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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,

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Speaker 1: there's Chuck Jerry's here, and this is stuff you should broom.

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Speaker 1: Stuff you should know. Everybody calmed out. Stuff you should

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Speaker 1: know about his specific car Carmaker a legend and uh

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Speaker 1: possibly a real jackass. Who did this for us? Was

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Speaker 1: this Olivia? Yeah? Olivia helps us with this one? Can

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Speaker 1: we read that? How she titled it? Sure? John Delorian

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Speaker 1: Colin celebrity weirdo Carmaker. She pretty much nailed it in

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Speaker 1: the title. It's true like he was a celebrity. It

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Speaker 1: was very weird, and he was a car maker as

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Speaker 1: a matter of fact, that's where he started to get

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Speaker 1: his celebrity was in car making. But she likens it

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Speaker 1: um and I think quite correctly, to the rise of

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Speaker 1: or he he prefigured the rise of the worshiped tech

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Speaker 1: god like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberger. These people who

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Speaker 1: have been held up um to these amazing standards and

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Speaker 1: like you just think they can do anything. They're doing

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Speaker 1: all this amazing stuff when it really turns out that

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Speaker 1: there you know, they just want to party with some starlets,

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Speaker 1: you know, and that's that's a lot what John Delorrian's

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Speaker 1: life was like. He was like, Okay, I got here,

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Speaker 1: and now I want to do everything that's fun and

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Speaker 1: has nothing to do with how I got here, and

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Speaker 1: that inevitably leads to the downfall or as I saw

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Speaker 1: it really aptly put in one of the articles, um,

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Speaker 1: he succumbed to that most American of maladies. He believed

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Speaker 1: in his own myth. You never want to do that, everybody.

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Speaker 1: Have you seen either one of the documentaries I haven't

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Speaker 1: yet know. Okay, there's two. There's one I watched couple

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Speaker 1: of years ago called Framing John de Lorean, which is

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Speaker 1: a sort of a weird mix of documentary and narrative film,

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Speaker 1: and that they do these very like high quality like

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Speaker 1: it's a movie recrease recreations for those of you not

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Speaker 1: in the viz, with Alec Baldwin as John de Lorian.

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Speaker 1: And then there was another one that there's a three

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Speaker 1: part on Netflix called Myth and Mogul John DeLorean. I

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Speaker 1: think it's I don't know why they split these up,

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Speaker 1: because it ends up being like two hours and fifteen

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Speaker 1: minutes long with the three parts put together. But they're

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Speaker 1: both really good and I watch both of them before

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Speaker 1: this was even an idea because I was a little

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Speaker 1: fascinated with a guy because I'm a child of the

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Speaker 1: eighties and I remember, as you probably do, on the

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Speaker 1: rare occasion when you would see a DeLorean or be

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Speaker 1: in a neighborhood where the kids like, there's a DeLorean

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Speaker 1: in our neighborhood, like and So's dad has one. Uh.

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Speaker 1: They were that rare, that cool, that different. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: I also lived in Bernardsville, New Jersey after college, which

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Speaker 1: was just about three or four miles from where John

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Speaker 1: Delian lived, and I remember when I moved there and

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Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, John de Lorian lives like right down

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Speaker 1: the road. Was that when he lived in as a

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Speaker 1: state or a condo? Yeah, that was when he lived

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Speaker 1: in Bedminster And we'll get to the history there and

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Speaker 1: whose hands that ended up in. But uh do Lorian

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Speaker 1: was just a person who really I was at the

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Speaker 1: right age I think when it all came crumbling down

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Speaker 1: and of course back to the future. Like, he was

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Speaker 1: just someone I was fascinated with and I loved watching

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Speaker 1: these ducks and I loved like doing this research. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, he isn't an astoundingly fascinating person. Yeah, I'm

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Speaker 1: saying I hold him up to some like great human

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Speaker 1: but just fascinated by him. Like you said, there there

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Speaker 1: are people out there who do who consider him a

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Speaker 1: visionary and he was image he was, sure, but he

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Speaker 1: was also like a straight up grifter and a con

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Speaker 1: man and a lot of really really important ways. He

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Speaker 1: was also what I would call a proto douche as

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Speaker 1: it will become a parent later on. Sure, but he

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Speaker 1: was all these things and more. He was also a

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Speaker 1: great self promoter. But what's amazing about it is if

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Speaker 1: you step back and look at his background and where

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Speaker 1: he came from and how he became famous, it was

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Speaker 1: through his own smarts. It was through his own uh

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Speaker 1: great education that his parents made sure he got. It

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Speaker 1: was he was an engineer. He was a car engineer,

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Speaker 1: and that's how he made his name by doing really good,

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Speaker 1: amazing work. And then eventually he kind of Peter principals

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Speaker 1: himself out of that work and into that's when he

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Speaker 1: started to get into trouble. Yeah. I think when I

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Speaker 1: was younger, when I was a teenager and knew that

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Speaker 1: sort of the lore, I thought that he was just

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Speaker 1: some rich guy who had this vanity project of a

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Speaker 1: car company. Um. I did not know until much much

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Speaker 1: later that he was a really great, sort of brilliant

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Speaker 1: engineer and like put so many great cars on the

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Speaker 1: map at GM as a as a young executive, and

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Speaker 1: I think I appreciated him a lot more. It's like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: this guy like he knew what he was doing. He uh,

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Speaker 1: he had certainly tons of faults, like you said, but

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Speaker 1: he wasn't. I just thought he was a rich guy

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Speaker 1: who's like, I want to a cool different car. No. No,

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Speaker 1: he definitely knew what he was talking about. And apparently

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Speaker 1: when he was coming up with the Delirian d m

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Speaker 1: C twelve, the Dolrian the only model he ever came

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Speaker 1: out with. Um, god, I hope that's correct, because they're

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Speaker 1: gonna get so many emails if it's not. But there

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Speaker 1: are a few versions of that one, okay, but they

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Speaker 1: were all d m C twelves, Right God, I think so, now, okay,

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Speaker 1: we're just gonna move forward. Chocolate's just soldier on right. Um.

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Speaker 1: He wanted that to be like a valuable car. It

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Speaker 1: was named the d m C twelve because he wanted

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Speaker 1: to to the starting price to be twelve thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: an affordable, you know, at the time, expensive but still

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Speaker 1: not out of the reach of somebody who wanted to

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Speaker 1: really get one of these. It wasn't just for the

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Speaker 1: rich and wealthy and famous. He wanted to be reliable.

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Speaker 1: The prototype had air bags, it had an onboard computer,

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Speaker 1: it had anti theft system. This is like in the

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Speaker 1: early eighties. This is long before anybody was doing stuff

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Speaker 1: like that, and so he really did want to make

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Speaker 1: a really good car. It just didn't quite work out

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Speaker 1: that way because he got into his own way. I

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Speaker 1: would say he had a emergency handbrake on the left

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Speaker 1: of the driver so some angry friend in the passenger

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Speaker 1: seat couldn't yank it up and kill you. Is that true. Well,

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Speaker 1: I don't know if that's why I did it, but

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Speaker 1: it makes sense put it on the left so no

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Speaker 1: one else can. That makes sense. I wonder if it's

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Speaker 1: because most people are right handed, or more people are

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Speaker 1: right handed. I don't know. I say we can start

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Speaker 1: back at the beginning, chuck, because we're getting in our

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Speaker 1: own way now, that's right. He was born John Zachary

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Speaker 1: do Lorian in Detroit, No surprise, in ninety Uh. He

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Speaker 1: was born to not a lot of money. Um. In

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Speaker 1: one of the documentaries they described his neighborhood is fairly

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Speaker 1: run down. His parents were immigrants. His dad was from

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Speaker 1: He was Romanian and his mom was Hungarian. She was

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Speaker 1: a line worker at GE and his dad was UM,

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Speaker 1: a foundry worker and a union guy, union organizer, but

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Speaker 1: not a good dude. Um drank a lot, was abusive

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Speaker 1: and he did not see him again after his about

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Speaker 1: sixteenth or seventeenth birthday. I think when his mom divorced him. Right, Um.

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Speaker 1: And like I said, he was he got a really

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Speaker 1: good education, but he was also a really great student. UM.

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Speaker 1: And he went to technical school. He went to cast

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Speaker 1: Technical High School, he went to Lawrence Institute of Technology,

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Speaker 1: and he was basically set up to become a car

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Speaker 1: engineer from a very early age. UM. He fought in

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Speaker 1: the army during World War Two and then came back

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Speaker 1: can got a degree from the Chrysler Institute, and then

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Speaker 1: finally in nineteen fifty six, became a full fledged auto engineer,

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Speaker 1: starting with Packard and then he moved to General Motors.

