Last week I had a hour long quest to find out what happened to the DeLoreans featured in the Back to the Future series. Its actually kind of sad that most were left to rot away in some back lot. I stumbled upon the story of this one, that was left to rot, then bought and further destroyed, then bought again and FULLY restored from the ground up.

I thought it was a good read, and since it was about cars...well, here ya go.

The website is VERY in depth, but kept me busy for well over the initial hour.

http://www.bttf3delorean.com/Home.html

 

The original BTTF cars have not been treated kindly which, from what I hear, is pretty typical of Universal. The main movie car from the first film has been baking in the Florida sun with virtually no care since the late 80s.

 

someone local to me has one of these cars. Not from the movie though but still pretty cool thing to see. It sucks that they just left these to rot

 

88mph!!!

 

Several months ago a local auction park auctioned off a DeLorean. Not a movie one but a regular one. I had to work that Saturday so I don't know how much it went for.

 

If DeLoreans had a worthy engine capable of going faster than 88mph they'd probably be treated much better.

 

^^ agreed.

I have no idea why they made them such slouches. Its not at all a bad looking car. Way ahead of its time.

I found this out while looking around, turns out the speedo was modified for the movie. The stock speedo only goes to 85.

 

The Delorean is coming back in the future.

http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=14761822

(I hope no )

 

Same deal at the California location.

 

Good read, thanks!! I've always liked the DeLorean...too bad it was such a performance dog...

 

solid post man!

thx!

R.

 

Their top speed is actually around 115-120 MPH but due to the excessively tall gearing, you have to have a VERY long straight stretch of road to get them there. In it's stock form, that Peugeot-Renault-Volvo (PRV) V6 engine actually put out 170 horsepower but once the emissions requirement muzzle was strapped on, it neutered it down to 130 horsepower.

The European test mules that didn't have the emissions equipment were reported to have really moved and VIN 502, the second DeLorean made, was sent to Legend Industries on Long Island where it was fitted with twin turbos and intercoolers. Had it and its 4-second 0-60 times made it into production, it would have embarrassed every sports car on the market in the early 80s and certainly would give today's cars a run for their money.

And as for the 85-MPH speedometer...read here or below...
Basically every car made after 9/1/79 had to have a speedometer reading no higher than 85. Police cars were exempt.

 

I remember Ford had an interesting way of getting around this starting in the eighties with some of their performance products. It had a speedometer that read up to eighty-five mph, but actually had the increments on the speedometer that went up to 150 mph. Just in case you wanted to affix your own numerals.

 

There are companies out there that make a 140-MPH speedometer for the DeLorean using the original font and everything. You just have to tweak the speed cable accordingly. If it hadn't been for the 85-MPH speedo law, the D would have been equipped with the 140-MPH model from the factory.

 

http://jalopnik.com/5861062/delorean...-auction-block