Dynaverse.net
Off Topic => Engineering => Topic started by: Nemesis on July 29, 2007, 08:20:26 pm
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Link to full article (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-garage28jul28,0,7786124.story?coll=la-home-center)
The last DeLorean rolled off the assembly line in Northern Ireland in 1982. But like Duran Duran, the Rubik's Cube and other Reagan-era icons, the car retains a following.
Of the 9,000 built in 1981 and 1982, about 6,500 are still on the road, according to James Espey, vice president of DeLorean Motor. Enthusiasts gather at clubs from Cleveland to Norway. An event next week at Universal Studios Hollywood theme park is expected to attract more than a hundred DeLoreans.
2/3s of them are still operational 25 years later? I think I'm impressed.
Espey's company acquired the parts and engines that were left over after DeLorean's company went belly up; it also owns the trademarks and many of the engineering drawings.
Espey's 20-person operation handles a dozen or so rebuilds a year and has an eight-month waiting list. (Buying and restoring a used DeLorean will cost you about $25,000; they'll strip one to the frame and completely rebuild it for a base price of $42,500.)
At DeLorean Motor Co. (California) in Garden Grove, there are 15 cars in for service or refurbishing at any given time, Botkin says.
With 200 of the original 2.8-liter V-6 engines still in stock and facing a dwindling supply of cars suitable for rebuilding, Espey figures that within a year or so they'll start making the cars from scratch.
Their manufacturing plans are modest — maybe 20 or so cars a year. But it would be quite a comeback for a car that was given up for dead more than a quarter of a century ago.
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and here i had hoped that by the time Delorean came back in style we'd have Mr. Fusions available to power them.
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I saw one at a dealership in downtown San Diego this weekend. They wanted 6 grand for it. Only had 12,000 miles on it.
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My town used to have the North American distribution center for DeLorean. You used to see about a hundred or so in the lot while driving on I-287.