Mods, please move this if this counts too much as a 'for sale' thread, but I'm trying to gauge the interest of the community as a whole.
The history of Right Hand Drive / Euro-spec DeLoreans is a bit long and winding, but if you've read either Barrie Wills or Chris Parnham & Andy Will's books, you'll know about the 3 'factory' RHD cars put together while DMCL was in receivership. These were the first European homologation spec cars, and visually they had some interesting differences in the trim. They had an unusual grooved rubbing strip down the side (as did the Burgundy interior car), including a single domed turn signal lens behind the front wheel. Two of these cars also had special trims on the inside of the front fascia by the headlights, continuing the groove pattern from the grill out to the edges:
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These 3 RHD cars were registration AXI 1697 (VIN 5565), AXI 1698 (VIN 5638) and AXI 1699 (VIN 5529).
Here's VIN 5565 when it was in the Patrick Collection with it's trims:
VIN 5638 - on the right here of 5565 for the first time in a long while - never seemed to have those trims, despite having the different rubbing strip/turn signal lens.
5529 - shown here on a different registration to confuse matters, also has them.
Both Barrie Wills and Martin Mail aren't too sure on the background/future of these trims. They don't appear on any of the other cars made in receivership, nor with any of the Consolidated cars (to my knowledge). Martin was good enough to forward me some documents that confirm that a proposed facelift for the 1984 DMC-12 was to modify the front end/headlights to look more like an Isuzu Piazza - presumably with flush headlights. Martin had got ItalDesign / Giugiaro to investigate it but I have no idea how far that went - and it didn't involve these side trims. The side trims, however, do exist, and in my mind look really great on the cars.
For years I've been meaning to get around to modelling and printing a set of these for other owners. However, I had a stroke of luck when the owner of 5683 put me in touch with the owner of 5565! While 5529 is in hiding, the owner of 5565 was good enough to let me go over and 'borrow' his trims for copying - a good insurance policy for making backups as he has the only set in the wild!
Removing the trims showed that there were 3 different methods of attachment going on here - a small plug that fits into the recess on the trim, double sided tapes, and the typically DeLorean-esque exposed Phillips head screw.
Here's the trim pieces - showing their age and use a little, but still fascinating to see. To me, they look to be a very low-volume production part, possibly resin poured into an open-backed, one-piece mould. Professionally tooled, perhaps, but definitely hastily moulded and cast. There's a lot of sanding around the edges for fine fit and as you can see, the hollow they created for the peg to slot into is a little... rough.
Here they are going under silicone:
And here's the first castings out of the mould! Every detail captured, which unfortunately means lots of cleanup left to do. More on that in a bit...
It only seemed right that VIN 5638 got the very first test set out of the mould, given it's sister cars had had them for decades. I was really pleased with the look of them. These are cast in a black-dyed Polyurethane resin and then sprayed with a coat of satin black. The match to the existing front grill was pretty great.
Now begins a program of test-fitting them to various cars to see how we're doing, because DeLoreans vary a lot. 16606 was local to me so I went down to Gareth to see how well they fit on his car:
The results were a bit annoying.
16606's fascia had quite a heavy respray and also seemed a slight amount more 'pinched' in from the wings/fenders, which really affected the fit. Broadly speaking, I've found that right hand side trim fits slightly more tightly than the left hand one - I noticed this when trying to get them off of 5565, and the owner of 5638 reported something similar when fitting his copies! The trims however are the same thickness, so I'm guessing that's a bit of a DeLorean quirk.
I've got a couple more cars to test fit these two, and then I'm going to modify the master pieces for selling on.
My plan is to clean up all the dents and dings, as well as fill in the screw holes to make them invisible. This way the trims can be attached with VHB tape rather than screws. This master will then be remoulded, and then cast in black, heat-resistant Polyurethane resin, and sent out painted and prepped for installation. I can send them out with pilot holes drilled in the same place, but to be honest the holes on the originals weren't brilliantly measured, and the screw heads required removing some material from the sides of the fins, so tape feels like a better way to go.
Because there will undoubtedly be some fettling at the user's end to get these to fit specific cars, I'm not asking for loads of money for these - my current thinking is between £35 and 40 GBP for a pair.
I want to limit the first run to 50 sets - I have two full time jobs as does my mould-maker so I have a very short window to get these made, so I'd like to gauge interest from the community to see if there's any real interest in them.
For disclosure, DMCH have contacted me and told me they plan to release this part as they have the drawings for it in their archive. I have no idea on the time frame, cost, or fixing methods - they have only told me that they intend to make them. The castings I'm offering are cast from one of two original sets known to exist, so they have 'provenance' going for them, but they also have the potential fitment issues that come with them - it wouldn't be a DeLorean part if it wasn't imperfect...
So - any interest in these?
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Originally Posted by dmcnorway
