#BackToTheFuture

John DeLorean created an automotive cultural force with the shockingly futuristic stainless steel car that wore his last name. The company’s tenure was short, spanning just three years in the early 1980s, but its legacy has lived on, thanks mostly to the significant role it played in the massively popular Back to the Future movies. Though DeLorean has been out of business for 40 years, the brand is getting a rebirth, and its return will include a brand-new car.

I was channel-surfing the other night and came across the final Back to the Future movie. Now, like any child of the '80s, I like DeLoreans -- though I prefer the original to the time-machine converted since they look cleaner -- but I really, really love the Toyota pickup Marty dreams about. The same one he gets after he returns from the Old Wet.

For the “Back To The Future” fan keen on winning the parking lot at the next confab, DeLorean announced this week that it’ll make “new” cars again in Texas.

Thanks to a change in the small volume manufacturing law, DeLorean Motor Company said it could build around 300 new cars from parts it purchased when the original DeLorean went under.

The Texas outfit said they’ll bin the puny Renault-Volvo V-6 that made 130 horsepower in favor of a crate engine sourced from somewhere that’ll make 300 to 400 horsepower. Electronics, brakes and other drivetrain goodies will be similarly updated on the car, according to Jalopnik.

Capitalism is just fine with me, but I have to say I was put off just a little by the glut of corporate cross-marketing tie-ins yesterday to Oct. 21, 2015, the date in the future to which Doc Brown and Marty McFly travel in the second Back To The Future movie.

Not that I have anything against the BTTF franchise: the trilogy is clever, charming and obviously inspires passionate fandom. Christopher Lloyd is crazy gifted in a Jonathan Winters manner and I have no objection to him making a few bucks appearing in ads with Michael J. Fox. Fox has a family to support, too.

I’m not naive and many of yesterday’s marketing efforts, from Nike’s self lacing shoes, to USA Today’s headline about Marty’s arrest only reflect product placement deals in the original films.

Toyota unleashed Wednesday its version of Marty McFly’s dream truck based on a 2016 Toyota Tacoma for one day only. The truck added a special paint scheme and … wait, one day only?

The trucks went on display Oct. 21 in Los Angeles, New York and Dallas before presumably bursting into flames.

At least Toyota detailed how it built the 1985-esque truck for the one day we’ll ever get to see the truck.

The Internet flooded with terrible references to “Back to the Future” on Wednesday ( guilty), but the only one that really matters has no corporate tie-in, no thin threads to questionable technologies — hell, it doesn’t even have Michael J. Fox.

The best one of the day may very well be a re-enactment of some parts of the movies with Eastern European crapboxes.

The Polish remake, dubbed “Wreck to the Future” is all you need to scratch the itch you didn’t know you had. Let’s dissect.

I think we can all take a moment to appreciate the fine, fine work that Stanford researchers have put into making a 1981 Delorean do its own donuts in a parking lot on “Back to the Future” day Wednesday. Bravo.

But the car, dubbed MARTY (Multiple Actuator Research Test bed for Yaw control), is more than just epic clickbait for a made-up, 1980s-movie holiday. The car is display for autonomous vehicle control that can go beyond a car’s “safety limits” to exploit physics.

Or, you know, the way you disable stability control to do the same donuts in a nearby parking lot.