Brakes on Delorean’s ‘son’ selling Back to the Future-style Reliants
AN INVENTOR claiming to be the lovechild of John Delorean, who created the car popularised by the Back to the Future film franchise, has been banned from continuing his own car business by a judge.
Tyler Delorean, who changed his name from Benjamin Granger by deed poll, was ordered by the High Court in London to stop selling his own version of Delorean cars, the DMC21, which is constructed from the front of a three- wheeled Reliant and the back of a pickup truck, with gull-wing doors.
The DMC21 is advertised as coming with a “free hoverboard” in reference to a gadget from the films in which a Delorean featured as a time machine.
The court ordered Mr Delorean to remove all references to the Delorean brand from his cars, which he sold on his website for £20,000.
He claimed that the cars were a “parody or pastiche” and that he should be allowed to continue selling them as a form of satire.
Mr Delorean says he is the son of John Delorean, who set up a manufacturing plant near Belfast in 1980 and produced the DMC-12 car.
John Delorean went bust two years later, and intellectual property rights over the design of the cars were purchased by the Delorean Motor Company (DMC) in Texas in 1987.
DMC launched a lawsuit against Tyler Delorean, which reached the High Court last week, after Mr Delorean showcased his cars at the British Motor Show and Classic Car Parade last year. The inventor claimed that the cars’ displayed price of £20,000 or $25,000 was intended to be “humorous” and argued Delorean had become a “generic” term linked with time travel.
Judge Hacon, finding in favour of the American company, said that “parody isn’t a defence” for a trademark infringement, adding “the defendant’s use of the word Delorean is identical to the claimant’s marks”, and the logo is “similar, such as to cause confusion”.
Mr Delorean, who claimed that he had signed a contract with the streaming giant Netflix for a project about his invention, was told that he could keep his cars as long as he removed their trademarks, and was ordered to pay DMC’S £20,633 legal costs.
The judge warned him that if he did not remove the trademarks he could face prison. Mr Delorean said that the decision left him facing bankruptcy, and he added: “I think I might be better off not doing it.”
He has been ordered to comply with the judge’s decision immediately.