Books

[dtavres]

I've not been able to find a general "Books" thread, so thought I'd start one.

If there is one, please add a link to redirect.

If there isn't one, use the title of the book as the post title and let's share!

Thanks!

[dtavres]

I finally found a (reasonably priced) copy of ‘DeLorean – Stainless SteelIllusion’.

I haven’t read it yet, but WOW... just from browsing through, there’s somegreat diagrams and photos I’ve not seen before!

[Rich]

There are several threads here and there about several books. This is about one of the more recent ones.

The DeLorean Story: The Car, The People, The Scandal
by Nick Sutton

A thread about that book with >300 posts on it so far: LINK: The-DeLorean-Story-The-Car-The-People-The-Scandal

[Rich]

Another one here, more technical than historical:

The Illustrated Buyer's Guide to DeLorean Automobiles
by James Espey

No thread specifically for it that I find but plenty of referrals point it out to prospective owners as an excellent resource.

[Rich]

DeLorean - Celebrating the Impossible
by Christopher Parnham & Andrew Withers

THE DeLorean coffee table book. Just about done reading mine. Photos of and stories about the people, the car and the factory from back in the day.

[louielouie2000]

DeLorean - Celebrating the Impossible
by Christopher Parnham & Andrew Withers

THE DeLorean coffee table book. Just about done reading mine. Photos of and stories about the people, the car and the factory from back in the day.

To me, labeling Celebrating the Impossible as a coffee table book hugely sells it short. Yes, it fits the format: it's a big, rectangular, HEAVY book filled with thousands of glossy pictures... but it's so much more than that. When it comes to the car & company, this book has more content than all of the other DeLorean books combined. Celebrating the Impossible is closer to a DeLorean encyclopedia, in my eyes. It totally redefines the DeLorean book genre.

[dtavres]

I'm about halfway through "Stainless Steel Illusion"... SO many bits of info and 'facts' - which is my question. How correct are the 'facts' in this book?

I've done a lot of work with Bodie over the years, and "facts" often get inflated, mis-represented or just mis-understood when they are re-told.

Being that John Lamm has written many car books and worked on Road & Track magazine, I feel like I can trust what he's written. Any dissension?

[Rich]

I'm about halfway through "Stainless Steel Illusion"... SO many bits of info and 'facts' .....

Being that John Lamm has written many car books and worked on Road & Track magazine, I feel like I can trust what he's written. Any dissension?

Yes, John Lamm is a well-respected automotive writer. This book is very good in terms of overall accuracy and honesty.

There are a few stories in it that are still not clearly understood now after many years so, given that the book was written so soon after the car went out of production, these minor slips if they are indeed slips are forgivable. The vast majority of what he nails down in this book is accurate so I recommend you trust it.

Feel free to check with the community about any facts you might question.

PS, as pointed out already in this thread there is a second edition that had corrections. My reference is to the first edition. Which edition are you reading?

[dtavres]

Which edition are you reading?

Thanks very much.

It LOOKS like first edition... see attached.
2015-11-30 23.45.00 (Large).jpg

[DMCVegas]

That certainly looks like the original one. The second printing that DMCH did has their own publishing label on it. It has some spelling corrections, some other minor factual corrections, and also an addendum that briefly covers both BTTF as well as DMCH itself.

I've done a lot of work with Bodie over the years, and "facts" often get inflated, mis-represented or just mis-understood when they are re-told.

The truth of the matter is that there are still many, MANY other facts that to this day remain unknown. The biggest example of this is the portrayal of how JZD "abandoned" the DMC-12 shortly after it's inception to focus on other products such as the DMC-80 & the DMC-44. It's been a while and all of my reference materials are sealed up with my car in storage so I can't remember for certain of it was SSI or Dream Maker, though I'm certain it was SSI. Anyhow, there is this forward written by some psychologist or something that profiles JZD and says all this stuff where he diagnoses the man with all these issues where he wants to be on the cutting edge of starting a project, but never seeing it through to the end, has ego problems, etc. It's very, very negative.

And as I found out years later, it was also highly, HIGHLY inaccurate.

I spoke with Jeff Nesseth once who painted a very clear picture that JZD's plans for the company was to be a global conglomerate with various divisions. Later on James Espy debuted the investor prospectus film of the DMC-44 at the 2005 Open House event which had clear comparisons against the Jeep CJ for agricultural use. And the pamphlets for the DMC-80 did comparisons against other competitor buses (GM N.A. Truck Division's RTS Line of buses, though not specifically).

Coupled together, it's clear to see what happened. JZD wasn't "bored" with the DMC-12 in the least. Think about it; what was the reason which he created a sports car in the first place? By De Lorean's own reasoning, it was a niche market in which he could easily compete. Packard and Kaiser both had monumentally failed because they tried to go directly after the Big 3's bread and butter of normal commuter cars. Something that De Lorean was quite aware of. But Kaiser did have one particular vehicle that not only avoided failure, but flourished and still exists to this day: Jeep (even as much as GM just loves to tout the Suburban's age, they remain quiet about it's origins as a transport vehicle designed around the dimensions of an adult coffin to discretely transport corpses from hospitals to funeral homes). Jeep has survived several companies, and numerous spin-offs 4x4s over the years because it is a niche vehicle. It survived because of that. Niche vehicles have both lower competition levels and much higher profit margins. That was precisely what the gullwinged DMC-12 was designed to do. Same with the DMC-44 & DMC-80; niche markets with growing demand that was supplied by a vary limited number of competitors.

So was JZD really someone who wasn't all that committed to the DMC-12, and became dismissive of it solely for personal fund raising? Hardly. What he was trying to do was go after other markets with other products to expand the company's portfolio in order to develop as many income sources as possible. So that way when sales of the DMC-12 slumped, they could fall back on the other product's profits to keep things afloat. Now yes, some of this, like the DMC-80 definitely had the trigger pulled on it way to early. But the DMC-44 would have been a great, moderate investment. And his desire for a turn-key auto company via acquisition would have sealed the deal ever further.

More importantly here is the lesson that you can't take everything simply at face value. Even these old books. They are biased, most of it's really only because they never had all of the facts at hand. It's easy to look at that "psychological profile" of John Z. De Lorean and say, "Woah, this guy is right! JZD *didn't* see his project through like he says!" Then when you start getting a clearer picture of what what the entire operation of the corporate machine was rather than the central gear that was JZD, that whole opinion just looks like utter and complete horseshit. People tend to incorrectly treat viewpoints as opinions, rather than what they literally are: a vantage point that offers a different view of things that can result in totally different insight.

Which on a somewhat related note, JZD has always been this consummate gentleman businessman. So for myself, the 1985 Playboy interview and his audiobook narration of Smokey Yunick's autobiography where he cusses like, well, how I also do, were very refreshing to allow you to hear just how human and relatable the man really was.