What made you want a Delorean?

[Jonathan]

I didn't want a Corvette.
I wasn't interested in getting a Harley.
I couldn't find a Millennium Falcon for sale.

(Oh, and I'm too tall to fit into an Esprit, which is what I did want ever since I was a kid.)

Probably back around 2005, Internet 2.0 comes along and I somehow got searching for something DeLorean related. I think I just went 'huh, I could do this' and I did. Bought mine in 2007. I like the movies a lot, but have no story about seeing them when I was a kid and just having to have the car when I got older. It just didn't happen for me like that. When I go to shows, I mostly just put out car stuff on display and not the movie stuff. My flux capacitor generally stays in the frunk.

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[Hill Valley PD]

It could have something to do with the yellow Lotus Esprit that was part of my bedroom wallpaper as a small child (see attached). I also remember picking out Back to the Future on VHS in the Sears Electronics Section at our local mall after my parents told me I could buy a movie. This had to be around 1989-90, and I immediately went home and watched it. Over the years, it became one of my favorite films. Fast forward to 2002 looking for my first car, I recall looking at DeLoreans for sale in classic car paper ads and noticing them hovering in the mid-teens, which was way too expensive for me at the time. I ended up with 5K dollar 1985.5 Porsche 944 instead, which was really cool in and of itself at the time. I found this forum in college shortly thereafter and messaged Tamir. He responded and offered to show me his car the next time he was home, which happened to be in the same town I was going to college. I never followed up. Fast forward again. Many cars since and now a career and wife with a career, we purchased a classic Mustang Mach 1 in 2015. My wife loves 69-70 fastbacks. Fast forward to 2017, I visited Mike at DMC MW, looked at some cars, and immediately started researching by reading as many DeLorean related books as I could. I found the history of the car, company, and founder more interesting than the time machine connection. Fast forward to 2018, a couple of my co-workers get shot on the job. I work for a fed three letter agency. My wife and I talked, decided life is too short, so we messaged Mike at MW with some parameters (condition, price range, interior color, hood style, etc.). We purchased VIN 2282 from him in June of 2018 and have enjoyed it ever since.

[Michael]

There were waaayyyy to many attractive women throwing themselves at me and not nearly enough overweight sweaty bald men with a comic book fetish and cheeto dust on their sleeves. The DeLorean has righted this wrong that the universe dealt me.

[ritztoys]

Well we all know back in the day we played with our small 'Match Box Cars' and could do that for hours on end, big imagination here!
Then saw an ad for the Delorean in the 70's, my thought was "how beautiful this car was & designed by a famous Italian car designer"!
I saw it would be built in Ireland, "well now I'll never get one of those cars from over there" So the thought faded......
Many, many years later in my work career I was working for the State of Hawaii on the big Island, then one day saw an ad in the Honolulu Advertiser "81 Delorean, sacrifice call ***-****" I went nuts and flew to Honolulu on Friday afternoon to see this car, well I was so nervous the PO drove me around for the test drive.
I was sold, but now it was 8:00pm, banks were closed. Needless to say I didn't sleep all weekend until I could get to the bank and transfer $$ first thing on Monday to the PO.
Drove around on Oahu on Monday and then dropped my dream car off at the harbor to be shipped to the Big Island.
Enjoyed my car there in Kona for many years fixing all the issues that plague this car so it can be dependable and drive anywhere.
The worst memory was shipping my car from Hawaii to the Midwest. This whole shipping thing was back before cell phones, internet, or truck drivers checking in at home office! this shipping procedure took FIVE WEEKS, I was a mess but did finally arrive in fine shape.
Now 26 years later, still enjoying my dream car!

[dodint]

The movie came out when I was 3. It's the first live action movie I remember seeing, but I didn't know the car was a real thing until much later. I assumed it was made for the movie. Then in 1996 or so, when I was 15, I found out the car was a real thing. I was heavy into old Mopars and Mustangs but the DMC blew me away. I did some searching and found Knut Grimsrut's FAQ about the car and learned a ton; then joined the DML and kept soaking up information. Fast forward to 2017 and I finally bought one and it has lived up to my lofty expectations.

One thing that I really marvel at is the availability of information. I remember being a teen and constantly being starved for information. I would collect pictures from the internet. There was no video then; no youtube, no documentaries. I had tried to get my hands on various movies and shows where the car made a cameo so I could see one in motion. Now I can learn about any particular square inch of the car in full HD after a quick google search. It's crazy.

[mr_maxime]

I was about 8 when I saw the wedding singer. There's a scene where Glenn pulls up in a delorean blasting the Miami vice theme song. That's what made me want one. My dad only got the BTTF movies after that cause he knew I liked that car, but I'm not of fan of all of the extra stuff on it.

It wasn't til after college though where I saw the video for Miami nights 1984's accelerated on the new retro wave channel on YouTube that I realized how badly I really wanted one.

