We are undoubtedly living in a world where nostalgia is (somewhat ironically) very current right now, from films like It Follows to acclaimed Netflix series like Stranger Things, both with their retro analogue synth soundtracks and warm-filtered cinematography – and the kind of bikes you craved for each Christmas as a kid.
Even my new Fujifilm camera is a digital version of a retro sixties camera a la David Bailey. So when did all this start? It’s hard to pin it down, but I distinctly remember certain Nissan vehicles appearing with just a little more chrome on them than before, around 2007-8; something I noticed particularly as I was at the time re-doing the chrome body trim on my Beetle – it was all unnervingly similar. So the news that the owner of DeLorean is to relaunch the DMC-12 is generating some excitement across many walks of life.
The gullwing door wielding DMC-12 is in fact the only model the company ever produced and was manufactured for the American market by the DeLorean Motor Company for only a very short time from 1981-83. The company had a pretty up and down public profile and burned out much faster than the sports car’s legacy, which continues to this day.
Originally, DeLorean Motor Company managed to persuade Sammy Davis Jr and TV presenter Johnny Carson to invest and get the ball rolling, yet just a few years later the company was in disarray following John DeLorean’s arrest on drug trafficking charges. By late 1982, the company was bankrupt.
Since 1995, the company name has been owned by Texas based Stephen Wynne and a relaxation in the rules for low volume manufacturing have brought the slumbering DeLorean Motor Company back to life with the intriguing announcement that an initial run of four replica DMC-12 sports cars per month will be produced at a cost of $100,000 each. Wynne is has commented: “It’s fantastic, we’ve been waiting for this to happen.
Equally intriguing is the adjustment of the rules which has made this possible – aside from having to meet present day emission laws, USA companies are now legally able to produce a run of up to 325 replica vehicles per annum without having to meet the latest safety standard requirements. This applies to vehicles produced 25 years or more years ago. These rules are very similar to the way your classic car is able to run the gauntlet of the modern MoT and still come out the other side with a valid certificate.
Production should begin in the spring of 2017 with a design much lighter than the original, made possible through the use of a fibreglass body – and it will still feature those trademark gullwing doors. The emission laws will rule out the use of an original style V6 2.8 litre Peugeot/Renault/Volvo engine of course – but that doesn’t mean you can get your hopes up for the new DeLorean obtaining it’s power from a plutonium nuclear reactor…
Of course, it is very unlikely that so many people would even know of the DeLorean’s existence were it not for the hugely successful Back to the Future film trilogy, which actually featured six (of the 9,000 built) DeLoreans, plus a fibreglass model for the flying scenes.
So what of those six Back to the Future cars? Well only three have survived and Universal Studios owns two of them (which the company occasionally wheel out for the public), while a third has been fully restored by a private collector. From April this year, you can see what is billed as the ‘official’ Back to the Future DeLorean at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
So just why is it that we get so nostalgic over cars, music, TV and films? I’ll leave the final word to Social Scientist, Clay Routledge: “When you’re nostalgic about something, there’s a little bit of a sense of loss – the moment has happened, it’s gone – but usually the net result is happiness…” And that result is a feeling of joy, positivity and meaningfulness in life.
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