DeLorean under GBP 20

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Review by Michael Ware of “The DeLorean Story – the car, the people, the scandal” by Nick Sutton. A Haynes publication. 

This is possibly the first time that  a book has been written by someone who was in on the DeLorean project from the very beginning in 1978 (employee no. 16) until the end in January 1983,  “... when only ten employees remained… a few weeks after I left the company the gates were padlocked and the liquidators moved in."
Delorean employed some of the most talented managers in the automotive business, but many arrived with three pieces of baggage… The first was a kind of ego that is often found in successful people, the second was a previous company procedure manual, and the third was a preconception on how to run a car company and develop a new product – which by industry standards of time was taking five years or more”. That sums up the main problem coupled with J.D.’s infrequent visits. Time was something Delorean did not have. The British Government had initially invested £53 million (more later) and they had demanded a royalty on each car produced. 
The factory was built on the outskirts of Dunmurry close to housing estates, where up to 50% of adults were out of work. It was a godsend for the local population, as the wages offered were good as were the working conditions. The failure of the company threw all of these people out of work again, many never working for the remainder of their lives. Even so, many did not blame John DeLorean.
The book covers the tie up with Colin Chapman and Lotus, and goes into detail on payments,  “... Lotus made it clear that they were only responsible for the design and durability of the car and not for the quality or production engineering...”  Later the author writes, “... Colin Chapman was openly contemptuous of the prototype and used the report to demand that the design of the car should start afresh. This time Lotus Engineering would carry out the design work”.

A good read and a good price but the book is let down by an old fashioned layout with pictures grouped together on glossy paper in sections, and the fact that there are three errata slips at the front drawing attention to chunks which are actually missing from the text. I note that it was not printed by Haynes of Sparkford but in the USA, which may be the reason.

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