[Mark D]

Because they're frickin awesome. And by awesome, I mean totally sweet.

The first time I think I saw a DeLorean was when I picked up one of these promotional postcards at a car show/swap meet. I was like 6 or 7 maybe? Not too long afterwards I saw BTTF for the first time and realized it was the same car. Well, sort of, since the postcard is Proto 1 and the production cars obviously ended up looking different. I think I still have the actual postcard somewhere. This is a photo of what it looks like (random photo from the internet)

[JBaker4981]

I'm 52 years old now and grew up in they heyday of the 80's. When I was a kid or early teen, my dad would take us to look at cars after church on Sunday's. We never bought anything... just looked. One Sunday afternoon we stopped by Capitol Chevrolet in Nashville and they were the Nashville Delorean dealer. They had a Delorean set up in the showroom with the doors up and I was just mesmerized. My dad kept walking, but I was just stopped in my tracks. Several years later BTTF came out and that was the first time I had seen the car since that day at the showroom. It made an impression on me.

Fast forward 30+ years, I still liked the car, and with the invention of the internet, finding pictures and wallpapers of them was much easier. Still infatuated with the car, I had all but given up on ever owning one now that I was married, a dad to 3 boys, a house with a mortgage, and just general life gets in the way type of things. I still talked about Deloreans, but that was about it.

One afternoon I was having lunch with the mayor of a small town here in middle Tennessee when he asked me, "Did you ever get that silver car you've always wanted?" I said no, and he replied, "You know Homer's boy has one for sale right down the street sitting in his front yard don't you?" After lunch I took off down the street to go look at this car. It was a Delorean all right, but not in the best condition. Fascias were ragged out, intake manifold sitting in the front seat, a real fixer upper. They guy wanted $8,000.00 for it. I called my wife when I got back to the office and told her. Much to my surprise she said, "You've been talking about those cars ever since I've known you.... just go get it!" After work that night I drive 30+ miles back to this small town to buy this car. Knock on the guys door and say I want to buy the car. He says, " I've changed my mind, I don't think I'm gonna sell it." Leaving dissapointed, I had back to the office to wrap up some paperwork. Once I got to the office I was still operating in the mode of "My wife gave me permission to go buy a Delorean" . I began doing a nationwide Craigslist search to see if anything popped up. First result was Vin #3294 which had been listed 4 hours earlier in Jeffersonville, Indiana. Called the guy and bought it on the spot. Paid $9k for it. Fantastic shape, original everything (belts, hoses, tires,fuel lines, etc.) with only 8,637 miles on the odometer, but it hadn't run in 20 years. Rented a trailer and drove up on Friday to get it. Took two years to get it roadworthy again.

That's Awesome! By any chance, was that car that was sitting in the front yard over in Gordansville?

[JBaker4981]

For me, it all started with BTTF Part 3 and I became infatuated with the movie right there. I soon came to own the trilogy on VHS when I was around 5 or 6 years old. A few years later, my grandpa took me to a car museum in Nashville around 1994, maybe 1995 and there sat a 1981 DeLorean with a Black Interior and Manual transmission. From that moment, I was absolutely addicted since I had just learned that it was real. Several more trips to that museum over the years fueled that addiction until it was closed down.

Ever since I started High School in 2002, I had joined the DML and DMCTalk (at the time called 'entermyworld' then the name changed). Going forward, I learned a lot about the cars, the history of the company, and the man himself. Back then, the community on here was maybe 300 people strong (regular posters) so we all knew everyone. Back then I had somewhere between 3-4,000 posts before the great crash of 2011 but had not really made much of an effort to get back in the saddle here (until i purchased one). Been on the Facebook groups and lurking for years but I finally decided to pull the trigger.

Back in June of this year, I was lurking on the forums here and drilled into the for sale section just to casually look. I noticed Tom Neiland's post for an "Early 81' Automatic, Black Interior - Completely Refurbished" which caught my eye. My preferred was an Auto with a Grey Interior for many years. I read his original post and was astounded by everything listed that had been done to it and then I saw the pictures along with an album of the car - it spoke to me. Seeing his price, I figured it up in my head and realized that I could do it if I financed. I then put it to bed... yet that thought of owning that car had already planted a seed in the back of my mind.

Days later, I kept thinking that I could actually do it. I could actually live the dream. I contacted him just to talk about the car, not really set on purchasing and we discussed for a while. I decided to go to my preferred lender later that week and then the rest is history. I'm still in shock that I bought it and still cant believe it every time I physically look at it.

[Dangermouse]

In West Belfast born and raised;
in Dunmurry where I spent most of my days;
chilling out, maxing and relaxing all cool;
and all kicking some football outside of school;
when a couple of guys they were up to some good;
started making DeLoreans in our neighborhood;
I saw one drive by when on my way to school;
and I knew I gotta have one cos they were way cool