John DeLorean died yesterday at the age of 80 from the effects of a recent stroke.
John Zachary DeLorean was one of the more interesting business characters of the past two decades. His famous stainless-steel sports car project collapsed in the 1980’s, although the use of the futuristic auto as the time travel machine in the Back to the Future movies ensures that the car will never be forgotten.
Moreover, DeLorean’s criminal trial in California in the 1980’s on cocaine trafficking charges introduced America to the entrapment defense as DeLorean’s lawyers persuaded the jury that DeLorean had been the unwitting victim of a government sting operation. Or, as one wag put it at the time, “the government successfully managed to frame a guilty man.”
DeLorean was the son of a Ford factory worker and grew up on Detroit’s east side during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. After earning an undergraduate engineering degree and an MBA graduate degree, DeLorean went to work in the automotive industry, first for Chrysler and then Packard.
But when he moved to General Motors in the 1960’s, DeLorean’s star really began to rise and, as head of GM’s Pontiac division, he pulled off a marketing coup by turning the innocuous Tempest LeMans compact coupe into a hot rod called the GTO. The combination of an intermediate body with the most powerful engines available soon became a legend within the automotive industry.
Had he remained with General Motors, DeLorean may have accomplished even greater feats, but he was too flashy for the notoriously buttoned-down GM culture. Handsome and stylish, DeLorean became a celebrity himself, dating such beauties as Ursula Andress and Raquel Welch, and eventually marrying supermodel, Christina Ferrare.
Alas, DeLorean’s life was a struggle over the last two decades. Although he managed to beat the cocaine trafficking charges, he was married and divorced several times, and filed bankruptcy twice. In the most recent bankruptcy, DeLorean sadly was forced to sell his luxurious New Jersey estate to generate proceeds for his creditors. His most recent business venture was a company that marketed watches under his name. In the end, DeLorean’s legacy is that of a talented innovator who did not have the depth of business or management skills to be a successful entrepreneur.
Update: As is typical of British obituaries, the Guardian’s on DeLorean is delicious.