Rare Rides: The 1983 DeLorean DMC-12 - a Gold-plated Opportunity?
The DeLorean DMC-12 is forever linked to the classic film Back to the Future, where the stainless steel wonder was converted into a conveyance for the purposes of time travel. But the silver screen was not the only place the DMC-12 underwent a transformation. A certain credit card company had a PR stunt in mind that saw the DeLorean plated with 24-carat gold.
Our Rare Ride today is what happens when a private owner attempts the same thing.
Stepping back for a moment, a quick overview is necessary. The DeLorean DMC-12 was the brainchild of former General Motors executive John Z. Delorean. The DMC-12 was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro himself, and built at a factory in Northern Ireland by people who used to be farmers. Featuring a stainless steel body and two gullwing-style doors, the futuristic looking coupe hid its engine (a Peugeot-Renault-Volvo V6) in the back.
Build quality, money troubles, production delays, personnel strikes, mechanical woes, you name it — all of these issues beleaguered the DMC-12 throughout its introduction and short life. On sale in 1981, the DeLorean carried a price tag of $25,000 when equipped with a manual, which is around $66,000 in today’s money.
The aforementioned issues meant DeLorean produced only 8,583 examples between 1981 and 1983. John DeLorean was also having a few legal issues of his own in the latter part of 1982, adding to existing problems and spelling an (initial) end for the company.
Before all those issues surfaced, buzz around the introduction of the DMC-12 was substantial. American Express planned a promotion for Christmas of 1980. Exclusively offered to Amex Gold Card customers, the company commissioned gold-plated DMC-12s. With intention to sell 100 examples priced at $85,000 (over three times the standard price), American Express managed to shift only two.
One factory gold example is in the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. The other is in the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada.
One final gold-plated DMC-12 was compiled from leftover golden parts in 1983. Completed in Ohio, it was later raffled off at a Big Lots store. Consolidated International, owner of the discount retail chain, purchased over 1,300 DMC-12 examples when DeLorean entered bankruptcy in 1983. They couldn’t resist a bargain! Here’s where our Rare Ride enters the picture.
What we have here seems to be a privately created gold-plated DMC-12. While the two official cars had saddle brown interiors (never installed in any other examples), this one has the standard black.
Other noticeable details missing from factory gold examples include gold color-matched front and rear bumpers, gold DMC badge in the front, and gold tone on the multi-spoke alloys.
Never titled, this DeLorean has just 156 miles on the clock. The eBay sale listed the car at $150,000, and indicated the last time it sold (in 1990) it fetched $100,000. Since that time, the car has been in the private collection of someone who must certainly love gold.
The listing ended with no sale, so wait eagerly for its return to the classified ads soon.
[Images: eBay]
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
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A used car lot in my area - Central Iowa (Ames specifically) - had a DMC-12 for sale after the first BTTF movie became popular. It sat on the lot for a month or so before it disappeared. Don't know if it sold or was whisked away to a storage facility. Always liked the look of this car. In the extra features of the anniversary edition of BTTF, Michael J. Fox mentions the car was a pain to drive and somewhat unreliable. Thanks for the article, Corey!
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