![]() After 185 more dealers eventually came onboard, this generated nearly $10 million, with individual investors making up another $1 million or so. Money first really began flowing into the operation by late 1977 after 158 dealers were signed on-with the stipulation that they cough up $25,000 for common stock in the company. The prototype (dubbed DMC-12) was introduced to the public at the 1977 National Automobile Dealers Association meeting in New Orleans with the intention of kicking fundraising for the project into high gear. Giugiaro’s design was applied in 1976 to a complete prototype assembled by Kar Kraft of Detroit and powered by a transversely mounted Citroën-sourced four-cylinder engine. Design work was contracted to Ital Design in Turin, Italy, and ultimately was handled by Giorgetto Giugiaro himself, although John DeLorean and his budding crew dictated that the car have gullwing doors, deformable plastic nose and tail caps, room for six-foot-plus occupants, and stainless-steel bodywork. Allstate later backed out, but DeLorean had a solid investment it could use to continue developing a car. The DeLorean car as we know it today first glinted into existence as a cooperative effort between DeLorean’s fledgling company and Allstate Auto Insurance, which provided half a million dollars toward the design of a so-called “safety car” intended to exemplify the ideal safe automobile per a contemporary government safety initiative. This tech-focused arm of the DeLorean Corporation was also to do the R&D legwork on a new car. ![]() Named after himself and officially incorporated in 1974, it was to provide what amounted to consulting services, but then DeLorean added the Composite Technology Corporation subsidiary in 1975 to develop a new form of plastic-sandwiched foam panels that promised high strength but low weight, the patent for which DeLorean had acquired licensing rights for. DeLorean was a former manager at General Motors who successfully ran Pontiac and Chevrolet, and just as his future appeared rosiest, he hung it all up in the early 1970s to start an all-new company. Officially, DeLoreans were sold between 19, but the company’s tale spans much longer and involves multiple criminal trials, the IRA terrorist group in Ireland, the British government, and even the founder of Lotus Cars, Colin Chapman. But for as compelling as time travel is-and the 1989 vision for what the year 2015 is like-the DeLorean’s real-life history is far more cinematic. The car that got them there? A specially outfitted, time-traveling DeLorean DMC-12. ![]() Today, Octoat precisely 4:29 p.m., is the time when Marty McFly and Doc Brown (and Marty’s girlfriend) end up in what was in the late 1980s considered “the future” in the movie Back to the Future Part II. Keystone/Getty Images Arthur Schatz/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images Bill Pierce/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images Ben Martin/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images manufacturer ![]()
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