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Speaker 1: And with General Motors that's where he would um start

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Speaker 1: to make his name. Yeah, he was married a few times,

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Speaker 1: and we'll kind of touch on the various wives. It

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Speaker 1: sounds like he wasn't the best husband in the world. UM,

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Speaker 1: but I don't think he well, I don't know. I

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Speaker 1: don't want to go there, because when you're not in

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Speaker 1: a marriage, how can you comment and how it really is,

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Speaker 1: you know. Uh. In nineteen fifty four, though, he married

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Higgins, who was his first wife. Uh. They were

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Speaker 1: married for about a decade, never had kids. UM. And

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Speaker 1: that's when he like kind of first got his career

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Speaker 1: going at GM with Pontiac, and he I think in

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Speaker 1: this documentary described himself um early on at least as

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Speaker 1: the squarest guy at General Motors UM, which is just

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Speaker 1: noteworthy because of what he became, which was certain not

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Speaker 1: a square guy at all. Right. He also had a

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Speaker 1: bunch of patents to his name, like the recessed windshield wiper,

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Speaker 1: the hidden radio antenna's stacked headlights, I mean, stuff that

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Speaker 1: you still see on cars today, where it certainly did

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Speaker 1: for many many years after he invented him UM, and

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Speaker 1: he he ran into a problem really quickly. Though. He

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Speaker 1: had a really good eye for design, and he also

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Speaker 1: realized that youth culture was starting to become a thing,

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Speaker 1: like teenagers were suddenly invented, and teenagers liked cars. But

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Speaker 1: the problem was Detroit was putting out a certain type

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Speaker 1: of car, and that was a big giant boat. Um

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Speaker 1: that you you couldn't even feel any movement whatsoever, and

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Speaker 1: you were just floating down the road. And that's what

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Speaker 1: GM thought everyone would want, because that's what the old

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Speaker 1: execs that GM wanted. Uh and and DeLorean saw very

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Speaker 1: early on that this is wrong. There's a whole sector

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Speaker 1: out there that we're not even touching, and he really

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Speaker 1: kind of focused on that. Yeah, and this was also

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Speaker 1: a time too. I want to point out that, um,

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Speaker 1: the car industry. If you're a certain age, you might

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Speaker 1: remember this a little bit, but if you're younger, you know,

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Speaker 1: you know, foreign cars, imported cars, there's all kind of

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Speaker 1: cars out there in American cars. Sure, some are fine,

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Speaker 1: but it's just the American car industry. Back then, the

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Speaker 1: American car industry was These were the biggest corporations in

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Speaker 1: the world and they were rock stars. We talked a

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Speaker 1: little bit about it in the Pinto episode, I guess,

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Speaker 1: but these were huge, huge corporations and they were the biggest,

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Speaker 1: baddest executives in the world worked for these car companies

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Speaker 1: in Detroit, so, like you said, they sort of like

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Speaker 1: the big boats. He came along said, let's make cars

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Speaker 1: that are cooler. I think there were some people in

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Speaker 1: the management that we're um. You know a lot of

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Speaker 1: them weren't on board, but somewhere on board because they

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Speaker 1: were taking these kind of cooler prototypes out apparently in

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Speaker 1: the evenings and like drag racing in Detroit against teenagers. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he went to work specifically for Bunkie Knudson, who made

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Speaker 1: an appearance in the Pinto app I believe, I think

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Speaker 1: so Ya and Bunky Knudson was running Pontiac at the time,

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Speaker 1: and back then Pontiac was just considered the lamest um

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Speaker 1: old person's um medallion. That there wasn't any car company

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Speaker 1: at all, not just in GM. Pontiac was just a snooze.

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Speaker 1: And so the idea that Bunky Knudson and um John

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Speaker 1: DeLorean were kind of tapped into the same vibe that

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Speaker 1: wait a minute, whether there's a there's younger kids that

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Speaker 1: that want cars and we're not making them for him.

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Speaker 1: Bunky Knutson apparently said, um, you can never sell a

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Speaker 1: young man in old band's car, but you can always

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Speaker 1: sell an old man a young man's car. And they

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Speaker 1: actually changed the car industry based on that premise. And um,

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Speaker 1: the way that Dolorean did it was by taking the

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Speaker 1: Pontiac Tempest, which was a pretty cool looking mid sized

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Speaker 1: Pontiac and putting a Bonneville engine, which was a large

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Speaker 1: sized Pontiac, a Bonneville engine into the Tempest and making

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Speaker 1: it go room really fast, which the teenagers just loved. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was a huge hit. Apparently GM even had a

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Speaker 1: rule that said you can't put that big of an

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Speaker 1: engine in a car this size, but they did it

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Speaker 1: anyway as a special option on the sixty four Tempest,

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Speaker 1: and Delirian named this, of course, the g t O.

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Speaker 1: It was the g t O package initially UH and

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Speaker 1: he named it after the UH. It was a Ferrari,

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Speaker 1: but there were sort of road racing cars in Italy

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Speaker 1: were Grand treism I'm sorry and Tarismos very nice, and

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Speaker 1: that's where GTO comes from. And it was a huge

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Speaker 1: hit out of the gate. UH and Pontiac. All of

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Speaker 1: a sudden it from snooze too. Boy, I wish I

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Speaker 1: had something that rhymed that wasn't lose cruise. Yeah, towards

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Speaker 1: the top. Oh boy, that was perfect stuff. You should

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Speaker 1: know material that was the best I could come up with. No,

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Speaker 1: that's right. Pontiac was just hottest fire all of a sudden. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So Delrian created the first muscle car. The g t

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Speaker 1: O is widely considered the first muscle car, and it

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Speaker 1: kicked off this huge trend of muscle cars and you

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Speaker 1: can thank John Delrian for that. Um. The g t

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Speaker 1: O also was hugely successful because DeLorean and Knudson and

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Speaker 1: the Pantiac gang um figured out that you really wanted

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Speaker 1: to market these things a certain way too, so they

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Speaker 1: marketed the g t O specifically towards young people. I

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Speaker 1: think one of their ads said, the Pontiac GTO by

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Speaker 1: one before you're too old to understand. I'm not kidding

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Speaker 1: like that was that was an advertisement. There was g

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Speaker 1: t O cologne. Tom McCann came out with some GTO

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Speaker 1: driving shoes and the soul was Yeah. This the soul

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Speaker 1: was designed to fit right into the pedal of a

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Speaker 1: g t O so you could push the pedal to

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Speaker 1: the metal faster and go balls out. Oh that's right.

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Speaker 1: This all reminded me of my dad, who, even though

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Speaker 1: he was an elementary school principal, um went out without

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Speaker 1: asking my mom at all and he bought a Porsche

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Speaker 1: nine eleven, which we could not afford. And he immediately

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Speaker 1: had the Porsche sunglasses, the Porsche jacket, the Porsche hat,

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Speaker 1: baseball cap, and I think, like one other Porsche thing.

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Speaker 1: He was not to be disturbed. He's eating his Porsche

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Speaker 1: breakfast cereal. At the time, I thought, you know, you know,

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Speaker 1: your dad brings some a portion nine eleven. It was

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Speaker 1: beautiful and he had all this stuff, and I was like,

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Speaker 1: how cool. And then I got a little older and

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Speaker 1: I was like, what a what a terrible thing to

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Speaker 1: do in a here, I know, without asking, good lutle

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Speaker 1: if I nancial stress it caused. And then all this

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Speaker 1: do she side stuff he was wearing. I was scanning him.

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Speaker 1: We'll get in all that. So back to back to

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Speaker 1: John DeLorean. Because of that G t O thing, Um,

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Speaker 1: he was promoted to the head of Pontiac. I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure where Bunky Newtson went. Maybe this is when Newson

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Speaker 1: went over to Ford to work with the Pinto. But

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Speaker 1: he was forty at the time and there was a

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Speaker 1: great article on this if it's the longest long form ever.

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Speaker 1: It's called Demon Underneath was by Alex Popademus. It's on

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Speaker 1: the outline, and he basically says that UM that Dolrian

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Speaker 1: was the youngest general manager at GM. He was forty

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Speaker 1: and that at the time that made him basically pre

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Speaker 1: pubescent by Detroit standards, being forty, So it was a

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Speaker 1: really big deal that he was made general manager of

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Speaker 1: Pontiac UH. That that's how big of a breakthrough the

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Speaker 1: g t O was. And then as if that weren't enough,

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Speaker 1: he followed it up with the Firebird and then the

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Speaker 1: Grand Prix. So in three three years he invented no

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, In about five years he invented the g

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Speaker 1: t O of the Firebird in the Grand Prix. I

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Speaker 1: mean legend man, total legend. He could have retired then

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Speaker 1: and made his name in car history and not for

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Speaker 1: a bad cocaine deal execut He didn't though. He decided

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Speaker 1: to go a different way. And I saw it explained

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Speaker 1: as such, Chuck. I don't remember who said it like this,

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Speaker 1: but I think one of his UM, one of his

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Speaker 1: UH fellow travelers from the time and in that circle.

