GOOD/POSITIVE DeLorean stories

[Alan]

Colleen and I participated in a charity road rally earlier this month and we received t-shirts for it. Yesterday we were out in 1121 and wearing the shirts. On the back they say "Fast Cars Matter." That got us a couple of questions about if we had a fast car. We told the inquirers we have a DeLorean. I didn't get into the fact that our DeLorean isn't particularly fast.

We got two very positive responses. One was from a young man who wanted to take pictures. He even asked if it would be ok to post them on Instagram before doing so. The other was from the manager of a restaurant where we were at waiting for a to-go order. He came out with me, loved opening the door, and was giddy when I let him take a seat and took a couple of pictures for him with his phone.

Even after the experience earlier this season with our hood-sitter, the reactions we get are overwhelmingly positive. I love it when people get that excited about the car.

[16949]

Nice little story on page 5 about the guy and his hobby as a an amateur cartoonist drawing little comics about life as a GM employee. Then when I read his little comic that shows an employee with a defective part getting yelled at by a manager, my blood ran cold when I read the caption below it:

"I would rather you refer to it as an 'Engineering Change' instead of a complete screw-up!"

That is terrifying, because that was pretty much the excuse given by former General Motors engineer, Raymond DeGiorgio when he testified about the part number swaps during production and lack of a recall when GM was trying to cover-up the problems with the ignition switches that killed people. I guess Litton really hit the nail on the head to describe GM's corporate culture.

I take this to be a meaningful correlation, in the midst of a forum anecdote. Thanks for sharing.

[16949]

Someone pulled in off the passing by roadway with his family as I was getting my 1 gallon of gas (yeah, still haven't swapped out the boot so it's 1 gallon at a time..) to ask if he could get a picture. I said sure, come sit in my seat and get a picture. I then suggested his teen son get his picture. We all got back in our regular seats. The driver said "I guess this happens all the time?" I said yes. He said "should I offer you a tip?" I said no, of course.

How lucky are we to drive these cars. I can share a minute of that with another polite human who just wants to collect moments of awesomeness.

[aotmfilms]

Someone pulled in off the passing by roadway with his family as I was getting my 1 gallon of gas (yeah, still haven't swapped out the boot so it's 1 gallon at a time..) to ask if he could get a picture. I said sure, come sit in my seat and get a picture. I then suggested his teen son get his picture. We all got back in our regular seats. The driver said "I guess this happens all the time?" I said yes. He said "should I offer you a tip?" I said no, of course.

How lucky are we to drive these cars. I can share a minute of that with another polite human who just wants to collect moments of awesomeness.

+1

[Jonathan]

Random thought for today...

You ever wear one of your DeLorean t-shirts (assuming you also have a whole collection of such things...) out and about, but not while driving your car, and then go in somewhere and get the "hey, cool shirt!" comment?

It seems to happen every so often, whether at a coffee shop, the gym, grocery store, or wherever. And sometimes I'll just say thanks and other times I'll get chatting with the person. Sometimes just to talk DeLoreans without them knowing I have one and other times I'll lead the conversation towards letting them know I have one. Fun to not mention you have one though, sort of like playing it down and avoiding coming across like you're special or something because you have one.

The thought I had was though, how many other car shirts do guys wear that totally get a different response?

If some guy is wearing a (typical) Corvette, Mustang, Porsche or similar shirt, I don't think most people would make a point of mentioning it. More like, "oh, ok, yea, good for you," with them probably assuming the guy wearing it really does have one of those cars.

If some guy is wearing a Ferrari shirt or jacket with the Ferrari logo/crest on it, I'd think most people would also not comment on it, but at the same time assume he doesn't actually have a Ferrari.

Yet, when you wear a DeLorean shirt (without your car nearby for them to see), it seems no one really even considers that you could have one. Sort of like it has never crossed their mind that you would, but instead just have a "cool shirt" on. Maybe like if I wore a shirt with a Millenium Falcon pictured on it, most people probably just think it is a cool shirt and not that I actually have one out back with my Wookie co-pilot on the ready.

Anyone get similar responses, or totally different for that matter?

I think it just speaks to how cool the cars really are in the same way that if you wore a shirt with something else equally cool and retro from pop culture (like a blue Lego spaceman, or maybe with Airwolf on it) that people would be "hey, cool shirt!"

