And here I thought the news of Leonard Nimoy signing on for the new Star Trek movie was the best nerd news of the week. Please, please, please let this be for real (from the LA Times)
Botkin had to grow up and buy his dream car himself. He drives a restored DeLorean modeled after the one that served as a time machine in the 1980s blockbuster “Back to the Future.”
He also manages a repair and refurbishing shop in Garden Grove that’s affiliated with DeLorean Motor Co. (Texas), a suburban Houston company that rebuilds DeLoreans and is laying plans to bring the car back into limited production.
The last DeLorean rolled off the assembly line in Northern Ireland in 1982. But like Duran Duran, the Rubik’s Cube and other Reagan-era icons, the car retains a following.
Despite his attention-grabbing persona and product, DeLorean couldn’t sell enough of the $25,000 cars to stay afloat. By 1982, his company was in receivership. He hit rock bottom that year when he was busted on charges of cocaine trafficking. He was acquitted, but the ordeal in effect ended his business career. He died in March 2005.
DeLorean’s car would live on, thanks primarily to “Back to the Future,” the top-grossing film of 1985. Ditching their original idea of using an old refrigerator as a time machine, the scriptwriters opted for a modified DeLorean because of its futuristic look, particularly the doors, according to co-writer Bob Gale.
The movie made Michael J. Fox a star — and launched the DeLorean pop cult.
“John DeLorean wrote us a fan letter after the movie came out: ‘Thank you for keeping my dream alive,’ ” Gale recalls. “Probably half of the people who own DeLoreans today own them because they saw ‘Back to the Future.’ “
How much would Back to the Future have sucked if they had made the time machine out of a f#cking refrigerator? Or, for that matter, if Steven Spielberg hadn’t replaced Eric Stoltz with Michael J. Fox?
Their manufacturing plans are modest — maybe 20 or so cars a year. But it would be quite a comeback for a car that was given up for dead more than a quarter of a century ago.
And based on the reaction Botkin gets when he takes his “BTTF” DeLorean out for a spin, there’s a market out there.
“I can’t park it without attracting a pile of people,” he says. “We like to cruise up and down PCH just to get people’s reactions.
“It’s a smile maker.“
Dude… this needs to be my next car.
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