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Speaker 1: So that had he come up in sales, he would

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Speaker 1: have known very quickly that partying with Hollywood types is

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Speaker 1: kind of a snooze, that they're not actually good people.

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Speaker 1: They're not that much fun to be around. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of high stress. But he wasn't exposed to that until

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Speaker 1: much later on when he became an executive. But he

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Speaker 1: didn't come up from the sales side. He came up

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Speaker 1: from the engineering side, so he had no point of

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Speaker 1: reference for that. So to him, partying with Hall What

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Speaker 1: Stars was the coolest thing you could do, and it

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Speaker 1: was the first thing he started doing the first chance

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Speaker 1: he got. All right, I think it's a great cliffhanger

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Speaker 1: for our first break. Okay, Chuck, now we've reached the

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Speaker 1: point where John Delorian transforms into Dan Ackroyd as a

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Speaker 1: wild and crazy guy. I thought you canna see Dr

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Speaker 1: Detroit for a second. That kind of works too, But

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Speaker 1: I think I think wild and crazy guys even more accurate. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: very much, he um. And you know, this is sort

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Speaker 1: of evidence of the fact that these were the biggest

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Speaker 1: corporations in the world, because ask any American like who

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Speaker 1: the top executives for GM are today and you unless

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Speaker 1: you're in you know, in the know or like a

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Speaker 1: big gear head. You probably and even then you might

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Speaker 1: not even know. But back then, like he was, he

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Speaker 1: made himself into a celebrity. He started dyeing his hair,

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Speaker 1: he went gray pretty early, and was a admittedly very

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Speaker 1: handsome man, but he he just was sort of this

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Speaker 1: idealized in the Magnum p I era of of this

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Speaker 1: is kind of pre Magnum, but just sort of that

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Speaker 1: era of that mackeismo. He was tall, and he had

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Speaker 1: this hair coming out of his shirt, like this hairy chest,

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Speaker 1: and he had a button his shirt and he had

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Speaker 1: this cool hair, and he you know, he he made

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Speaker 1: himself the like he said he were, Like I said,

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Speaker 1: he said he was a squarest guy, and I think

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Speaker 1: he just really wanted to change that. So all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden, he's dating, like literally dating Roquel Welch and Urson,

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Speaker 1: La Andrews and these you know, bombshell Hollywood actresses, and

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Speaker 1: of course divorces his first wife in eight uh and

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Speaker 1: we should mention that she sued him for cruelty. Uh

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Speaker 1: So he probably wasn't a great husband. But he immediately

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Speaker 1: gets married. This is sort of his m O is, like,

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Speaker 1: let me marry someone about half my age. He married

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Speaker 1: it's twenty year old named Kelly Harmon when he was

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Speaker 1: forty years old, and uh, they adopted their son, Zachary. Um.

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Speaker 1: Do you remember those weird tic tech ads from the

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Speaker 1: eighties where it was a real close up of a

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Speaker 1: blonde lady like talking about how much she enjoys just

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Speaker 1: one tic tech. Sure that's Kelly Harmon. Was that her? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: And it's Mark Harmon's sister, by the way. Oh. Another

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Speaker 1: fun thing from the documentary is um this came from

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Speaker 1: his own mouth. He was talking about his sex drive

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Speaker 1: and how like, you know, he has a pretty substantial

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Speaker 1: sex drive. And he said, you know what, what man

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Speaker 1: in history, No man in history has ever accomplished anything

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Speaker 1: that didn't have that trade. So I was like, oh wait,

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Speaker 1: old podcasting comes around, my friend, now old it, Chuck

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Speaker 1: think about that though, he's the guy. He's the kind

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Speaker 1: of guy who would say that to a reporter and

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Speaker 1: then hope that the reporter kept that in the interview

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Speaker 1: when it was published. It's kind of Ron Burgundy esque, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but way more self aware, way more self aware Ron

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Speaker 1: Burgundy was or still is. I guess he's he has

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Speaker 1: a podcast himself. It just kind of aloof about himself.

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Speaker 1: John Delian was very tuned into himself. He just thought

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Speaker 1: that what he was doing was the coolest thing ever

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Speaker 1: and didn't realize that it actually wasn't super cool at all. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he got facial reconstructive surgery. Uh and not throwing shade

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Speaker 1: of people want to do that kind of thing. But

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Speaker 1: he he went through a big midlife crisis. Is how

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Speaker 1: this one woman in the documentary who wrote a book, Um,

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Speaker 1: not about him, but she interviewed him for the book,

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Speaker 1: and I think he even kind of admitted it. When

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Speaker 1: he hit his forties, he lost a bunch of weight,

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Speaker 1: grew out of sideburns, started dyeing his hair, got chin

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Speaker 1: and jawline implants to make him look more masculine and rugged,

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Speaker 1: and started dressing. I think it was that guy that

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Speaker 1: wrote the article of Papa Demus said, Uh, he starts

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Speaker 1: showing up to manage a division of the most conservative

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Speaker 1: corporation in America, like he manages the Partridge family just

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Speaker 1: like Ruben Kincaid. Yeah so he um he but he

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Speaker 1: kept like bringing the goods, like even while he's having

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Speaker 1: this really embarrassing midlife crisis, Um, he's still he's still

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Speaker 1: creating like great cars, like he came out with them

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Speaker 1: the Monte Carlo. In nineteen sixty nine, he was the

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Speaker 1: head of the ship. He became head of Chevy, so

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Speaker 1: he moved from head of Pontiac the head of Chevy.

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Speaker 1: That's a big deal at that time. Um. And then

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Speaker 1: he even advanced all the way up to what they

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Speaker 1: called the fourteenth floor at GM. So even from Pontiac

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Speaker 1: to Chevy to now he's one of the main executives

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Speaker 1: running one of the biggest corporations in the country. And

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Speaker 1: he's walking around with like his chest hair sticking out,

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Speaker 1: making like finger guns at people, like like on his

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Speaker 1: way to meeting. But the thing is he did not

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Speaker 1: fit into that world at all. He did not. He

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Speaker 1: he bristled at that kind of stuff, and they didn't

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Speaker 1: like him anymore than he liked them. Yeah, he um.

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Speaker 1: I think in seventy two he was the chief of

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Speaker 1: GM's truck and car division, which he said was about

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Speaker 1: of what they produced. And this was the first I

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Speaker 1: think he was rumored to be in line for president.

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Speaker 1: And this was when over these couple of years in

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Speaker 1: the early seventies, was when the first whispers of like

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Speaker 1: how is this guy, like he makes good money, but

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Speaker 1: how is he living this kind of lifestyle and is

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Speaker 1: he grifting the company at all? And there were rumors

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Speaker 1: that he was taking kickbacks from parts people like suppliers,

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Speaker 1: and you know, the sort of rumors of impropriety started

397
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Speaker 1: cropping up around this time. What's crazy is this would

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Speaker 1: plague him for the rest of his life basically, and

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Speaker 1: yet any time like like something was formally done to

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Speaker 1: investigate him, to bring him up on charges, it just

401
00:23:16,720 --> 00:23:19,840
Speaker 1: it wouldn't stick. They just wouldn't stick. They could They

402
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Speaker 1: never got him on anything that he did, and he

403
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Speaker 1: did plenty of it. Some of the stuff he probably

404
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Speaker 1: didn't do. But he had that kind of reputation that

405
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Speaker 1: was so bad that that you know, somebody might still

406
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Speaker 1: try to sue you based on how bad your reputation is.

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Speaker 1: And yet none of them were successful as far as

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Speaker 1: I could tell. Yeah, I didn't see anything that stuck. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I think it was followed seventy two, um was when

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Speaker 1: he finally departed. There was a text of a speech

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Speaker 1: about quality control that he was going to give to

412
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Speaker 1: a private audience at GM and it got leaked out

413
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Speaker 1: to the press. Rumors he did it himself and leaked it. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And there was a lot of negative press. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: these these companies not only were there huge, they were

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Speaker 1: very private and you didn't hear rumors and leaks in

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Speaker 1: the press. Uh. He didn't talk about one another in

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Speaker 1: the press. It was all very just sort of tightly controlled.

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Speaker 1: And and they were of course super ticked off about it.

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Speaker 1: And in April of seventy three, depending on who you asked,

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Speaker 1: he quit working there, either by resignation or by being fired.