(.... I did warn you it was a random thought...... lol )

[Mark D]

I don't usually wear any DeLorean related shirts (except at car shows) so it's pretty rare that I'm out in public to get the kind of response you mentioned in your original post.

Usually I'm standing next to my car at a show wearing a black shirt with silver printed DMC lettering on the front. People often think I'm much younger than I am so if I'm standing next to a DeLorean, wearing a DeLorean shirt they're more likely to listen to me when I tell them not to sit in it or touch it. Otherwise people don't believe it's my car and I've had my requests ignored when I tell people to get out of the driver's seat.

I do wear a DMC hat pretty regularly though. It's plain black and just has a small DMC logo embroidered in the front left corner of the hat. In the 8 years I've been wearing it I've only had one person ever ask me about it, and he said "cool DeLorean hat, are you the guy in town that owns one?" I told him I was, all he said was "cool" and finished checking me out at the auto parts store.

[Morpheus]

^Do they sell those @DMCH?

[martydmc12]

I used to wear the grey DMC t-shirt that DMCH used to sell. It had Proto-1 on the front, and said employee on the sleeve. I loved that shirt, wore it out though. I don't have any other stock DeLorean shirts, everything is BTTF related. Part of the reason is, is that I don't care for DMCH's selection of t-shirts. Those ones they did with The Hundreds that had the alien on them, WTF were those? Why is it so hard for them to make some simple shirts and ball caps with the DMC logo on them, or go back to the kind of t-shirt that I had?

When I had that shirt, I had a couple teenage boys at a big box store telling me that John DeLorean was in jail, and that it was a car used to smuggle cocaine. They weren't being sarcastic about it either, they really believed what they were telling me. I told them they were wrong, and that they better research their history a little better. They declined, and said one of their Dad's told them all about the car, and that it was a POS. I pretty much stopped wearing my shirt in public after that.

*EDIT/UPDATE: I just went to DMCH's website. They do have a nice selection of jackets with the DMC logo on it. That's what I'm talking about. Simple, yet stylish. http://store.delorean.com/p-10654-dm...ket-large.aspx

[refugeefromcalif]

Random thought for today...

You ever wear one of your DeLorean t-shirts (assuming you also have a whole collection of such things...) out and about, but not while driving your car, and then go in somewhere and get the "hey, cool shirt!" comment?

I wear a DMC hat every day. I was at a CVS last year and the guy checking me out said he'd never seen a DeLorean hat before, just BTTF shirts. I said I wear it because I have one. He told me I couldn't have one, they're too rare.
I told him mine was in their parking lot waiting for me. He shut down his register so he could have a look. (Nobody else was in line). He only looked at it for a minute but, he went back in with a smile on his face.

George

[Jonathan]

I wear a DMC hat every day. I was at a CVS last year and the guy checking me out said he'd never seen a DeLorean hat before, just BTTF shirts. I said I wear it because I have one. He told me I couldn't have one, they're too rare.
I told him mine was in their parking lot waiting for me. He shut down his register so he could have a look. (Nobody else was in line). He only looked at it for a minute but, he went back in with a smile on his face.

George

That's awesome, George! Out of the ones that I mention having one to, some sort of clue in a little bit AFTER you say it. Like you're talking about the next DeLorean thing after you sort of quickly gloss over that aspect "on mine" and then they keep nodding and suddenly back up the conversation to, "wait, hang on a second, you mean you actually have a DeLorean???" I find sometimes they don't know what to say next it comes as such a surprise. Good stuff!!

On the shirts and gear, I've ended up with about equal piles of DMC shirts and BTTF shirts. A couple of my favorites are worn out too. Worn a lot because it was either the design I liked a lot or they fit really well. A few of the recent ones seem too small, even with the XL size. I feel like I'm Chris Farley doing the "fat guy in a tiny coat" skit. My number one starter in the five man rotation for DMC shirts was always the simple, light grey DeLorean shirt with the outline car image on the front with both doors up (and I think it had STAFF on the sleeve too). My fav BTTF shirt was the "Say hi to your Mom for me" Biff shirt with an image of him from the original 1985 sequence on it. That one is so faded you can hardly see Biff!!