The DeLorean returns (shortly) featuring an electric vehicle and some caveats.

 

The 1985 film Back To The Future made the D.M.C.D.M.C. DeLorean a time machine and an iconic name.

After more than four decades and numerous corporate versions, the latest automaker to carry the DeLorean name is nearer to the launch of its much-anticipated electric vehicle.

The DeLorean Motor Company revealed new pictures and information about its automobile Alpha5, the Alpha5 early-access subscribers, on Monday, and the website was made public the following day.

The concept car, which was teased for the first time in February, is expected to be unveiled at the world-renowned California automobile event Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in the middle of August, with production scheduled to start in 2024.

"The Alpha5 is a representation of the past 40 years of DeLorean," Chief Marketing Officer Troy Beetz said in a statement. "There was this enormous responsibility to ensure we honored the history of the DeLorean brand, but an even greater responsibility in curating its future ... I think we did both with the Alpha5."

It's not from the company behind the car they originally manufactured.

Despite its name, however, it's not the same DeLorean Motor Company behind the Alpha5 isn't the same company that brought the world with the D.M.C.D.M.C. DeLorean in 1981. It produced just 10,000 cars in the Northern Ireland factory and went into bankruptcy in 1982 before Back To The Future was released in cinemas.

It was the subject of several major legal and financial problems, culminating in John DeLorean, the founder of the company, being involved in an F.B.I.F.B.I. investigation that resulted in his arrest under the guise of conspiring to distribute and obtain 555 pounds of cocaine. He was cleared from all allegations in 1984. However, the trial was later held for fraud and was ordered to pay millions of dollars to attorneys and creditors in the years following.

At the same time, an engineer from Liverpool named Stephen Wynne had moved to the U.S.U.S. and opened a repair shop specializing in British and French automobiles. He started concentrating on DeLoreans in a time nobody else was interested in.

"Compared to what was around, it was an incredible-looking car," Wynne described for Popular Mechanics in 2019. "But ... there was no factory support, and I was going to have to figure everything out. It was part business, part ego."

In the mid-1990s, he purchased trademark rights and the inventory of DeLorean Motor Company, of which he was named the C.E.OC.E.O. The company's current headquarters are close to Houston in Humble, Texas, and it has additional offices in Florida, Illinois, and California.

The company has also hinted at other vehicles throughout the years. For instance, the company made plans for an electric car in 2011 and, in 2016, announced that it would replicate several hundred of the first DeLorean following the adoption of the federal transport law that allowed car makers to construct limited replicas.

Fast forward to 2022, when the company announced plans for a revamped electric DeLorean.

Joost de Vries, the chief executive officer at DeLorean Motor Company, told Texas Public Radio in March that the new cars would be constructed in an unbuilt building in San Antonio, with the company aiming to hire up to 450 employees in the next few years (though he also told the British trade magazine Autocar that the vehicle will be constructed in Italy).

The Alpha5 is being promoted as a comeback. The founder said that the brand has never truly left.

"DeLorean lived on in online games like Forza and Need for Speed and Asphalt, Playmobile, Hot Wheels," the actor stated. "The brand never left the market. A lot of the ideas that DeLorean worked with in the early 80s is something that we're developing further."

It's a nod to the future.

The automaker has shared some initial images and details regarding the Alpha5 before its unveiling in August.

According to Verge, the company joined forces with Italdesign, the Volkswagen-owned design company that helped create the first DeLorean design. The Verge.

This results in a vehicle resembling the previous model, sporting doors with gull wings and a louvered window in the rear. Some features are brand new, including four seats and two large screens, one in the front behind the wheel and one attached to the central console.

The specifications of the base model offer an extended range of more than 300 miles and a top rate of just 155 miles an hour.

The company claims the Alpha5 can go from 0 to sixty in less than 3 minutes. It can also reach speeds of 88 miles per hour - which is what it is required to get to travel in time, according to movie legend, and in 4.35 minutes.

The price is anticipated in the $175,000 to $175,000 range, as the entertainment and game website I.G.N.I.G.N. says. It's an enormous leap from 1981, the year MotorTrend claims you could buy the original DeLorean at around $25,000.

Don't be expecting to be able to DeLoreans in the streets as

De Vries told Texas Public Radio that the production of the vehicle's new model will be limited, but the car is expected to get "sold out within the whole production run within the year that we launch."

In a report by de Vries, Autocar reported this week that the car would be available in the limited edition of 88 in an apparent reference to the film. They will only be suitable for use on tracks and not for use on the roads.

The report added that this new batch would be constructed to allow road-worthy use.

The company is also planning to set its sights higher by de Vries declaring that the lineup will eventually grow to include the sports coupe, a sedan, and a S.U.V.S.U.V. of the highest quality.

However, first comes the issue of the funding: Autocar said that DeLorean was able to complete its initial seed round of financing and that the next game could be linked in with an I.P.OI.P.O.

"We will be a public company," de Vries declared. "We have to be. Building cars isn't cheap, and you need lots of money to make it happen."