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Speaker 1: But GM just kept mute about the departure between the two,

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Speaker 1: and so um Delirian was able to say I'm the

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Speaker 1: man who fired GM because he he was in charge

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Speaker 1: of the If GM wasn't speaking up, Delirian could say

426
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:41,959
Speaker 1: basically whatever he wanted, and so he portrayed it. As

427
00:24:42,320 --> 00:24:45,000
Speaker 1: he got tired of GM, he said something like, even

428
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:48,200
Speaker 1: if you're making six fifty grand a year, if you

429
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:51,399
Speaker 1: hate the job, it's just not worth it, which I mean,

430
00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:53,360
Speaker 1: on the one hand, that's absolutely true, and I get

431
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 1: the impression that he really felt that way. On the

432
00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:59,920
Speaker 1: other hand, it's probably true that GM fired him into

433
00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:02,720
Speaker 1: kept mom about it. Yeah, Well, it's that whole like

434
00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:05,199
Speaker 1: keeping it quiet thing, which he didn't care about at

435
00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: that point. No, but he had been living chuck largely

436
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:13,720
Speaker 1: on GM's dimes. He expensed everything he could, including stuff

437
00:25:13,760 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 1: that never should have even been remotely expensed, but he

438
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:21,440
Speaker 1: was living on GM. And suddenly he wasn't able to

439
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 1: expense everything. He's still got his I think his bonuses.

440
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:27,399
Speaker 1: It was part of his his departure package, but he

441
00:25:27,480 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 1: wasn't able to expense anything. And now all of a sudden,

442
00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 1: his lavish lifestyle is not being underwritten by anybody. Yeah.

443
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:40,200
Speaker 1: He um, after this separation from GM, he gets, uh, divorce.

444
00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 1: I guess he looked at Harmon and said, you know,

445
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:47,400
Speaker 1: enough of the tic TACs. You're you're getting a little

446
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:50,880
Speaker 1: long in the tooth. Uh. And so he started dating

447
00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:52,800
Speaker 1: a twenty two year old when he was forty eight

448
00:25:53,359 --> 00:25:58,119
Speaker 1: named Christina Ferrar and she was a very uh, you know,

449
00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:00,680
Speaker 1: sort of semi famous model. I guess he was pretty

450
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 1: famous because I remember like seeing pictures o her at

451
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:06,800
Speaker 1: the time even and saying like, I'll know who that is. Uh.

452
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 1: And they had four homes. They had the apartment in

453
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 1: Manhattan and the aforementioned mansion on four and thirty four

454
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:19,440
Speaker 1: acres in Bedminster, New Jersey, which is right down the

455
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 1: street from where I lived. And they had a daughter

456
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 1: in seventy seven named Katherine. Yeah. So, by all accounts

457
00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 1: and in all appearances, he suddenly was in a new

458
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 1: phase of life, free from the shackles of GM's button

459
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 1: down corporate culture. New wife, new baby, new house, new houses,

460
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:44,840
Speaker 1: and uh, it's time for him to reinvent himself even further.

461
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:47,440
Speaker 1: And he's going to do that, he decides by coming

462
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 1: up with the most amazing car America has ever seen. Right,

463
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:55,640
Speaker 1: But he had a noncompete and GM was like, hey,

464
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:57,719
Speaker 1: part of the severance package, if you want to keep

465
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:00,760
Speaker 1: this money coming your way, you can't just jump over

466
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:05,440
Speaker 1: and start working for another car company. So he sort

467
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 1: of on the download started working on the Dolrian car

468
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:13,760
Speaker 1: or the Dolrian Motor Company. And I think he thought,

469
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:16,920
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think he definitely thought, well, this

470
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:21,399
Speaker 1: little sort of um small production run of this weird

471
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:24,920
Speaker 1: sports car, I'm not working with another car company, so

472
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 1: that probably is okay with GM. And then once he

473
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: started working, because you know, he couldn't do it all

474
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,480
Speaker 1: by himself, so he had to kind of contract out

475
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:37,359
Speaker 1: and work with other car companies and they said, all right,

476
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:40,560
Speaker 1: you're now cut off. But that's also pretty rich that

477
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, we're just too dinky to be considered

478
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 1: a competitor. And one of the one of the reasons

479
00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:49,159
Speaker 1: he wanted to found Delian Motor Company was to show Detroit,

480
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:51,199
Speaker 1: to stick it in their eye, to show them how

481
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 1: to make it a real car, in very much the

482
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: same way that Ellen Musk saw it to show Detroit

483
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:00,760
Speaker 1: how to make an electric car and was actually successful

484
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,560
Speaker 1: in that sense. You can say what you want about him,

485
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:06,760
Speaker 1: but he's basically single handedly the reason why we have

486
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:10,639
Speaker 1: electric cars now. Um. Delirian tried to do kind of

487
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:14,640
Speaker 1: the same thing to make a really cool, um, really reliable,

488
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 1: really um responsive car. Yeah he talking about the car. Yeah, yeah,

489
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:22,239
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about it, because it is a very

490
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 1: cool car by by any standard. Uh. He came along

491
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:30,320
Speaker 1: when gas mileage started to become literally for the first

492
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,520
Speaker 1: time sort of on Americans minds, sort of the beginning

493
00:28:33,560 --> 00:28:35,200
Speaker 1: of the gas crunch. So he was like, I wanted

494
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 1: to get to be fuel efficient. Uh. I certainly wanted

495
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 1: to be cool, but like you said, sort of affordable, Uh,

496
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 1: something that was reliable, which is pretty funny considering how

497
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:48,760
Speaker 1: the Delirian turned out. I think it was most known

498
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 1: for being completely unreliable. And the thing I remember most

499
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 1: about it. Uh. I know you love those gull wing doors,

500
00:28:56,480 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 1: But the thing I remembered most was the fact that

501
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 1: it was stainless steel. Sure. Uh. And I remember being

502
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 1: a kid and going he made a stainless steel car

503
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:09,320
Speaker 1: so it would never rust. That's genius. Yeah. It never

504
00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 1: occurred to me that it would never rust. I just

505
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:13,440
Speaker 1: thought it was to look cool. No, that's why he

506
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 1: did it. I knew that when I was twelve. I

507
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:18,200
Speaker 1: don't know how. I was a very dumb kid. Well

508
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 1: you were younger, so um. One of the things about

509
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:23,600
Speaker 1: the car is that if you if you look at

510
00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:26,760
Speaker 1: it's just a very striking design. And that's because Um

511
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: DeLorean hired like one of the premier car designers in

512
00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 1: the world, Georgetto. H'm sorry, Chuck, please take it, uh,

513
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:40,959
Speaker 1: Georgetto Geo Giaio very nice. Yeah, he's the guy who

514
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 1: who designed the underwater car in The Spy who loved

515
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:47,960
Speaker 1: me that James Bond drove. He also designed the Lotus

516
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 1: of Spree, which was what the car was. I think

517
00:29:50,800 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: it was a lotus of Spree that James Bond car,

518
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:57,800
Speaker 1: and then he basically redesigned the lotus of Spree for

519
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,680
Speaker 1: the d M to you twelve. Yeah, they look alike

520
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 1: very much so, but um Delorean's goal was to create

521
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 1: an American car that Americans had never seen before. So

522
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 1: it's still kind of help water. Sure. Absolutely, he needed

523
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 1: a lot of money to do it, and so he said,

524
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 1: all right, I think I can get this thing up

525
00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: and run in for ninety million bucks, which is close

526
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:28,239
Speaker 1: to four million today. And he set up a deal

527
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 1: with Puerto Rico uh to manufacture there and exchange uh

528
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 1: in exchange for sixty million bucks and guaranteed loans. And

529
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 1: then Britain stepped in and said, oh no, no, no,

530
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 1: said my tea. Yeah, we'll give you. Oh that was good. Uh,

531
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 1: we'll give you a lot more money than that, my friend.

532
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 1: If we have some troubles going on, are we here

533
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 1: so much so that they're literally called the troubles. I

534
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 1: don't know if you've heard about all the bad things

535
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:02,840
Speaker 1: going down here between Catholics in the Protestants, uh, And

536
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:04,880
Speaker 1: there's a lot of turmoil, and we've talked about the

537
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 1: stuff on our podcast They didn't say that because they

538
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 1: didn't have a podcast. They said, if you bring your

539
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:13,000
Speaker 1: factory to Belfast, of all places, we'll give you, will

540
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 1: guarantee you a hundred and six million dollars in investments

541
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 1: and loans and grants. Yeah, and anyone who listened to

542
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:22,480
Speaker 1: our Bobby Sands episode will remember that Belfast was like

543
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:26,840
Speaker 1: kind of ground zero for the troubles of Northern Ireland.

544
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 1: And this spot that they selected, an old cow pasture,

545
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:34,920
Speaker 1: was actually right between a Protestant housing development and a

546
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:37,959
Speaker 1: Catholic housing development, and they wanted to build the factory

547
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:42,000
Speaker 1: right between them. And they're lower at least the eighty

548
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 1: percent unemployment in the area. Eighty percent. Eight people out

549
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:50,760
Speaker 1: of ten in this area were unemployed at the time.

550
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:53,000
Speaker 1: And John Delory was going to come in build the

551
00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 1: state of the art factory and higher thousands of these

552
00:31:56,560 --> 00:32:00,120
Speaker 1: people um Protestant and Catholic. And he was sensible. They

553
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:05,120
Speaker 1: built separate entrances for each group for real um nuts.

