTO's over the years. RIP John.

Spike

 

Heres my old Goat the day I brought her home from Texas......

 

I read that obituary. 80 years isn't too bad. I forgot about his cosmetic surgery. That's sort of a sad way to end up after such a promising start. Some bad choices were made.
He did admit he was the most arrogant person in the world. He obviously never met **** Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld.

 

from the ***le i thought it was Jim Wangers who had p***ed on. but i'll give a moment of silence to DeLorean. i grew up on the GTO, my parents have owned several and it's such an awesome car.

here's an old ****py picture of my dad's low 9-sec. '65.

 

The 'father' of the GTO died some years ago son, his name was Enzo Ferrari. John D was another Detroit rip-off executive who got lucky once. But hey, why let the facts get in the way of a story.

 

That's too bad. I always thought of John DeLorean like Preston Tucker, another free thinker that the big 3 had to put the screws to and get rid of before people started thinking and doing things different.

I bet if John had teamed up with GM, Ford, or Chrysler with the DeLorean in the early 80's it would have been called the car of the future and taken off...not unlike Tucker.

 

Another American rebel that went too far and paid the price. Too bad, if his energy had been directed in a more conventional direction no telling how it would have turned out. I know it would have been considered "selling out' by many here but it's a matter of making your mark in a positive manner, using the system to your advantage and getting the results your after, or being a martyr and missing the mark.


Frank

 

oh yeah
the name gto was never copywritten by ferrari, any way enzo thought so much of his cars that he almost sold them to ford but backed out, and thus the FORD GT 40 was
born , just to kick their ***es

 

I had a 66 GTO ,,,,had a big back set,,,,,,,,,,ahhhh,the fun times at the Skyway drive-in movies,,,,,,,and I got to help repave main st. with all the fines for speeding ,,,,,Goodbye,John,,,,thanks for the good times I had in the GOAT! HRP

 

One of the icons has p***ed, Rest in piece John.

 

"rip-off executive" you're funny.

I guess whatever you may do for a living must measure large when compared to hashing out a design with a hundred person team composed of engineers, designers, material scientists and ergonmic spe******ts over 3 or 4 years (avg 7000 hours for a new concept).
Since you brought up the name "GTO"... big ****ing deal a name was borrowed from the Grand Tourismo highbrow ***s across the pond. Yea I bet we confused their brand iden***y with our GTO. Lets leave the term rip-off exec for the person who brought back the "Lemans" name in the late 80's.

I live less than a mile from David North the "other" GM designer in the mix at that time. I've seen some original sketches and clay models in his studio and tend believe the horses mouth regarding the GTO name and other stories. The short version was akin to DeLorean raising the middle finger to the chest pounding italian designers (Battista “Pinin” Farina), the better story was how DeLorean and North managed to keep their jobs afterwards. The great designers and their teams got traded around GM like baseball cards and David North is responsible for most of the Riviera's, the '68/69/70 Eldorado's and a bunch of cool stuff for Olds and I guess we know what became of DeLorean.

swdobbs.....

 

In 1967 I was looking for something a little "cooler" than my '61 Impala droptop...a used car dealer on Fond du Lac Ave. in Milwaukee had two cars on special one summer evening ...a '53 Vette with a plexigl*** "bubble" top (rare) and a burgundy '64 GTO with a tri-power 389 and a 4 speed...I bought the "Goat" and never looked back...Thanks John for the memories...

 

John was a very good and kind man. My father has owned two deloreans over the years, and subsequently is in a delorean club. In 2000 they had a national meet in Cleveland. John was gracious enough to be a keynote speaker. I was able to get his autograph on our glovebox and owners manual. He was a gentleman, but when you heard him speak about the things that happened to him, you knew he had a spitfire wildside. His daughter Catherine was there too. They were trying to raise money at the time to build another Delorean made of carbon fiber. The designs were killer. They sold DMC wathces as a fundraiser for 1000 a piece, which were also meant to garuntee you first offer to purchase the car. Obviously nothing came about of them. As a person who has taken a couple apart, I can tell you they are well- built cars, except for some electrical problems here and there. Funny thing is that someone asked him if he had a Delorean at that meet, and he said he didn't.

 

Two of the five I owned, had a lota fun with GTOs, I kinda miss them sometimes.
John DeLorean was a true ruler.

 

Were talking about the father of the Pontiac G.T.O NOT the father of the **** extention

 

I second that they are well built

Its too bad that the car got such a bad rep about electrical problems. Ive never once had an electrical problem, and no owner that Ive talked to has mentioned having any either.

I wish John would have lasted longer, but I guess 80 years is pretty good

 

Thanks for all the good times John.

The man made the world a more enjoyable place. I pity the people who never owned a GTO. America needs another John DeLorean.

 

If you deal drugs, and live to be 80, you would have to consider yourself lucky!

 

Sorry to hear that .I live not far from the old factory in belfast thats just one more **** up belfast is famous for
.. When the factory closed down there were loads of local cars running around with DeLorean radios and seats and whatever else could be had !! I even have a set of seats in my old camper van!!..
My cousin was doin some brake work on a DeLorean and the front brakes are ford cortina . So he hits on a idea ,buys a load of cortina brakes sells them on e bay as ex stock from the factory.!!

