As I understand it, only about 350 cars were shipped on that first boat from Belfast. At best that meant each dealer could only have had one car. Some dealers may have kept their cars on display in the showroom to show to other potential buyers until they knew they had more on the way to them.

Had John not doubled production, both to make stock offering look better and also gambling that adding workers would entice the British to continue supporting DMCL, they probably would have made it through the bad winter of 1982 and high interest rates of 82/83. Slowing production (IMO) would have allowed the factory to further improve quality and address design issues that would have further improved the product. Then, the addition of the twin-turbo would have addressed the performance concerns.

James


Quote Originally Posted by louielouie2000 View Post
I had no idea cars weren't sold to customers until mid June. They had been coming off the assembly line for 3 months at that point, and production was starting to really ramp up. I was always under the impression that the cars were available earlier, but in small quantities... hence the initial demand. This changes my entire view of DeLorean saga. The cars were in demand and the company was successful for such a short period. By the end of '81 demand was low and supply was seriously mounting. It seems the only successful timeframe DMCL experienced was perhaps June-October of '81. It makes more sense now why the British government stopped funding DMCL so quickly after the cars entered production... the company as it stood was not viable, & was based on utterly unrealistic numbers.