554
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 1: But he came to town and in a lot of ways,

555
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: and it created this sense of pride that had been

556
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 1: missing among the workers that he hired. Yeah, he uh,

557
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 1: certainly the money was the biggest part of it. I'm

558
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 1: sure Britain was like, this is great, we can put

559
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 1: these folks to work. But he just wanted that hundred

560
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:24,440
Speaker 1: and six mil. I think he got another thirty one

561
00:32:24,480 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 1: million from investments in the US private investment, including Johnny Carson.

562
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: I think he went in for half a million bucks,

563
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 1: a ton of money, especially back then. And our old

564
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:41,320
Speaker 1: friends Sammy Davis Jr. How did he accept? He said,

565
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: where I really dick those doors. I'm in. I'm in

566
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 1: for one fifty. So he invested as well, and he's

567
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 1: got his money, he's got his separate entrances. And on

568
00:32:55,040 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 1: October two they broke ground on the plant to great protest. Yeah,

569
00:33:02,760 --> 00:33:04,719
Speaker 1: there were plenty of protests. Again, there are a lot

570
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 1: of people who are like, this is awesome. We're gonna

571
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 1: have good jobs. These are highly skilled technical jobs that

572
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:11,720
Speaker 1: were that are being created out of thin air here.

573
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: But there are plenty of people who are like, this

574
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 1: is a British project that they're building in Belfast. Brits

575
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 1: go home, Yanks go home. UM. So not everybody was

576
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 1: on board. And as as a matter of fact, throughout

577
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 1: the time that the Belfast um factory was operating, DeLorean

578
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:29,320
Speaker 1: spent as little time there as possible because he was

579
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: really worried about being murdered or kidnapped. UM, so he

580
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 1: did not hang around there um and probably rightfully so.

581
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:38,720
Speaker 1: I'm sure he would have been a pretty good target

582
00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:44,440
Speaker 1: for UM I RA or the Ulster Liberation Force. Yeah, um,

583
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:46,880
Speaker 1: who knows. And I'm sure anybody would have liked to

584
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:49,120
Speaker 1: have kidnapped him at the time. He was extremely famous

585
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 1: and well known to be super rich. Um. But there

586
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: was another um kind of bad sign aside from the

587
00:33:55,920 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: protesters that some people still to this day say, is

588
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 1: what cursed Delirian Motor Company and maybe even John Delorrian himself.

589
00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: Was this the ferry tree? Yes? Yeah, there was a

590
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 1: special plant there on the place where they were going

591
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:13,280
Speaker 1: to build this factory. It was it was a Hawthorne

592
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:17,759
Speaker 1: bush and they they called it like a ferry tree.

593
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:20,000
Speaker 1: That these workers there said, We're not gonna cut this

594
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:23,280
Speaker 1: thing down. I'm not gonna do my bad Irish accent

595
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 1: and try and say it that way. But they did.

596
00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 1: Eventually someone removed it. And some people say, like that

597
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:34,399
Speaker 1: was you know the the ferry tree that was Scottish. Yeah,

598
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:36,880
Speaker 1: it was pretty Scottish. It was depending on where you

599
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:39,360
Speaker 1: are in Ireland though that that can pass. It sounds

600
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:43,400
Speaker 1: like groundskeeper Willie. Yeah it did so. Um the factory

601
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 1: did open um and again Delirian wasn't there very often.

602
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:51,200
Speaker 1: He spent his time in Park Avenue UM. But his

603
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:55,360
Speaker 1: cars were suddenly being assembled. The thing is um. During

604
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: the design phase he hired Lotus um to to build

605
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 1: these cars. Lotus was making cars that were assembled by hand.

606
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 1: Now Delirian was asking them to build cars on an

607
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:08,200
Speaker 1: assembly line, and Lotus is like, Okay, we're gonna have

608
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:10,799
Speaker 1: to make some compromises here, and so little by little,

609
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: the Delirian DMC twelve, the production version, became less and

610
00:35:15,239 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 1: less like the dream version, the prototype that Delirian had

611
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 1: come up with, and some of the compromises he made

612
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:24,920
Speaker 1: basically sunk the car. Like it wasn't just Delirian and

613
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:26,680
Speaker 1: his coke deal that will get to in a minute,

614
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:29,560
Speaker 1: that sunk the company. The company was already sinking because

615
00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:32,399
Speaker 1: it was making pretty bad cars that were really cool,

616
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:35,880
Speaker 1: but they did not go very well. No, it was

617
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 1: a bit of a disaster from the beginning. Uh. And

618
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:42,080
Speaker 1: these documentaries really kind of dive into just the problems

619
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 1: with the car. Um. The first thing is it more

620
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,480
Speaker 1: than doubled in the cost that he wanted to sell

621
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:49,400
Speaker 1: it at. He wanted to sell it for twelve It

622
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:53,239
Speaker 1: cost grand which a Corvette at the time, a brand

623
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:56,680
Speaker 1: new Corvette was about sixteen. So all of a sudden,

624
00:35:56,760 --> 00:36:01,719
Speaker 1: the Delirian is a super luxury or not luxury, but

625
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 1: just a sports car for super rich people. Uh. It

626
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:10,600
Speaker 1: weighed nine thousand pounds more than they thought it was

627
00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 1: gonna weigh, not nine thousand pounds, nine thousand extra pounds. Uh.

628
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:18,760
Speaker 1: It had trouble meeting the mileage requirements. It was supposed

629
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:23,800
Speaker 1: to be super fuel efficient. It was very famously clunky,

630
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:27,759
Speaker 1: hard to drive slow, and this is sports supposed to

631
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 1: be a sports car because it was. It was super

632
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:34,040
Speaker 1: heavy at this rear mounted Renault engine that was a

633
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:37,400
Speaker 1: V six, and it just it drove more like a

634
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:42,520
Speaker 1: a bad stick shift station wagon than anything sporty. Yeah.

635
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:44,359
Speaker 1: How how long did it take to go from zero

636
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 1: to sixty? It took And I don't know anything about

637
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:49,839
Speaker 1: fast cars, but ten seconds seems like a long time

638
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:53,000
Speaker 1: to me. It's a really long time. I think some

639
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:56,359
Speaker 1: Teslas and some Ferraris and cars like that UM are

640
00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 1: in like the three and a half second range. This

641
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:02,560
Speaker 1: is ten seconds, like a minivan can probably get from

642
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 1: zero to sixty in in ten seconds and not even

643
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:08,000
Speaker 1: a new one. So that was not good at all.

644
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:10,839
Speaker 1: And then they also had some really bad publicity problems too,

645
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 1: like the windows stuck apparently the dye they used for them.

646
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 1: The floor mats didn't hold fast and it would run

647
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 1: and stay in your shoes, even your your Tomcca and

648
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:24,360
Speaker 1: g t O shoes that you're wearing. Uh. And the

649
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 1: goal wing doors would get stuck and just would not open,

650
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:31,239
Speaker 1: and very embarrassingly that happened at the Cleveland Auto Show.

651
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:34,240
Speaker 1: Somebody who was looking at the car got stuck inside

652
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:37,799
Speaker 1: for an hour because they could not get the doors open. Yeah.

653
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 1: I watched uh YouTube today of a Delirian drive like

654
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:45,840
Speaker 1: road test and these two guys, you know it's a

655
00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:49,319
Speaker 1: modern you know sort of thing because they're wearing cargo shorts. Um.

656
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 1: But one of the guys says, Delirian lets his friend

657
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 1: drive it and they have a camera in there, and

658
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 1: you know, it just looked like it was hard to drive.

659
00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:59,799
Speaker 1: It didn't break super well. The reverse was this uh.

660
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 1: And I had an early VW batle where he had

661
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:04,439
Speaker 1: to push down on the thing and then left and back.

662
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: But this you had to pull the stick shift up

663
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:10,360
Speaker 1: and kind of over and up, and he had trouble

664
00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:11,960
Speaker 1: kind of doing that, but he finally got the hang

665
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:15,360
Speaker 1: of it. But it it He described it as fast.

666
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 1: I think he said it had a lot of torque.

667
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:19,800
Speaker 1: But when he like got it, I think starting in

668
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:23,279
Speaker 1: like second gear, it seemed like, UM was when it

669
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:24,880
Speaker 1: picked up because he was like, oh man, this thing

670
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:28,440
Speaker 1: has got some real speed. UM. But I don't think

671
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:30,879
Speaker 1: like off the line it was that fast. Is maybe

672
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:33,440
Speaker 1: the deal I got you? Yeah, not if it took

673
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 1: ten seconds to get to sixty for sure. So there

674
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:39,239
Speaker 1: was another thing that was going on at the time,

675
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 1: like like John Dolorian was earnestly trying to make these cars,

676
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:45,080
Speaker 1: but at the same time he was also robbing his

677
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:48,800
Speaker 1: own company blind. The first thing he did with that

678
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:53,240
Speaker 1: um British investment money of I think about a hundred

679
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:55,840
Speaker 1: and thirty million dollars was to set up a Swiss

680
00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:59,279
Speaker 1: bank accounts that he transferred the money through and then

681
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 1: apparent and I don't believe this has ever been proven,

682
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:06,279
Speaker 1: but it's basically like just open your eyes people, UM,

683
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,359
Speaker 1: a lot, if not most of that money made its

684
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:13,719
Speaker 1: way from Switzerland to his personal accounts to finance his life.