 

Agreed. Delorean was a thief and a crook. You're all judging him by one event (the GTO) in his life instead of the whole picture.
And comparing him to Preston Tucker is apt. Tucker was an egomaniacal snake oil salesman whose "free thinking" caused not only his own downfall, but precipitated that of others, Harry A. Miller included. Don't believe everything Hollywood tells you.

Sure, John Z, rest in peace, but beyond that, let's not bronze the garbage.

 

Cris,
One event! Maybe in your world they put no talent ****s in charge of brand identifying concepts. DeLorean contributed to at least 14 GM pony car platform designs. It takes years of proven studio work before GM will let you even step and fetch on a any design. As for the crook part, greed has its price.

swdobbs...

 

I grew up with a lot of Goats and enjoyed the hell out of them. I can't wait to get one of my own.

Henry Ford was an anti-semite, you wanna dwell on that too. I celebrate the men for their engineering accomplishments and products.

I enjoy their products, and however they lived their lives has no bearing on that.

 

I didn't know this: "His patents included the recessed windshield wiper and the overhead cam engine."

NEWARK, N.J. -- John Z. DeLorean was one of Detroit's best-known -- and most controversial -- automotive innovators. He designed Pontiac's GTO muscle car in the 1960s, then left Detroit to launch his own car company, one of just a handful of U.S. entrepreneurs to undertake such a challenge in the past 75 years.
The radically futuristic, gull-winged car he produced, the DeLorean, gained worldwide recognition as the time machine in the "Back to the Future" films.

But John DeLorean saw his car venture crash spectacularly when he was accused and later acquitted of cocaine trafficking and money laundering and of defrauding investors.

DeLorean died late Saturday at Overlook Hospital in Summit, N.J., at age 80. He had suffered a stroke late Thursday at his home in Bedminster, N.J., his family said.

"John DeLorean was one of Detroit's larger-than-life figures who secured a noteworthy place in our industry's history," GM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said in a statement Sunday. "He made a name for himself through his talent, creativity, innovation and daring. At GM, he will always be remembered as the father of the Pontiac GTO, which really started the muscle-car craze of the '60s."

Interviewed Thursday morning by Bloomberg News, DeLorean said he had ideas on how financially strapped GM could right itself. But "they have to pay me" to find out, he joked.

DeLorean was the first of four sons of a Ford Motor Co. foundry worker. After his parents divorced, he grew up in Detroit and Los Angeles. He played saxophone and won a music scholarship to the Lawrence Ins***ute of Technology in Detroit. But he shifted to engineering, and later earned advanced degrees in engineering and business.

He was hired as an engineer by Chrysler in 1952, though he left less than a year later to work for Packard Motor Co. When Packard was acquired by Studebaker Corp. in 1956, DeLorean took a job with the advanced engineering group at Pontiac. His patents included the recessed windshield wiper and the overhead cam engine.

By age 40, DeLorean led Pontiac, and four years later became the youngest head of GM's giant Chevrolet division. He was credited with creating what some consider the first muscle car in 1964 by cramming a V8 engine into a Pontiac Tempest and calling it the GTO, dubbed the "Goat" by enthusiasts.

Many thought DeLorean was destined to become GM's president. He was vice president in charge of North American car and truck operations when he quit in 1973 to launch the DeLorean Motor Car Co. near Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Eight years later, the DeLorean DMC-12 hit the streets. But the factory produced only about 8,900 cars in three years. The company collapsed in 1983, a year after he was charged with conspiring to sell $24 million of cocaine and money laundering to salvage his car venture.

DeLorean claimed entrapment and won acquittal on the charges in 1984, despite a videotape in which he called a suitcase full of cocaine "good as gold."

Through the 1980s and into the 1990s, he battled tax, fraud, racketeering and bankruptcy charges and avoided extradition to Great Britain and Switzerland to face charges of defrauding investors in his car plant. The British government lost the equivalent of $94 million from its heavy subsidies in the plant.

He was later cleared of defrauding investors, but continuing legal battles kept him on the sidelines of the automotive world, although his p***ion for cars did not abate.

After declaring bankruptcy in 1999, he said he wanted to produce a speedy plastic sports car selling for only $20,000. His fourth wife, Sally, said in a brief interview Sunday that he had designed a new sports car and still hoped to start another auto company.

Mayer Morganroth, a Southfield-based attorney who represented DeLorean from 1982 until 1993, said his former client was "probably one of the finest auto engineers in the world at the time."

Morganroth later sued DeLorean for failing to pay lawyer's fees.

"I think he was one of the great tragedies," Morganroth said. "An exceedingly bright, talented man. John was also the ultimate deceiver."

In addition to his wife, DeLorean is survived by a son, Zachary Tavio DeLorean; two daughters, Kathryn Ann DeLorean and Sheila Baldwin DeLorean; three brothers, and two grandchildren.

A public viewing will be from 2 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at A.J. Desmond & Sons Funeral Home in Royal Oak. A private burial will be Thursday at White Chapel Cemetery in Troy.