Upcoming Documentary: Cars that made America.

Just saw a commercial for an upcoming documentary which is debuting next month on the History channel, entititled: Cars that made America.

Had some quick clips in the ad, and had an actor which looked like JZD in a GTO. Sure enough an online synopsis confirms that John Z. De Lorean will in fact be one of the featured historical figures highlighted in the series. However, I've no idea what kind of light he will be portrayed in. This is after all the same channel that blames aliens for anything they cannot explain... Never the less it will be something to keep an eye out for.

http://www.tvmaze.com/shows/26068/th...t-made-america

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Originally Posted by DMCVegas

Just saw a commercial for an upcoming documentary which is debuting next month on the History channel, entititled: Cars that made America.

.....this is after all the same channel that blames aliens for anything they cannot explain.....

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The aliens wont appreciate that!

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Originally Posted by SamHill

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:hysterical:

The show is definitely worth watching. There was some interesting historical footage in it. Some of the scenes with the actor portraying JZD were a bit corny. Of course they had to show the hotel room footage, but did pretty clearly describe the outcome.

It was alright. Better than I expected for sure. Although, to say I was disappointed with Hillel Levin being the reference source for JZD is an understatement. 30 years later, and he's still a hack trying to personally cash in on the De Lorean scandal any which way he can. No updated material, just keeps spewing the same garbage to sensationalize everything as much as possible. His personal bias was especially obvious when it came to Lee Iacocca. Placing the guy on a pedestal while totally ignoring how he screwed over Renault and the French Government & people in order to get Chrysler's hands on Jeep. Something so dishonest that both Ford & GM refused to do.

I didn't realize that there was bias to it going in...I thought the comparison to Iacocca was awkward. I worked in the auto industry at that time and never heard of any direct rivalry between the two. It did not seem to be relevant to a show entitled " Cars that made America".

It should have been called something more like 'people who drove america's auto industry'

They didnt really spend any amount of time on any one car...and they left out alot of cars that were important in the evolution of cars in the u.s.

And really, mentioning JZD in reference to the GTO makes sense...but the Delorean (car) really had no impact on america...not enough to mention it..other than it was a cool car.

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Originally Posted by S_J

I didn't realize that there was bias to it going in...I thought the comparison to Iacocca was awkward. I worked in the auto industry at that time and never heard of any direct rivalry between the two. It did not seem to be relevant to a show entitled " Cars that made America".

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I'm not 100% certain on what the rivaly was all about. Especially since the GTO and Mustang were both categorically separate cars, and the GTO was more of a threat to Chevrolet than Ford. I did once come upon a piece that said Iacocca was best man at one of De Lorean's weddings, but I still honestly don't know what sparked it all. What I do know is that Iacocca was as hungry for attention as JZD was when it came to publicity. Which as you saw, the show did correctly touch upon that. In 1982 after JZD's arrest, he made the cover of Time magazine. Reports are that Iacocca was beyond livid and screaming in his office! Iacocca was in a race with De Lorean to make their respective auto companies a success. But while Iacocca "won" because DMC folded, De Lorean got onto the cover of Time first, despite Chrysler's success. Iacocca was pissed beyond belief, and lobbied Time to do a story on him just so he could get a cover as well. That also was followed up with Iacocca pushing for all these books to be written about him. Ones that would praise him, and unfortunately lead to the "rock star CEO" mentality to heap unessisary praise where it wasn't due. Iacocca is as ruthless as he is a hypocrite. Especially when it comes to the Mustang.

Make no mistake though. Many, MANY rivalries in automotive history have led to massive innovations and changed history.

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Originally Posted by Lwanmtr

It should have been called something more like 'people who drove america's auto industry'

They didnt really spend any amount of time on any one car...and they left out alot of cars that were important in the evolution of cars in the u.s.

And really, mentioning JZD in reference to the GTO makes sense...but the Delorean (car) really had no impact on america...not enough to mention it..other than it was a cool car.

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The DMC-12 is definitely the follow-up to De Lorean's story in the automotive world. But it also did indeed have a massive impact on the automotive industry. Nick Sutton's book, The DeLorean Story does a fantastic job of describing the details. Aside for holding the record for many years after or the fastest vehicle brought to production, many common-place practices that manufacturers use today for on-the-fly tooling & parts development, were actually developed by DMC during the production start-up. Plus you have the styling aspect. In particular with the front clip. Many cars have design cues that look similar to the DMC-12. Particularly with that front rectangular cluster of headlights and a horizontal grille. But you never really saw those cars until after the DMC-12. Granted it's not something that could very well fit into an infotainment TV show, but there is relevance with impact felt by the car.

De Lorean himself certainly did chance the course of automotive history during his time at GM. Both in marketing with either targeting youth, or at least knowing how to sell youth to older buyers, and then in design. Before JZD, Detroit did their own designs in boring Michigan. Occasionally they might reach out to some Italian firm, or latch onto some weird trend like the "Space Race" with big fins and rocket taillights & brightwork. But for the most part, it was boring, stuffy, conservative designs. After De Lorean turned to the Southern California car scene for design inspiration, damn near ever car manufacturer in the world now has design studios in California, and builds cars to suit the tastes of SoCal car culture. It just would have been nice to showcase that alongside the GTO's development.

Which by they way, "GTO" doesn't stand for anything at all. To Ferrari it was indeed on acronym for "Gran Turismo Omologato". When Pontiac conscripted that name, there was a whole lot of controversy about that. De Lorean's official stance was that GTO stood for absolutely nothing for the Tempest package. That was another thing the show got wrong.

I saw it last night. The people who made the film must think all cars from the 60s look the same.

In the Woodward Avenue racing scenes, the "GTO" aka Tempest that DeLorean was shown driving was a 64 Buick, and the car Iacocca was shown driving (when he supposedly worked for Ford) was a Chrysler (I think - it was late). And the earlier scene about the genesis of the small-block Chevy a Mercury was used as a prop. Ugh.