685
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:16,480
Speaker 1: So basically, he said, thanks for all the money, Brits,

686
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 1: your chumps, I'm stealing this for my own personal gain.

687
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 1: And that's what he did right out of the gate.

688
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 1: And that's why I say he was a genuine grifter.

689
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 1: He grifted the British government, he grifted some guy who

690
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:32,280
Speaker 1: owned a Wichita Cadillac um uh dealership, like, he grifted

691
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:35,359
Speaker 1: a lot of people. And and in addition to all

692
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 1: of the amazing stuff that he did, he also became

693
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:41,880
Speaker 1: like a genuine serious died in the wool grifter. He

694
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:46,400
Speaker 1: grifted Sammy Davis Jr. Yeah, I mean for that alone,

695
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:49,719
Speaker 1: That's that's pretty infamous if you ask me. All Right,

696
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:51,759
Speaker 1: it just occurred to me, we haven't taken our second break,

697
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:55,880
Speaker 1: so let's take a late break. Well, par went out

698
00:39:55,920 --> 00:40:20,160
Speaker 1: for Shammy's hundred and fifty and we'll be right back. Okay.

699
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 1: So where we left off was John delian is kind

700
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:27,480
Speaker 1: of siphoning money to fund his lavish lifestyle, which it

701
00:40:27,560 --> 00:40:31,719
Speaker 1: sounds like he kind of always did at GM as well.

702
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 1: And he got about a hundred and fifty million bucks,

703
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:38,919
Speaker 1: which is about four and sixty two million dollars out

704
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:42,320
Speaker 1: of the British government. Um, saying like you know, he

705
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:43,960
Speaker 1: kind of kept it going, seeing he was gonna shut

706
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:46,640
Speaker 1: down production, which would be bad news, you know for

707
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:51,080
Speaker 1: everyone concerned. But eventually someone, the Iron Lady would come around,

708
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:55,120
Speaker 1: uh in two and as we all know Thatcher didn't

709
00:40:55,640 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 1: take any s from anyone, and she was like enough enough, Um,

710
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: I'm getting conned by this American. We are getting conned

711
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,480
Speaker 1: and basically said, you know what, We're not gonna be

712
00:41:07,600 --> 00:41:11,120
Speaker 1: your bank account anymore. They had to lay off about uh,

713
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:14,000
Speaker 1: not quite half of about eleven hundred of their twenty

714
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:21,160
Speaker 1: six workers in Belfast and DeLorean DMC went into receivership,

715
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:24,479
Speaker 1: uh pretty quickly. Um. They planned to sell about thirty

716
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 1: thousand cars every year. They they didn't sell quite nine

717
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:34,840
Speaker 1: thousand cars total. And he needed to get about seventeen

718
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:38,800
Speaker 1: million dollars really fast if he wanted to keep this

719
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:42,879
Speaker 1: insolvency from happening. So his back was up against the wall.

720
00:41:43,280 --> 00:41:46,320
Speaker 1: He needed seventeen million fast, and where else can you

721
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:50,840
Speaker 1: do that but in the drug trade. Right. What's interesting

722
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:56,360
Speaker 1: is his plight and his travails were so famous that

723
00:41:56,640 --> 00:41:59,759
Speaker 1: he was approached with an idea to sell drugs to

724
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:04,040
Speaker 1: get money to to save his company. Like everybody knew

725
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:07,680
Speaker 1: that this was going on, right, That's how bad oppressed

726
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 1: the d m C twelve got, And so he was approached.

727
00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:14,319
Speaker 1: There was a coke dealer named James Hoffman who'd been

728
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:19,400
Speaker 1: smuggling drugs for Pablo Escobar's medine cartel for years. He

729
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:24,319
Speaker 1: was also a paid informant for the FBI. And apparently, uh,

730
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: some people say that that James Hoffman said I'm going

731
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 1: to deliver uh John DeLorean to you guys just watch,

732
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 1: and that he was the one who's hatched this whole

733
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:38,200
Speaker 1: scheme to basically entrap John Delorrian into selling a bunch

734
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:42,719
Speaker 1: of cocaine in order to save delrian Motor company. That's right. Uh.

735
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 1: The deal was specifically almost sixty pounds of coke for

736
00:42:46,719 --> 00:42:50,440
Speaker 1: six and a half million bucks that Dolrian or you know,

737
00:42:50,560 --> 00:42:54,439
Speaker 1: through his channels with then quickly turn around and sell

738
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:59,160
Speaker 1: for twenty four million dollars, which would um in theory

739
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 1: I guess, solve his financial problem with shutting the company down,

740
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 1: or at least that's how he saw it. But like

741
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:08,160
Speaker 1: you said, he was a paid in Hoffman was a

742
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 1: paid informant. There was another guy on the scene who

743
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:14,799
Speaker 1: was a real undercover FBI agent named John Ballestra, who

744
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:20,120
Speaker 1: DeLorean thought was a mob guy. And these famous videos

745
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:22,440
Speaker 1: came out. If you grew up in that era, you

746
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:26,160
Speaker 1: saw these videos with your own eyeballs. Um, we'll get

747
00:43:26,200 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 1: to the twist on how that happened in a minute,

748
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:32,239
Speaker 1: But uh, there were these famous videos of this deal

749
00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:33,759
Speaker 1: that went down in I think it was like a

750
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:37,800
Speaker 1: hotel room where it's all very clearly laid out. And

751
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:41,440
Speaker 1: Hoffman even gives Delrian a chance to back out, and

752
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:44,479
Speaker 1: Delirian says, I want to proceed. He tries to coke.

753
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 1: He says, this stuff is like better than gold. Um.

754
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:49,800
Speaker 1: But what it came down to, and we'll get to

755
00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:51,560
Speaker 1: the court case in a minute, is whether or not

756
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 1: they entrapped Delirian and came to him with this idea,

757
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:00,879
Speaker 1: or whether or not he hatched the idea, and whether

758
00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:04,399
Speaker 1: or not DeLorean you know, was right in saying that, like, hey,

759
00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:07,440
Speaker 1: this guy was threatening my family. Uh. He said, I'm

760
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:09,680
Speaker 1: gonna send your baby's daughter's head home in a shopping

761
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:16,080
Speaker 1: bag and that's kind of where everything hinged in the trial, right,

762
00:44:16,160 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 1: And it would turn out that the jury basically said, like, yes, dude,

763
00:44:20,239 --> 00:44:24,600
Speaker 1: this guy was totally set up, ensnared, entrapped, um if

764
00:44:24,640 --> 00:44:27,520
Speaker 1: you want to just look at it. Most basically, John

765
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:30,240
Speaker 1: DeLorean wasn't the one who came up with this drug scheme.

766
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:34,000
Speaker 1: He was approached by an FBI informant to to who

767
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:37,800
Speaker 1: proposed the drug scheme DeLorean. That in and of itself

768
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: is entrapment. But there was also mauthfeasance by the FBI

769
00:44:41,719 --> 00:44:44,960
Speaker 1: agents working the case. They would backdate like reports and

770
00:44:45,080 --> 00:44:47,880
Speaker 1: stuff like that and alter reports like it was just

771
00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:51,360
Speaker 1: shady from the get go. And and James Hoffman didn't

772
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: come off as a particularly trustworthy person on the stand either.

