How FBI cocaine sting was undoing of John DeLorean and his futuristic car firm
IT has “cocaine, hot chicks, sports cars, Margaret Thatcher, FBI agents and hardcore drug dealers”.
No wonder producers are making not one but two films about the life of automotive king John DeLorean.
The American engineer’s DMC-12 is instantly recognisable as Marty McFly’s time-travelling motor in Back To The Future.
In a period of Ford Cortinas, the Eighties sports car with its gullwinged doors and stainless-steel body stood out from the crowd and it was built in Belfast.
But DeLorean could not reap the rewards of his final design’s film escapdes — his company had already gone under amid drug-smuggling charges.
Problems on the production line and the US recession had led to poor initial sales, so the arrogant executive agreed to smuggle $24million of cocaine to keep his DeLorean Motor Company afloat.
He was filmed hailing the A-class drug as “better than gold” while toasting the cash injection from dealers. But DeLorean had fallen for an elaborate FBI sting, and his company went bankrupt.
Now DeLorean, who died in 2005 aged 80, while living in a one-bedroom New Jersey apartment, will have his life retold in the two films.
Framing John DeLorean, which is available on digital download, is part documentary, part drama starring Alec Baldwin as the motor exec.
In November, a drama called Driven will see Lee Pace play DeLorean as he forms a destructive friendship with FBI informant Jim Hoffman.
DeLorean’s son Zach came up with the story containing “cocaine, hot chicks, sports cars, bombed-out buildings, Margaret Thatcher, FBI agents, and hardcore drug dealers”, and thinks a big-screen version is long overdue.
‘STRONG SEX DRIVE’
Born to working-class parents in America’s “motor city” Detroit, DeLorean showed a talent for engineering from an early age.
His father, Zachary, had worked for Ford, but turned into a violent alcoholic who left his mum Kathryn when John was aged 17.
DeLorean started off working for Chrysler before moving to the Pontiac division at General Motors — then the biggest company in the world — in 1956 as an assistant to the chief engineer.
There he was credited with creating the first “muscle car” after sticking a massive engine in an existing Pontiac and rebranding it as a GTO.
It was a huge success and DeLorean became the youngest division head at 40. He started to hang out with celebrities including singer Sammy Davis Jr, had a chin implant to look more manly and divorced his wife of 15 years, Elizabeth Higgins in 1962.
The white-haired lothario went on to date actresses Ursula Andress and Candice Bergen, singer Joey Heatherton and Frank Sinatra’s daughter Tina.
Explaining his inability to resist women, DeLorean once said: “I’ve got a reasonably strong sex drive, no man who ever accomplished something didn’t have that characteristic.”
His marriage to 19-year-old model Kelly Harmon — 25 years his junior — in 1969 was so scandalous that her age had to be increased in a press release to GM’s employees.
The union was short-lived, though, with the couple divorcing in 1972. By then DeLorean was head of GM’s North American car and truck operations.
While single he adopted a baby boy, he named Zachary, before meeting then marrying world-famous model Cristina Ferrare in 1973.
They moved into a mansion on a 434-acre estate in New Jersey and, four years later, added to their brood with daughter Kathryn. Despite work pressures, DeLorean doted on his kids.
Zach said: “The closest person to me in my life was my father. He adopted me when I was two weeks old.” While Kathryn recalled: “When I was little my dad was at the peak of everything. My dad was my best friend.”
Things took a turn for the worse when one of DeLorean’s unedited speeches, in which he said GM “lacked quality”, was leaked to the press. He was sacked.
Undeterred, he set up the DeLorean Motor Company — though critics claimed it was doomed to fail.
He poached engineer Bill Collins from GM to help design a moderately priced two-seater car, the DeLorean DMC-12.
Bill recalled: “You were sort of gambling, hoping the thing would work out.” It took him three years to build the prototype, which DeLorean described as “our version of the American dream” when he unveiled it at a motor show. One look at the sleek car was enough to persuade Bank of America and celebrity investors to part with more than £14million.
In a shock move, DeLorean accepted a £100million bid from the then Labour government in the late-70s to produce 30,000 DMC-12s in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland — in the heart of the political conflict between the Catholic and Protestant communities.
With unemployment at more than 30 per cent, the factory offered a better future for its citizens. DeLorean was considered their saviour. His home in nearby Belfast was rumoured to have gold taps on the bath, but his family rarely stayed there as they were a kidnap target for the IRA.
When Lotus founder Colin Chapman came into the fold, his experience of producing sports cars was seen as vital to the firm’s success.
‘INSATIABLE PRIDE’
But the documentary Framing John DeLorean claims Chapman and DeLorean cooked up a plan to embezzle the £14million loaned to them by investors for their own use.
DeLorean was later acquitted of fraud at a US trial in 1985. Chapman died before he could go to trial. With America in recession and issues with closing the DMC-12’s heavy winged doors, initial orders were not strong enough to keep the company afloat.
In the end only 9,000 were built and 6,000 sold. They now sell for up to £42,000.
Britain’s new Conservative Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, refused to inject any more taxpayers’ money into the doomed project, so DeLorean had to find new investors.
Drug dealer Jim Hoffman promised the motor exec £12million if he agreed to smuggle 220lbs of cocaine, with a street value of $24million, in America.
Yet Hoffman was a paid Drug Enforcement Administration informant and all their meetings were recorded. Making the wily businessman openly admit to a cocaine deal wasn’t so easy, though, and DeLorean never actually handled the illegal substance.
After his shock arrest in Los Angeles in October 1982, the DeLorean Motor Company went into liquidation.
But two years later DeLorean was found not guilty, after his defence team successfully argued that he had been the victim of police entrapment.
Despite the verdict, Zach doubts his father’s integrity, saying: “For me, the evidence is there that they set him up, but common sense tells me he’s not a f***ing idiot — that he knew something was f***ed up at some time. How could you put your family in jeopardy like that?”
Cristina left DeLorean a few days after he was acquitted.
He later admitted his ego had been his downfall, saying: “My ultimate sin was that I had this insatiable pride.
“I had an arrogance that was beyond that of any other human being alive.”
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After attempts to resurrect his business failed, DeLorean wed fourth wife Sally Baldwin and became a born-again Christian. They had daughter Sheila and stayed together until his death from a stroke.
After his trial, DeLorean said: “Who’d want to buy a used car from me?”
The truth is many motorists would.
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