WEBVTT - Let's Talk About John DeLorean 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.240 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:20.000 there's Chuck Jerry's here, and this is stuff you should broom. 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:23.040 Stuff you should know. Everybody calmed out. Stuff you should 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:28.360 know about his specific car Carmaker a legend and uh 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:34.440 possibly a real jackass. Who did this for us? Was 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:38.080 this Olivia? Yeah? Olivia helps us with this one? Can 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:42.480 we read that? How she titled it? Sure? John Delorian 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:48.760 Colin celebrity weirdo Carmaker. She pretty much nailed it in 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:51.880 the title. It's true like he was a celebrity. It 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:54.880 was very weird, and he was a car maker as 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:56.440 a matter of fact, that's where he started to get 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.440 his celebrity was in car making. But she likens it 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:04.440 um and I think quite correctly, to the rise of 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:08.720 or he he prefigured the rise of the worshiped tech 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:12.840 god like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberger. These people who 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:17.319 have been held up um to these amazing standards and 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:19.280 like you just think they can do anything. They're doing 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:21.120 all this amazing stuff when it really turns out that 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:24.479 there you know, they just want to party with some starlets, 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:28.560 you know, and that's that's a lot what John Delorrian's 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:30.600 life was like. He was like, Okay, I got here, 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.640 and now I want to do everything that's fun and 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:37.080 has nothing to do with how I got here, and 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.360 that inevitably leads to the downfall or as I saw 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:43.440 it really aptly put in one of the articles, um, 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:49.400 he succumbed to that most American of maladies. He believed 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:52.960 in his own myth. You never want to do that, everybody. 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:56.880 Have you seen either one of the documentaries I haven't 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:00.280 yet know. Okay, there's two. There's one I watched couple 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.560 of years ago called Framing John de Lorean, which is 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.400 a sort of a weird mix of documentary and narrative film, 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:11.480 and that they do these very like high quality like 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:14.600 it's a movie recrease recreations for those of you not 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:18.200 in the viz, with Alec Baldwin as John de Lorian. 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:21.240 And then there was another one that there's a three 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:27.040 part on Netflix called Myth and Mogul John DeLorean. I 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:29.040 think it's I don't know why they split these up, 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:31.200 because it ends up being like two hours and fifteen 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.799 minutes long with the three parts put together. But they're 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:39.360 both really good and I watch both of them before 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:43.440 this was even an idea because I was a little 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.760 fascinated with a guy because I'm a child of the 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:51.280 eighties and I remember, as you probably do, on the 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:55.080 rare occasion when you would see a DeLorean or be 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:58.000 in a neighborhood where the kids like, there's a DeLorean 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:02.480 in our neighborhood, like and So's dad has one. Uh. 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:06.560 They were that rare, that cool, that different. Uh. And 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:09.560 I also lived in Bernardsville, New Jersey after college, which 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:13.360 was just about three or four miles from where John 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.120 Delian lived, and I remember when I moved there and 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:17.400 they're like, yeah, John de Lorian lives like right down 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:19.799 the road. Was that when he lived in as a 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.320 state or a condo? Yeah, that was when he lived 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:25.400 in Bedminster And we'll get to the history there and 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.440 whose hands that ended up in. But uh do Lorian 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:30.680 was just a person who really I was at the 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:32.960 right age I think when it all came crumbling down 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:36.000 and of course back to the future. Like, he was 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:39.480 just someone I was fascinated with and I loved watching 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.880 these ducks and I loved like doing this research. Well, 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.800 I mean, he isn't an astoundingly fascinating person. Yeah, I'm 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:49.360 saying I hold him up to some like great human 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.000 but just fascinated by him. Like you said, there there 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:54.200 are people out there who do who consider him a 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:58.080 visionary and he was image he was, sure, but he 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.960 was also like a straight up grifter and a con 