773
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:59,400
Speaker 1: So in typical John DeLorean fashion, the jury acquitted him

774
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 1: on all counts in August. So he went from being

775
00:45:03,760 --> 00:45:09,520
Speaker 1: caught with twenty four kilos of cocaine to walking on

776
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:13,279
Speaker 1: all counts. Um. And And that's just John Deloran. That's

777
00:45:13,320 --> 00:45:16,600
Speaker 1: the John Delorrian story. With the press covering this breathlessly

778
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:19,919
Speaker 1: every step of the way. Yeah, and here's a couple

779
00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:22,319
Speaker 1: of addendums, one of which and I don't know if

780
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:25,280
Speaker 1: this is true, but there are rumors that the British

781
00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:30,759
Speaker 1: government held off on closing down that plant in cahoots

782
00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:34,839
Speaker 1: with the American government long enough to get him set

783
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 1: up and captured. So what's funny is apparently Delirian was

784
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:43,360
Speaker 1: working on his own grift where he was supposed to

785
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:45,359
Speaker 1: put up two million dollars of the money to buy

786
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 1: this cocaine initially, and he didn't have it. So he said,

787
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:51,000
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna give you guys, controlling stakes

788
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:54,920
Speaker 1: of my company. And what he did was give these

789
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:58,160
Speaker 1: people that he thought were mobsters in bed with Pablo

790
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 1: Escobar control of a shell company that had his name

791
00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:06,960
Speaker 1: on it, that was dormant, that didn't have any assets whatsoever,

792
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:09,560
Speaker 1: that was now owned by the British government. So he

793
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:12,480
Speaker 1: was going to handcuff mobsters to the British government and

794
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:15,320
Speaker 1: take their money, uh in the form of the cocaine

795
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:17,960
Speaker 1: profits that he was going to share and walk away

796
00:46:18,000 --> 00:46:20,880
Speaker 1: with it. About that part, that's why he was planning

797
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:24,160
Speaker 1: on doing. Uh. The little twist that I mentioned about

798
00:46:24,280 --> 00:46:28,440
Speaker 1: how America saw this video so readily was that Larry

799
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:34,520
Speaker 1: flint Um, publisher of Hustler magazine, Um he got ahold

800
00:46:34,560 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 1: of those tapes, and he's the one that handed them

801
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 1: up for two bbs. And that's why everyone got to

802
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:41,400
Speaker 1: see it, and they had a hard time getting a

803
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:43,840
Speaker 1: trial off the ground because it was, you know, on

804
00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: the evening news and like I was a teenager and

805
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:50,239
Speaker 1: I saw this stuff, right, so like everybody saw it.

806
00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:52,839
Speaker 1: So eventually, you know, like like you said that they

807
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:57,000
Speaker 1: managed to scrape a jury together that said, uh, I

808
00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:58,600
Speaker 1: think some of the quotes where they thought he was

809
00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:02,520
Speaker 1: a shabby or no, Hoffman was a shabby creep and

810
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 1: was not believable at all. But they also thought a

811
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:09,560
Speaker 1: Dorians not innocent here, but it was entrapped meant so

812
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 1: we have to say not guilty, right, and they did

813
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:14,880
Speaker 1: again he walked. But the thing is is like he's

814
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:21,480
Speaker 1: like his finances are a mess, Like he's stolen tens,

815
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:25,160
Speaker 1: if not hundreds of millions of dollars from the British government. Um.

816
00:47:25,640 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 1: His I don't know what he was doing with the

817
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:29,840
Speaker 1: money because he wasn't paying the mortgage on his a

818
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:34,239
Speaker 1: state in New Jersey. UM. So he ends up losing that. Um.

819
00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 1: There's another frog case that was brought against him in Detroit. UM.

820
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:41,719
Speaker 1: And he he was accused of stealing seventeen and a

821
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:46,360
Speaker 1: half million dollars in regards to the to Dolirian Motor

822
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:49,400
Speaker 1: Company and it's funding, and he managed to get away

823
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:53,320
Speaker 1: with that one too, and his his UM attorney, Howard Whitzman,

824
00:47:53,400 --> 00:47:56,760
Speaker 1: later said that he he was unfairly accused and entrapped

825
00:47:56,800 --> 00:48:00,239
Speaker 1: in the cocaine case, but that the acquittalent of Troit

826
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 1: was a miracle, Like he was totally guilty and he

827
00:48:04,080 --> 00:48:08,440
Speaker 1: still got off um. But although he wasn't ever put

828
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:11,080
Speaker 1: in prison, his life was just becoming more and more

829
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:13,719
Speaker 1: ruined because he liked to live a certain way, but

830
00:48:13,840 --> 00:48:15,920
Speaker 1: he had less and less money to pay for it,

831
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:18,880
Speaker 1: and fewer and fewer people he could scam. Yeah, his

832
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 1: that same attorney also said, and this is kind of

833
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:23,040
Speaker 1: nails it on the head. I think he said, I've

834
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:25,960
Speaker 1: represented many people over the years, but John de Lorean

835
00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:28,160
Speaker 1: had one of the most warped views of right and

836
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:32,279
Speaker 1: wrong and uh. In the documentaries with the footage, you

837
00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:35,120
Speaker 1: can really get a sense that he really justified a

838
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 1: lot of what he did. Um, you know, do you

839
00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:40,280
Speaker 1: keep the car company going to keep that plan open?

840
00:48:40,440 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 1: And that those are the things that people who have

841
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:46,840
Speaker 1: been drifting and are and are entitled, like you'll often

842
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 1: hear someone describing them as not really having an understanding

843
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:55,520
Speaker 1: of what's truly right and wrong. That Bedminster estate eventually

844
00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:59,800
Speaker 1: would wind up being sold to Donald Trump. Uh, and

845
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 1: that's when you hear about the Bedminster golf Club. That's

846
00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:05,919
Speaker 1: the one they're talking about. That was Delorean's estate. Yeah,

847
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:09,080
Speaker 1: the one that you lived by, the one that the

848
00:49:09,160 --> 00:49:13,960
Speaker 1: other reason. Uh. He got divorced to for Our just

849
00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 1: a couple of months after the verdict. And although like

850
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:20,319
Speaker 1: modern day for Our really kind of gushes about him.

851
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:21,880
Speaker 1: She was like, oh, John was just the best and

852
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:24,840
Speaker 1: we had so much fun, and but she got the

853
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 1: heck out of Dodge. He got married to Sally Baldwin

854
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:31,520
Speaker 1: in two thousand two. They had a daughter. He had

855
00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:35,279
Speaker 1: plans to hatch a new car company. I think for

856
00:49:35,320 --> 00:49:38,320
Speaker 1: a while he wanted to make a watch, um that

857
00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:41,319
Speaker 1: was gonna be powered by your movement, which I think

858
00:49:41,400 --> 00:49:44,759
Speaker 1: is a real thing now, right. I not that one,

859
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:46,800
Speaker 1: but they there are watches that are powered by that

860
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:50,239
Speaker 1: your movement, right. I I went to look up and

861
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:52,520
Speaker 1: see if any of these watches were ever made, and

862
00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:57,200
Speaker 1: when I stumbled upon was a very limited edition watch.

863
00:49:57,880 --> 00:50:00,440
Speaker 1: There were four and fifty of them. This is not company,

864
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:03,879
Speaker 1: but someone got ahold of his original Dolorean and made

865
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:06,960
Speaker 1: watches out of them. And I'm not a watch guy,

866
00:50:07,040 --> 00:50:08,799
Speaker 1: but I saw this watch and I was like, oh, man,

867
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:11,920
Speaker 1: I think it's a nice looking Oh yeah, but it's

868
00:50:11,960 --> 00:50:16,400
Speaker 1: two grands. So watch guy, that's not happening. Speaking of

869
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:21,200
Speaker 1: collector stuff, apparently in the nine American Express Christmas catalog

870
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:26,880
Speaker 1: they were offering gold twenty four gold plated Doloreans and

871
00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:30,520
Speaker 1: two of them sold. So two gold plated Dolorians exist

872
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:33,360
Speaker 1: in the world. One of them is at like Peterson

873
00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:36,400
Speaker 1: Auto Museum in Los Angeles, I think, but for a

874
00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 1: while it was in the lobby of Snyder National Bank

875
00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:43,480
Speaker 1: of Snyder, Texas. Some Snyder oil man, I'm sure, scraped

876
00:50:43,560 --> 00:50:46,560
Speaker 1: up one of the two from the American Express Christmas

877
00:50:47,520 --> 00:50:51,120
Speaker 1: pocket in the lobby, and I want I don't know

878
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:55,239
Speaker 1: about that one either. I don't want something to go

879
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:58,359
Speaker 1: by unmarked. He had a daughter, another like you said,

880
00:50:58,400 --> 00:51:02,279
Speaker 1: another daughter, Sheila. He was seventy seven at the time.

881
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 1: He died three years later. After he had a daughter.

