Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:52 pm Posts: 1727 Location: Earth Gender: Male
Was he the guy caught on that tape that Larry Flint got ahold of in that big coke deal?
[Dead at 88 would have been the better time to go]
_________________ "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." -Noam Chomsky
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:17 pm Posts: 13551 Location: is a jerk in wyoming Gender: Female
John DeLorean, sports car developer, dies at 80
Maverick automaker was innovator who courted controversy
John DeLorean answers reporters' questions at a news conference in New York in this February 1982 file photo. DeLorean, an innovative automaker who left a promising career in Detroit to develop the gull-winged sports cars bearing his name, has died.
The Associated Press
Updated: 2:07 p.m. ET March 20, 2005NEWARK, N.J. - John Z. DeLorean, the innovative automaker who left a promising career in Detroit to develop the stainless steel-skinned, gull-winged sports car bearing his name and was acquitted of charges he planned to sell $24 million worth of cocaine to support the venture, has died at the age of 80.
DeLorean died Saturday at Overlook Hospital in Summit, N.J., of complications from a recent stroke, said Paul Connell, an owner of A.J. Desmond & Sons Funeral Directors in Royal Oak, Mich., which was handling arrangements.
DeLorean, whose namesake car was turned into a time machine in the “Back to the Future” movies, was among just a handful of U.S. entrepreneurs who dared start a car company in the last 75 years.
DeLorean broke the mold of staid Midwestern auto executives by pushing General Motors Corp. to offer smaller models, auto historians said.
While at GM, he created what some consider the first “muscle car” in 1964 by cramming a V-8 engine into a Pontiac Tempest and calling it the GTO.
Although he was a rising if unconventional executive at GM, and was believed by many to be destined for its presidency, he quit in 1973 to launch the DeLorean Motor Car Co. in Northern Ireland.
Cult following emerges
Eight years later, the DeLorean DMC-12 hit the streets with its unpainted stainless steel skin and gull-wing doors. Its angular design earned it a cult following, and the car was a time-traveling vehicle for Michael J. Fox in the “Back to the Future” films of the late 1980s.
However, the factory produced only about 8,900 cars in three years, estimated John Truscott, membership director of the DeLorean Owners Association.
DeLorean’s company collapsed in 1983, a year after he was arrested in Los Angeles, accused in a sting of conspiring to sell $24 million of cocaine to salvage the company.
DeLorean used an entrapment defense to win acquittal on the drug charges in 1984, despite a videotape in which he called a suitcase full of cocaine “good as gold.”
He was later cleared of defrauding his investors, but continuing legal entanglements kept him on the sidelines of the automotive world, although his passion for cars did not abate. After declaring bankruptcy in 1999, he said he wanted to produce a speedy plastic sports car selling for only $20,000.
A public viewing was tentatively set for Wednesday at the funeral home, located north of Detroit, with a private burial scheduled for Thursday at White Chapel Cemetery in the Detroit suburb of Troy
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Anyone want to go back in time and try to save him?
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that made my day