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:06.040 man and a lot of really really important ways. He 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.600 was also what I would call a proto douche as 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:13.160 it will become a parent later on. Sure, but he 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:15.040 was all these things and more. He was also a 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.280 great self promoter. But what's amazing about it is if 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:20.560 you step back and look at his background and where 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:23.520 he came from and how he became famous, it was 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:27.600 through his own smarts. It was through his own uh 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:30.800 great education that his parents made sure he got. It 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.240 was he was an engineer. He was a car engineer, 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.080 and that's how he made his name by doing really good, 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:40.560 amazing work. And then eventually he kind of Peter principals 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.320 himself out of that work and into that's when he 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.720 started to get into trouble. Yeah. I think when I 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:47.760 was younger, when I was a teenager and knew that 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:50.600 sort of the lore, I thought that he was just 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:54.000 some rich guy who had this vanity project of a 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:57.880 car company. Um. I did not know until much much 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.839 later that he was a really great, sort of brilliant 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:05.359 engineer and like put so many great cars on the 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:09.040 map at GM as a as a young executive, and 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:11.280 I think I appreciated him a lot more. It's like, Okay, 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:14.240 this guy like he knew what he was doing. He uh, 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.720 he had certainly tons of faults, like you said, but 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.320 he wasn't. I just thought he was a rich guy 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.840 who's like, I want to a cool different car. No. No, 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.120 he definitely knew what he was talking about. And apparently 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:28.080 when he was coming up with the Delirian d m 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:31.560 C twelve, the Dolrian the only model he ever came 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:35.640 out with. Um, god, I hope that's correct, because they're 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:38.160 gonna get so many emails if it's not. But there 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:40.479 are a few versions of that one, okay, but they 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.200 were all d m C twelves, Right God, I think so, now, okay, 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:48.360 we're just gonna move forward. Chocolate's just soldier on right. Um. 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:50.840 He wanted that to be like a valuable car. It 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:53.839 was named the d m C twelve because he wanted 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.359 to to the starting price to be twelve thousand dollars 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.640 an affordable, you know, at the time, expensive but still 0:05:59.800 --> 0:06:01.960 not out of the reach of somebody who wanted to 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:04.680 really get one of these. It wasn't just for the 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:07.880 rich and wealthy and famous. He wanted to be reliable. 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:12.320 The prototype had air bags, it had an onboard computer, 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.560 it had anti theft system. This is like in the 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.279 early eighties. This is long before anybody was doing stuff 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.040 like that, and so he really did want to make 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:24.520 a really good car. It just didn't quite work out 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:27.000 that way because he got into his own way. I 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:31.120 would say he had a emergency handbrake on the left 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:36.640 of the driver so some angry friend in the passenger 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:39.840 seat couldn't yank it up and kill you. Is that true. Well, 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:41.000 I don't know if that's why I did it, but 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:42.880 it makes sense put it on the left so no 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.280 one else can. That makes sense. I wonder if it's 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.160 because most people are right handed, or more people are 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.599 right handed. I don't know. I say we can start 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:53.680 back at the beginning, chuck, because we're getting in our 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.800 own way now, that's right. He was born John Zachary 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:01.880 do Lorian in Detroit, No surprise, in ninety Uh. He 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:04.640 was born to not a lot of money. Um. In 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:07.919 one of the documentaries they described his neighborhood is fairly 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:12.280 run down. His parents were immigrants. His dad was from 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:16.240 He was Romanian and his mom was Hungarian. She was 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:20.920 a line worker at GE and his dad was UM, 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.800 a foundry worker and a union guy, union organizer, but 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:27.960 not a good dude. Um drank a lot, was abusive 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:32.080 and he did not see him again after his about 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:37.640 sixteenth or seventeenth birthday. I think when his mom divorced him. Right, Um. 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:39.520 And like I said, he was he got a really 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.000 good education, but he was also a really great student. UM. 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:46.120 And he went to technical school. He went to cast 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:49.120 Technical High School, he went to Lawrence Institute of Technology, 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:53.040 and he was basically set up to become a car 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:57.600 engineer from a very early age. UM. He fought in 0:07:57.640 --> 0:07:59.960 the army during World War Two and then came back 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:02.800 can got a degree from the Chrysler Institute, and then 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:07.000 finally in nineteen fifty six, became a full fledged auto engineer, 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:09.880 starting with Packard and then he moved to General Motors. 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:14.120 And with General Motors that's where he would um start 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:17.520 to make his name. Yeah, he was married a few times, 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:20.280 and we'll kind of touch on the various wives. It 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:23.360 sounds like he wasn't the best husband in the world. UM, 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:27.080 but I don't think he well, I don't know. I 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:28.760 don't want to go there, because when you're not in 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:30.720 a marriage, how can you comment and how it really is, 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.200 you know. Uh. In nineteen fifty four, though, he married 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:37.280 Elizabeth Higgins, who was his first wife. Uh. They were 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.760 married for about a decade, never had kids. UM. And 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.559 that's when he like kind of first got his career 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:48.640 going at GM with Pontiac, and he I think in 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:52.320 this documentary described himself um early on at least as 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.520 the squarest guy at General Motors UM, which is just 0:08:56.760 --> 0:09:00.199 noteworthy because of what he became, which was certain not 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.360 a square guy at all. Right. He also had a 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:07.680 bunch of patents to his name, like the recessed windshield wiper, 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:13.760 the hidden radio antenna's stacked headlights, I mean, stuff that 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:16.440 you still see on cars today, where it certainly did 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:19.800 for many many years after he invented him UM, and 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:23.559 he he ran into a problem really quickly. Though. He 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:27.800 had a really good eye for design, and he also 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:30.880 realized that youth culture was starting to become a thing, 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:37.199 like teenagers were suddenly invented, and teenagers liked cars. But 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:39.920 the problem was Detroit was putting out a certain type 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.360 of car, and that was a big giant boat. Um 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:47.360 that you you couldn't even feel any movement whatsoever, and 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:50.400 you were just floating down the road. And that's what 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.560 GM thought everyone would want, because that's what the old 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:58.400 execs that GM wanted. Uh and and DeLorean saw very 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:00.920 early on that this is wrong. There's a whole sector 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:03.400 out there that we're not even touching, and he really 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:06.520 kind of focused on that. Yeah, and this was also 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:08.439 a time too. I want to point out that, um, 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:13.040 the car industry. If you're a certain age, you might 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:16.640 remember this a little bit, but if you're younger, you know, 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:19.839 you know, foreign cars, imported cars, there's all kind of 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.560 cars out there in American cars. Sure, some are fine, 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.480 but it's just the American car industry. Back then, the 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:30.400 American car industry was These were the biggest corporations in 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:34.160 the world and they were rock stars. We talked a 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:37.160 little bit about it in the Pinto episode, I guess, 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:42.920 but these were huge, huge corporations and they were the biggest, 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:48.360 baddest executives in the world worked for these car companies 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:51.000 in Detroit, so, like you said, they sort of like 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.800 the big boats. He came along said, let's make cars 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.079 that are cooler. I think there were some people in 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.719 the management that we're um. You know a lot of 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:03.600 them weren't on board, but somewhere on board because they 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.959 were taking these kind of cooler prototypes out apparently in 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:11.600 the evenings and like drag racing in Detroit against teenagers. Yeah, 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:14.719 he went to work specifically for Bunkie Knudson, who made 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:17.679 an appearance in the Pinto app I believe, I think 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.320 so Ya and Bunky Knudson was running Pontiac at the time, 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:25.559 and back then Pontiac was just considered the lamest um 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:30.760 old person's um medallion. That there wasn't any car company 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.880 at all, not just in GM. Pontiac was just a snooze. 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:39.320 And so the idea that Bunky Knudson and um John 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:41.760 DeLorean were kind of tapped into the same vibe that 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.360 wait a minute, whether there's a there's younger kids that 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:47.080 that want cars and we're not making them for him. 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:50.559 Bunky Knutson apparently said, um, you can never sell a 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.080 young man in old band's car, but you can always 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:56.280 sell an old man a young man's car. And they 0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:01.040 actually changed the car industry based on that premise. And um, 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:04.439 the way that Dolorean did it was by taking the 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.320 Pontiac Tempest, which was a pretty cool looking mid sized 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:12.160 Pontiac and putting a Bonneville engine, which was a large 0:12:12.200 --> 0:12:16.880 sized Pontiac, a Bonneville engine into the Tempest and making 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:20.680 it go room really fast, which the teenagers just loved. Yeah, 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:24.599 it was a huge hit. Apparently GM even had a 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:26.920 rule that said you can't put that big of an 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.679 engine in a car this size, but they did it 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:33.079 anyway as a special option on the sixty four Tempest, 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.559 and Delirian named this, of course, the g t O. 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.760 It was the g t O package initially UH and 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:42.560 he named it after the UH. It was a Ferrari, 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:45.160 but there were sort of road racing cars in Italy 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:51.839 were Grand treism I'm sorry and Tarismos very nice, and 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.880 that's where GTO comes from. And it was a huge 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:58.800 hit out of the gate. UH and Pontiac. All of 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:02.640 a sudden it from snooze too. Boy, I wish I 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:08.680 had something that rhymed that wasn't lose cruise. Yeah, towards 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:14.880 the top. Oh boy, that was perfect stuff. You should 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.400 know material that was the best I could come up with. No, 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.720 that's right. Pontiac was just hottest fire all of a sudden. Yeah, 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.079 So Delrian created the first muscle car. The g t 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.640 O is widely considered the first muscle car, and it 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:29.319 kicked off this huge trend of muscle cars and you 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:32.319 can thank John Delrian for that. Um. The g t 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:37.000 O also was hugely successful because DeLorean and Knudson and 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:41.720 the Pantiac gang um figured out that you really wanted 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.440 to market these things a certain way too, so they 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.679 marketed the g t O specifically towards young people. I 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:51.360 think one of their ads said, the Pontiac GTO by 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:55.240 one before you're too old to understand. I'm not kidding 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:57.480 like that was that was an advertisement. There was g 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:00.720 t O cologne. Tom McCann came out with some GTO 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:05.280 driving shoes and the soul was Yeah. This the soul 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:09.079 was designed to fit right into the pedal of a 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:11.480 g t O so you could push the pedal to 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:15.480 the metal faster and go balls out. Oh that's right. 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:20.360 This all reminded me of my dad, who, even though 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:23.080 he was an elementary school principal, um went out without 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:26.120 asking my mom at all and he bought a Porsche 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:31.000 nine eleven, which we could not afford. And he immediately 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:36.960 had the Porsche sunglasses, the Porsche jacket, the Porsche hat, 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.080 baseball cap, and I think, like one other Porsche thing. 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:43.000 He was not to be disturbed. He's eating his Porsche 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:47.640 breakfast cereal. At the time, I thought, you know, you know, 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:49.480 your dad brings some a portion nine eleven. It was 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:51.160 beautiful and he had all this stuff, and I was like, 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:53.160 how cool. And then I got a little older and 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:55.280 I was like, what a what a terrible thing to 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:59.680 do in a here, I know, without asking, good lutle 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:01.640 if I nancial stress it caused. And then all this 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.560 do she side stuff he was wearing. I was scanning him. 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:10.320 We'll get in all that. So back to back to 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:14.000 John DeLorean. Because of that G t O thing, Um, 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.920 he was promoted to the head of Pontiac. I'm not 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.400 sure where Bunky Newtson went. Maybe this is when Newson 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:21.920 went over to Ford to work with the Pinto. But 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:24.360 he was forty at the time and there was a 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:28.600 great article on this if it's the longest long form ever. 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.280 It's called Demon Underneath was by Alex Popademus. It's on 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:37.080 the outline, and he basically says that UM that Dolrian 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:39.920 was the youngest general manager at GM. He was forty 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.080 and that at the time that made him basically pre 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:46.240 pubescent by Detroit standards, being forty, So it was a 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.200 really big deal that he was made general manager of 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:52.280 Pontiac UH. That that's how big of a breakthrough the 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:54.760 g t O was. And then as if that weren't enough, 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:57.600 he followed it up with the Firebird and then the 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:04.400 Grand Prix. So in three three years he invented no 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.880 I'm sorry, In about five years he invented the g 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:10.120 t O of the Firebird in the Grand Prix. I 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:13.280 mean legend man, total legend. He could have retired then 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.560 and made his name in car history and not for 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:22.760 a bad cocaine deal execut He didn't though. He decided 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.600 to go a different way. And I saw it explained 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:28.600 as such, Chuck. I don't remember who said it like this, 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:31.280 but I think one of his UM, one of his 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.080 UH fellow travelers from the time and in that circle. 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:38.240 So that had he come up in sales, he would 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:42.000 have known very quickly that partying with Hollywood types is 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:44.600 kind of a snooze, that they're not actually good people. 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:46.880 They're not that much fun to be around. It's kind 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:50.440 of high stress. But he wasn't exposed to that until 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:54.040 much later on when he became an executive. But he 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:55.680 didn't come up from the sales side. He came up 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:57.800 from the engineering side, so he had no point of 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:00.120 reference for that. So to him, partying with Hall What 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:02.280 Stars was the coolest thing you could do, and it 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:04.720 was the first thing he started doing the first chance 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.480 he got. All right, I think it's a great cliffhanger 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:30.200 for our first break. Okay, Chuck, now we've reached the 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:35.119 point where John Delorian transforms into Dan Ackroyd as a 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:38.959 wild and crazy guy. I thought you canna see Dr 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:42.320 Detroit for a second. That kind of works too, But 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:45.560 I think I think wild and crazy guys even more accurate. Yeah, 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:48.600 very much, he um. And you know, this is sort 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.159 of evidence of the fact that these were the biggest 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:54.960 corporations in the world, because ask any American like who 0:17:55.800 --> 0:18:00.399 the top executives for GM are today and you unless 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:02.200 you're in you know, in the know or like a 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:04.560 big gear head. You probably and even then you might 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.240 not even know. But back then, like he was, he 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:12.239 made himself into a celebrity. He started dyeing his hair, 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:16.360 he went gray pretty early, and was a admittedly very 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:19.359 handsome man, but he he just was sort of this 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:25.119 idealized in the Magnum p I era of of this 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:27.240 is kind of pre Magnum, but just sort of that 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.760 era of that mackeismo. He was tall, and he had 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:33.520 this hair coming out of his shirt, like this hairy chest, 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:35.479 and he had a button his shirt and he had 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:39.320 this cool hair, and he you know, he he made 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:43.320 himself the like he said he were, Like I said, 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:45.399 he said he was a squarest guy, and I think 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:46.960 he just really wanted to change that. So all of 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:51.600 a sudden, he's dating, like literally dating Roquel Welch and Urson, 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:56.600 La Andrews and these you know, bombshell Hollywood actresses, and 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:01.040 of course divorces his first wife in eight uh and 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:04.639 we should mention that she sued him for cruelty. Uh 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:08.280 So he probably wasn't a great husband. But he immediately 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:10.520 gets married. This is sort of his m O is, like, 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:13.120 let me marry someone about half my age. He married 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:15.680 it's twenty year old named Kelly Harmon when he was 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:20.879 forty years old, and uh, they adopted their son, Zachary. Um. 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:23.000 Do you remember those weird tic tech ads from the 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:25.159 eighties where it was a real close up of a 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:28.000 blonde lady like talking about how much she enjoys just 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:32.240 one tic tech. Sure that's Kelly Harmon. Was that her? Yeah? 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.919 And it's Mark Harmon's sister, by the way. Oh. Another 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:39.720 fun thing from the documentary is um this came from 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:42.000 his own mouth. He was talking about his sex drive 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:44.720 and how like, you know, he has a pretty substantial 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:47.760 sex drive. And he said, you know what, what man 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.600 in history, No man in history has ever accomplished anything 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:54.920 that didn't have that trade. So I was like, oh wait, 0:19:55.040 --> 0:20:01.520 old podcasting comes around, my friend, now old it, Chuck 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:04.720 think about that though, he's the guy. He's the kind 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.240 of guy who would say that to a reporter and 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.600 then hope that the reporter kept that in the interview 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.600 when it was published. It's kind of Ron Burgundy esque, yeah, 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:19.040 but way more self aware, way more self aware Ron 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:22.359 Burgundy was or still is. I guess he's he has 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:26.960 a podcast himself. It just kind of aloof about himself. 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:31.280 John Delian was very tuned into himself. He just thought 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.560 that what he was doing was the coolest thing ever 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:38.840 and didn't realize that it actually wasn't super cool at all. Yeah, 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:44.680 he got facial reconstructive surgery. Uh and not throwing shade 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:45.960 of people want to do that kind of thing. But 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.119 he he went through a big midlife crisis. Is how 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:53.040 this one woman in the documentary who wrote a book, Um, 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:55.320 not about him, but she interviewed him for the book, 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:57.280 and I think he even kind of admitted it. When 0:20:57.280 --> 0:20:59.440 he hit his forties, he lost a bunch of weight, 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:04.000 grew out of sideburns, started dyeing his hair, got chin 0:21:04.200 --> 0:21:08.919 and jawline implants to make him look more masculine and rugged, 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.320 and started dressing. I think it was that guy that 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:15.720 wrote the article of Papa Demus said, Uh, he starts 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:17.919 showing up to manage a division of the most conservative 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:22.080 corporation in America, like he manages the Partridge family just 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:26.560 like Ruben Kincaid. Yeah so he um he but he 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:30.080 kept like bringing the goods, like even while he's having 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:36.840 this really embarrassing midlife crisis, Um, he's still he's still 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:40.120 creating like great cars, like he came out with them 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:43.960 the Monte Carlo. In nineteen sixty nine, he was the 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:46.560 head of the ship. He became head of Chevy, so 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:48.400 he moved from head of Pontiac the head of Chevy. 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:51.400 That's a big deal at that time. Um. And then 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:54.040 he even advanced all the way up to what they 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:57.160 called the fourteenth floor at GM. So even from Pontiac 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:01.360 to Chevy to now he's one of the main executives 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:04.920 running one of the biggest corporations in the country. And 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:07.800 he's walking around with like his chest hair sticking out, 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:13.240 making like finger guns at people, like like on his 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:16.680 way to meeting. But the thing is he did not 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:19.200 fit into that world at all. He did not. He 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:22.280 he bristled at that kind of stuff, and they didn't 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.880 like him anymore than he liked them. Yeah, he um. 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:28.720 I think in seventy two he was the chief of 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:32.359 GM's truck and car division, which he said was about 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:36.639 of what they produced. And this was the first I 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:39.000 think he was rumored to be in line for president. 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.240 And this was when over these couple of years in 0:22:42.280 --> 0:22:46.080 the early seventies, was when the first whispers of like 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:48.480 how is this guy, like he makes good money, but 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:51.200 how is he living this kind of lifestyle and is 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:53.719 he grifting the company at all? And there were rumors 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:58.240 that he was taking kickbacks from parts people like suppliers, 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:02.119 and you know, the sort of rumors of impropriety started 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:05.400 cropping up around this time. What's crazy is this would 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:08.720 plague him for the rest of his life basically, and 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:13.000 yet any time like like something was formally done to 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:16.080 investigate him, to bring him up on charges, it just 0:23:16.720 --> 0:23:19.840