882
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:09,800
Speaker 1: He died three years later at a j d And

883
00:51:09,920 --> 00:51:12,719
Speaker 1: that nuts. Yeah, he died of a stroke. But how

884
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:17,800
Speaker 1: was he buried. He was buried in a black motorcycle jacket, jeans,

885
00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:23,800
Speaker 1: denim shirt, and sunglasses tucked into the jacket. Yeah, probably

886
00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:28,319
Speaker 1: de Lorian sunglasses, I would guess probably. And there's ae. Yeah,

887
00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:31,640
Speaker 1: it's got a d M C twelve with the doors open. Yeah,

888
00:51:32,040 --> 00:51:36,600
Speaker 1: I looked it up. I'm probably gonna get the same thing. Yeah,

889
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:40,520
Speaker 1: the same headstone. Yeah, I'll be like, I just make

890
00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 1: his again, but put my name on. Uh. So we

891
00:51:43,960 --> 00:51:45,960
Speaker 1: can't not talk about back to the Future a little

892
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:49,000
Speaker 1: bit here at the end um Obviously, that's where the

893
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:52,439
Speaker 1: car got so much notoriety was from that huge, huge

894
00:51:52,520 --> 00:51:56,960
Speaker 1: movie that was turned into a time machine, and it

895
00:51:57,000 --> 00:51:58,600
Speaker 1: was supposed to be a Mustang. They had a deal

896
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:02,440
Speaker 1: with the producers with Mustang where they were gonna, you know,

897
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:06,920
Speaker 1: it's a product placement thing, and apparently Bob Gayle, who

898
00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:09,640
Speaker 1: had been working on the script with Zamka, said, uh,

899
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 1: Doc doesn't drive effing Mustang. Even though I never I

900
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 1: know this is nipicky, but I never thought the DeLorean

901
00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:19,759
Speaker 1: was Doc's car. I figured he just sourced it for

902
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 1: this project, right, Yeah, I never gave it that much

903
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:25,960
Speaker 1: thought either. But I mean Bob Gales like the he's

904
00:52:26,040 --> 00:52:29,200
Speaker 1: like the writer of the script, you know, of course,

905
00:52:29,960 --> 00:52:33,760
Speaker 1: But because the Dolorean was very undependable, much like Bruce

906
00:52:33,880 --> 00:52:36,719
Speaker 1: the Shark and Jaws, this car did not work well

907
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:40,239
Speaker 1: at all, and the apparently the prop guys and the

908
00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:43,239
Speaker 1: FX guys were always being called on set just to

909
00:52:43,280 --> 00:52:45,719
Speaker 1: get this thing like running, and they had a really

910
00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:49,520
Speaker 1: hard time filming that sequence in the parking lot. Yeah,

911
00:52:49,680 --> 00:52:52,120
Speaker 1: I mean, like the car broke down. That's how bad

912
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:55,000
Speaker 1: those things were. And this was just a couple of

913
00:52:55,080 --> 00:52:57,160
Speaker 1: years after it was built. This wasn't like years and

914
00:52:57,280 --> 00:52:59,680
Speaker 1: years later, like this car should have been running just fine.

915
00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:02,759
Speaker 1: So I find that hilarious. But there's one other thing

916
00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:05,920
Speaker 1: about that movie too, to those of us to to

917
00:53:06,080 --> 00:53:11,960
Speaker 1: like my my cohort and beyond, that movie completely rehabilitated

918
00:53:12,080 --> 00:53:16,920
Speaker 1: and changed the opinion of the DeLorean and John Delorian himself.

919
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:19,360
Speaker 1: Had that movie not come along, he would have been

920
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:22,400
Speaker 1: known as like a coke dealer who got off, a grifter,

921
00:53:22,800 --> 00:53:26,120
Speaker 1: a scam artist, and somehow being associated with Back to

922
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:28,399
Speaker 1: the Future in his car being chosen as a time

923
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:31,759
Speaker 1: machine just changed the way that people see him. I

924
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:34,840
Speaker 1: think in history. Yeah, I mean if you've gotta I

925
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 1: don't know how much they are, but if you've got

926
00:53:35,960 --> 00:53:37,279
Speaker 1: a lot of money, you can get one of those

927
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:42,799
Speaker 1: tricked out like uh like Doc Brown's that that dude

928
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:46,200
Speaker 1: from uh that wrote Ready Player one has got one

929
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:50,920
Speaker 1: famously with the you know, the little rocket boosters on

930
00:53:51,000 --> 00:53:53,160
Speaker 1: the back and all that fun stuff that flex capacitor.

931
00:53:53,719 --> 00:53:56,200
Speaker 1: So he's got like the time machine version while oh yeah,

932
00:53:56,200 --> 00:53:58,040
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. You can you can buy those

933
00:53:58,719 --> 00:54:00,840
Speaker 1: like fully kidded out, look like the Back to the

934
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:04,600
Speaker 1: Future car. That's pretty cool. I want to drive one

935
00:54:04,640 --> 00:54:07,840
Speaker 1: one day. If someone's got one, I'll fly to you

936
00:54:08,440 --> 00:54:10,480
Speaker 1: and have dinner with you and your family if you'll

937
00:54:10,560 --> 00:54:14,520
Speaker 1: let me drive it. You should look at George. Look

938
00:54:14,600 --> 00:54:17,000
Speaker 1: up George rr Martin. He has one and he's in

939
00:54:17,080 --> 00:54:20,080
Speaker 1: New Merco, which you love now, so go visit him.

940
00:54:20,320 --> 00:54:26,000
Speaker 1: All the all the famous rich geeks have him. So

941
00:54:26,120 --> 00:54:28,480
Speaker 1: that's it hunh forre Delrian. Yeah, that's a fun one

942
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:33,719
Speaker 1: that I love these episodes. Good story, good story, Good job, Chuck. Uh.

943
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:36,239
Speaker 1: And since Chuck said good story, I said, good job.

944
00:54:36,520 --> 00:54:39,080
Speaker 1: You put those two together. Carry the one you've got.

945
00:54:39,200 --> 00:54:44,400
Speaker 1: Listener mail uh, oh boy, I should read this one,

946
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:47,719
Speaker 1: but it's super long, so we'll save that. Our old

947
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:50,080
Speaker 1: friend put together a best tangents list again from the

948
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:53,399
Speaker 1: year great. But well, we'll read that one later because

949
00:54:53,400 --> 00:54:58,200
Speaker 1: this one. I'm gonna call this Chuck's a vacation. Hey, guys.

950
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:00,320
Speaker 1: Over the New Year's holiday, my husband, kids, errands of

951
00:55:00,400 --> 00:55:03,400
Speaker 1: my sister's family rented a big condo in northern Michigan.

952
00:55:04,040 --> 00:55:06,000
Speaker 1: The first morning, over breakfast, I asked my sister how

953
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:09,319
Speaker 1: she slept. Actually, pretty terrible. We must be right over

954
00:55:09,360 --> 00:55:11,800
Speaker 1: the furnace. It was really loud, kept banging on and

955
00:55:11,880 --> 00:55:14,279
Speaker 1: off all night. Maybe I need some white noise. And

956
00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:18,000
Speaker 1: I said, you know, Charles W. Chuck Bryant prefers brown noise,

957
00:55:18,520 --> 00:55:19,719
Speaker 1: and I have to say I agree with them and

958
00:55:19,800 --> 00:55:23,200
Speaker 1: find brown noise superior to white noise. And yes, I

959
00:55:23,239 --> 00:55:27,560
Speaker 1: said the full name, mimicking Josh introducing him. You put

960
00:55:27,640 --> 00:55:31,040
Speaker 1: you play a part two. Chuck likes brown noise. I've

961
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:33,160
Speaker 1: never heard of that. Then we promptly went through the

962
00:55:33,239 --> 00:55:36,320
Speaker 1: various noises and the colors, and all of us found brown,

963
00:55:36,520 --> 00:55:40,120
Speaker 1: all of us to be the most soothing. The backstory

964
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:41,800
Speaker 1: here is my sister is the one who introduced me

965
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:43,880
Speaker 1: to your show. You both love it. We all love

966
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:47,279
Speaker 1: the random topics. Thank you too are a hoot. When

967
00:55:47,320 --> 00:55:49,680
Speaker 1: we're wrapping up a phone call or text exchange, are

968
00:55:49,760 --> 00:55:51,759
Speaker 1: running jokes. Is to say, we're really busy because we

969
00:55:51,880 --> 00:55:54,960
Speaker 1: need to listen to an episode now if excuse me,

970
00:55:55,000 --> 00:55:57,440
Speaker 1: I need to get back to understanding how circus families work.

971
00:55:58,080 --> 00:56:00,120
Speaker 1: That's a good one. That is a good one. Then

972
00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:02,080
Speaker 1: half the time we start talking about what we found

973
00:56:02,480 --> 00:56:06,600
Speaker 1: fascinating about the last episode. Circling back, my sister tried

974
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:08,879
Speaker 1: the brown noise, slept like a baby for the rest

975
00:56:08,920 --> 00:56:10,799
Speaker 1: of the vacation, and so Chuck really saved the day.

976
00:56:11,160 --> 00:56:15,759
Speaker 1: And that is from Hillary. Are uh ved? NL And

977
00:56:16,160 --> 00:56:18,920
Speaker 1: uh she didn't mention her sister's name, which is really selfish.

978
00:56:20,800 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 1: Well thanks a lot, Hillary, Uh and you're unnamed sister.

979
00:56:25,600 --> 00:56:28,759
Speaker 1: I'm kidding, of course, no, of course. Um. If you

980
00:56:28,840 --> 00:56:31,120
Speaker 1: want to be like Hillary and not be selfish, you

981
00:56:31,320 --> 00:56:34,440
Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeart

982
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:40,040
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production

983
00:56:40,120 --> 00:56:43,479
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit

984
00:56:43,560 --> 00:56:46,320
Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

985
00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:47,680
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows,