John DeLorean
John Zachary DeLorean ( born January 6, 1925 in Detroit, Michigan; † 19 March 2005 in Summit, New Jersey) was an American manager and sports car maker. He is best known for the development of muscle cars like the Pontiac GTO, the Firebird, and with his own company, the DeLorean Motor Company DMC - 12th
Life
John Zachary DeLorean was born in 1925 in Detroit, Michigan, as the oldest of four sons of Zachary and Kathryn Pribak DeLorean. His father, Zachary, who immigrated as a 20 year old from Romania to the United States was an employee of the Ford Motor Company. His mother, also an immigrant, was the Austro- Hungarian descent and worked at General Electric. His father drank and abused his family. The marriage was divorced in 1942.
DeLorean visited Detroit in a technical high school where he among other things, was taught by Evangeline Lodge Land, the mother of Charles Lindbergh. Its good performance enabled him to study at the Lawrence Institute of Technology, a recognized college in Detroit.
In 1943 he was drafted and served in the United States Army.
As his mother and siblings lived in poverty, DeLorean took for 18 months on a job with the Public Lighting Commission, before continuing his studies at the Lawrence Institute, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1952 and earned a master's degree in 1948.
DeLorean was employed from 1956 to 1972 at General Motors, most recently on the Board.
After his dismissal, he founded the DeLorean Motor Company to realize his dream of a safe, ethical, ecologically correct automobile. The only model ever produced, the DeLorean DMC-12 was designed as a two-seat sports car for the U.S. market and was produced in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. The car was known internationally by the films of the Back to the Future trilogy.
With a high weight and low engine but the vehicle was subject to the market targeted competitors such as the Chevrolet Corvette or a Porsche 911 The early 1980s onrushing crisis in the U.S. auto market and the expensive vehicle does not let the paragraph to which necessary would have to be sustained profitability. When, finally, there was the British government, which had supported the company with a high credit to the timely payment of interest receivable, had the DeLorean Motor Company Ltd.. Sign bankruptcy in February 1982. John DeLorean tried in vain in the following months to find new investors.
On October 19, 1982 DeLorean was arrested by the DEA and the FBI on charges of drug trafficking. A former drug smuggler and DEA informant had DeLorean involved in a fictional drug deal. The man had asked a DeLorean rescue his insolvent company by investors in view, but this turned out to be a financing through drug trafficking, smuggling and money laundering in the course of actual negotiations. In fact, DeLorean was received to the proposals made to him. During the negotiations with the agents of the DEA DeLorean wrote a letter which was to be opened only in case of his unnatural death. From this it appeared that he feared for safety and lives of his family, he should get out of the deal. In the subsequent process, DeLorean could thus successfully defend by arguing out of fear for his family and due to the threats of the DEA agents on the last end by the authorities to be received independently threaded drug trafficking. He was eventually acquitted on all counts.
In 1985, DeLorean published his autobiography, " DeLorean ", in which he writes in detail about his life, however, little is known about his automobile company.
John DeLorean had after completion of the DeLorean Motor Company declare personal bankruptcy in 1999. He died on 19 March 2005 in Summit, New Jersey, after a stroke. His ashes were buried at the White Chapel Cemetery in Troy (Michigan).