8.09.2007
DeLorean, it's back to the future!
According to the LA Times :The iconic gull-winged sports car is once again hot, and there are plans afoot to place it back in production.
Danny Botkin's love affair with the DeLorean got off to an unpromising start.
It was the early '80s and a teen-age Botkin was tagging along while his father shopped for a new car. A Ford dealer had a rear-engined, gull-winged DeLorean on display, and the flash of stainless steel automotive skin caught Danny's eye.
"I was smitten," Botkin, now 40, recalls. "I said, 'Hey Dad, let's get this.'
"He got a Bronco instead."
Botkin had to grow up and buy his dream car himself. He drives a restored DeLorean modeled after the one that served as a time machine in the 1980s blockbuster "Back to the Future."
He also manages a repair and refurbishing shop in Garden Grove that's affiliated with DeLorean Motor Co. (Texas), a suburban Houston company that rebuilds DeLoreans and is laying plans to bring the car back into limited production.
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.
Source
Labels: Cars
