John DeLorean was the legendary American automobile executive whose
non-conformity and taste for the limelight derailed his likely
ascension to the presidency of General Motors, which seemed predestined
after his meteoric rise up through the ranks for the world's biggest
car manufacturer. DeLorean, in sync with his times, had a distaste for
the "Establishment" as embodied in the G.M. bureaucracy, which he found
stifling. By leaving GM to establish his own car company, DeLorean set
in motion a turn of the wheel of fate that would revolve him from the
top of the industry to the bottom in less than a decade.
John Zachary DeLorean was born on January 6, 1925 in Detroit, Michigan,
the oldest of the four sons of Zachary DeLorean, a Romanian immigrant
who worked as a millwright at Ford Motor Co., and his wife Kathryn
Pribak, a Hungarian immigrant who worked at General Electric. DeLorean
grew up in a tough, working class neighborhood, though because both
parents were employed during the Great Depression, his life wasn't as
harsh as that experienced by many of his peers. His parents divorced in
1942 due to his father's alcoholism and propensity for violence.
Young John won a scholarship to Lawrence Institute of Technology, which
had produced many automobile designers for the auto industry. However,
World War II intervened: Drafted in 1943, DeLorean spent three years in
the Army. He went back to school after the war and earned a B.S in
mechanical engineering while working part-time for Chrysler. After a
short stint as a life insurance salesman after graduation, he returned
to Chrysler. (To many of his critics, DeLorean would remain a salesman
whose main product he pitched was himself.) From Chrysler, he moved on
to Packard, but the imminent failure of the once-prestigious car maker
lead him to accept a job offer at G.M., where he made his fortune.
Credited with creating the first "muscle car", the Pontiac G.T.O.,
DeLorean at 40 became the youngest divisional head in G.M. history when
he was appointed president of the division in 1965. Eventually, he was
moved to head the troubled Chevrolet Div., the biggest and most
important component of G.M. He successfully reorganized Chevrolet,
which was in a slump, and was rewarded by being named vice president of
car and truck production, a stepping stone to the presidency of the
entire company. However, DeLorean's non-conformist lifestyle, his taste
for the limelight, and his relentless self-promotion didn't sit well
with all of G.M.'s top brass. He could have remained at the company and
likely would have achieved the presidency, but he found the company
stifling. In 1973, DeLoran quit G.M. with the idea of forming his own
car company. However, at first, he accepted the presidency of the
National Alliance of Businessmen, a trade group organized by the
federal government and the auto industry, including G.M., thus
maintaining his links to the industry. (In 1979, when he was on the
verge of launching De Lorean Motor Co., he published an expose of his
time at the company, "On a Clear Day, You Can See General Motors". The
book would eventually sell over a million-and-a-half copies.)
The year following his departure from G.M., DeLorean married his third
wife, fashion model, cover girl and actress
Cristina Ferrare, who was 25 years his
junior. A media celebrity since the 1960s, DeLorean had long been
moving in show business circles, and met Ferrare at a charity event.
Ferrare's sole leading role in motion pictures would prove to be the
B-horror movie
"Mary, Bloody Mary (1975),
a cheapen shot in Mexico featuring his beautiful, young wife as a
bisexual vampire. (The movie flopped despite the erotic nude scenes
featuring the new Mrs. DeLorean).
DeLorean's dream of creating his own company finally became a reality
when the British Labour Government of
James Callaghan came up with
nearly 100 million pounds in financing to build a factory in Northern
Ireland to produce a DeLorean-designed futuristic sports-car, which
would be known as "The De Lorean". (The car, with its 304 grade
stainless steel body and gull-wing doors hearkening back to the 1960
Mercedes coupe, later would be immortalized in the
Zurück in die Zukunft (1985)
movie trilogy). As his wife Cristina's career as a TV personality rose,
DeLorean's business fortunes crashed. The car company that bore his
name went bankrupt. In 1982, a desperate John DeLorean was trapped in a
sting operated by the F.B.I. and charged with trafficking in cocaine,
to raise money to refinance his car company.
After his arrest, both DeLorean and Ferrare became born-again
Christians. Ferrare stood by her husband during the two year legal
ordeal that followed, and DeLorean eventually was acquitted in August
1984, successfully using a defense of entrapment. However, his wife had
realized her marriage had been, in her own words, "shallow" and
"make-believe", and she had known their marriage was over long before
it was officially ended. After DeLorean's acquittal, Ferrare sought a
divorce, which was granted in 1985. Ferrare, that same year, married
entertainment industry executive
Tony Thomopoulos, whom she has been
married to for 22 years and has been the stepfather to her two children
by DeLorean. .
John DeLorean never recovered professional from the failure of his car
company. His public image went from that of renegade and maverick, an
automotive Ted Turner, someone who bucked the System, to pathetic
loser. If nothing succeeds in America like success, nothing dehumanizes
an American "hero" of the moment like failure. DeLorean was plagued for
years by investors' lawsuits linked to the collapse of De Lorean Motor
Co., and in 1999, he was forced to declare bankruptcy. By the time of
his death of a stroke in 2005, at the age of 80, he was largely a
forgotten man, remembered mostly as a victim of his own hubris.
F. Scott Fitzgerald had said there
are no second acts in America, and John DeLorean proved to be the
living proof of the wisdom of those words.
