Defending DeLoreans

I feel I owe it to the DeLorean fraternity to refute some of the claims in the interview with Mike Loasby in Octane 209.

Mike’s full title was Director, Product Engineering and Quality, responsible for correcting many of the shortcomings he highlighted. I was the Financial Controller and then Finance Director between September 1979 and August 1982. I worked with the receivers several months after they dispensed with the services of Mike Loasby and scores of others in the first round of cost-cutting.

During my tenure, I saw the factory built and equipped, and I authorised payment of invoices from Italian, British and Swedish turn-key suppliers who laid out the production lines. Even the design of the test track received significant input from MIRA, the Motor Industry Research Association, as the size of their invoices indicated.

It is sad that Mike sees fit to describe the car’s power output as ‘pathetic’, conveniently ignoring the fact that US speed limits then were 50mph and the DeLorean was one of few British cars that met the stringent Californian emission standards.

His criticism of the car’s engineering is also unfair to Colin Chapman’s Lotus team, who did an amazing job and completed their task in record time. No-one claims the car was perfect. Post-production improvements were part of the plan, which had to centre around unreasonable cashflow constraints as well as engineering challenges.

A testament to the product concept and its prescient eco-credentials is the fact that 6500 of the 9080 DeLoreans produced are still operational around the world, drawing crowds of admirers wherever they appear. David Adams, Warwickshire