Time Machine in Kent, UK

[TTait]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2776161/Now-s-no-excuse-late-Molly-eight-goes-school-exact-replica-time-travelling-DeLorean-Back-Future.html

Not exactly the finest time machine conversion in terms of authenticity - but they claim it was built by Universal? Who really did this one? I'm pretty sure it was neither Kevin Pike nor Danny Botkin.

Nice that he's using a time machine for benevolent purposes though.

[BTTF-1]

Some parts are accurate some are not.

His little girl seems very happy.

Thanks for sharing.

Ed:flamed::yoda::yoda::flamed::flamed::yoda::yoda:

[ALEXAKOS]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2776161/Now-s-no-excuse-late-Molly-eight-goes-school-exact-replica-time-travelling-DeLorean-Back-Future.html

Not exactly the finest time machine conversion in terms of authenticity - but they claim it was built by Universal?

I'll have you know that this IS a universal conversion.
Steven got it off universal. He is currently replacing some of the props I a am buying back in the car that are worn out n damaged with fresh ones. Some parts of which I am making like his plutonium canisters etc.

This is an email from him telling me about it.

"I got my car from J ryan and sean Bishop who built it and was used by Universal for 2 years.
There is no better time machine in Europe, im very proud to own it and we have made a few upgrades and kept it true to the original car"

Oh, and he is called Steven. Not just Steve. :p

[Mark D]

I'll have you know that this IS a universal conversion.
Steven got it off universal. He is currently replacing some of the props I a am buying back in the car that are worn out n damaged with fresh ones. Some parts of which I am making like his plutonium canisters etc.

This is an email from him telling me about it.

"I got my car from J ryan and sean Bishop who built it and was used by Universal for 2 years.
There is no better time machine in Europe, im very proud to own it and we have made a few upgrades and kept it true to the original car"

Oh, and he is called Steven. Not just Steve. :p


Please get your facts straight before you go posting nonsense like this. Yes, the car Steven owns was originally built by J Ryan and Sean Bishop, but it was never an official "Universal" conversion in any way, shape, or form. J was featured in an interview on the 25th anniversary DVD and he talked about building his car... That is the only affiliation to Universal this car has. J Ryan apparently fed Steven a bunch of bullshit prior to selling the car and Steven bought every word. I've seen several interviews where Steven continues to spew misinformation. Just google "Bttf DeLorean with knob in it" and you'll see what I mean. Steven has been banned from several online forums for continuing to make false claims about his car that are completely untrue. To add insult to injury, most of the rare and accurate parts were removed from the car prior to J shipping it to Steven anyway...

So "I'll have you know" this car IS NOT a universal conversion.

The only conversions done by universal were for the three films, and those cars are all very well documented in terms of what happened to them after filming. The only actual universal car in private hands is a Part III offroad car and is owned by the Shea's. All other claims of people owning Universal cars are 100% false.

[ALEXAKOS]

Boy Mark, you sure have an aggressive way of setting facts. This is not a trivia competition.
Sorry for not being there and following this car from day one.

I am not intentionally misinforming people mark. I am just telling the story as it was explained to me by the person of the article.
Hope I have not offended anybody here.

Thank you for your contribution.

[Mark D]

Sorry if I came off as agressive, but your "I'll have you know" statement came off as if you were an authority on the subject. Before stepping in to make such a statement I would think one would want to make sure they actually know the facts.

So as I said in my previous post, before you go correcting others on whether something is true or false, please fact check your information first. Otherwise (intentionally or not) you are spreading misinformation.

What bothers me the most about this car and Steven in particular is that he knows the truth about his car and yet he continues to tell people lies. At least it seems like he's using his car to help benefit other people, but I disagree with the way he purposefully and knowingly distorts the truth.

[jamesrguk]

What bothers me the most about this car and Steven in particular is that he knows the truth about his car and yet he continues to tell people lies. At least it seems like he's using his car to help benefit other people, but I disagree with the way he purposefully and knowingly distorts the truth.

I think you'll find people have issues with this aspect too, AFAIK he runs a business, not a charity despite the impression he may give.

I understand it some of the charity claims are very wooly, perhaps not all, there are of course two sides to every story.

I Very occasionally hire my car for wedding work (mine's a stock car not BTTF) and I still get several people who, when I get chatting on the phone, drop into conversation that they had spoken to a chap called Stephen, and they were not bowled over by his business approach

Sadly, rightly or wrongly, this chap is now outcast from many forums in the UK as he has a rather unique skill of pissing people off, not good in a small comunity such as this.


J

[TTait]

All other claims of people owning Universal cars are 100% false.

Well now... That's not quite true either. I owned a Universal car my friend. 10902 was owned by Universal Studios Hollywood for a dozen years - but it was kept stock, not converted to a Time Machine. I have copies of the registration paperwork showing it registered and titled to Universal Studios Hollywood. The car is currently owned by Ed Uding at DMC-EU.

Not a time machine - but a Universal car. I understand the spirit of your statement, and must concede that it is 95% accurate!

[SIMid]

:popcorn:

[ALEXAKOS]

:popcorn:

Lol!

[Mark D]

Well now... That's not quite true either. I owned a Universal car my friend. 10902 was owned by Universal Studios Hollywood for a dozen years - but it was kept stock, not converted to a Time Machine. I have copies of the registration paperwork showing it registered and titled to Universal Studios Hollywood. The car is currently owned by Ed Uding at DMC-EU.

Not a time machine - but a Universal car. I understand the spirit of your statement, and must concede that it is 95% accurate!


What I posted is absolutely true. This thread is specifically discussing time machine conversions and the paragraph in which you cherry picked that quote has context showing I am referring to time machine conversions with my usage of the word "cars". If you want to continue to argue go right ahead, but it was obvious I was not talking about stock DeLorean raffle cars or any other non DeLorean cars once owned by Universal.

Here is the full quote:

The only conversions done by universal were for the three films, and those cars are all very well documented in terms of what happened to them after filming. The only actual universal car in private hands is a Part III offroad car and is owned by the Shea's. All other claims of people owning Universal cars are 100% false.

Steven's car was never owned by Universal and the statement that you copied from Steven's email that his car "was used by Universal for 2 years" is false. It seems a little shady on your part that you're trying discredit the true statements I made by taking partial quotes out of context to redirect the conversation... Since you had no rebuttal to my statements about Steven spreading lies I'll assume you do not disagree.

[Andy]

I don't know Steven personly and I don't know where his DeLorean came from, but still he keeps referring to it as 'THE' BTTF car. So why does he do that then? A friend of mine also has a BTTF 'replica' and it look just as good as Steve's example (and he build it himself!). I don't care wether it's a 'Universal' one or not ...

[Kane]

Every time this guy gets mentioned, a flame war always starts. He misrepresents that this is the car from the movie in various interviews he does. "So is this the real car from the movie?" "It was used by Universal." That is paraphrased, but he lets these people writing articles think the car is one of the movie ones.

And the way that daughter mugs for the camera, you can tell the apple won't fall too far.

[ALEXAKOS]

Hahahaha
So he is proud of his possession and feels like he has the world in his hands. He may also believe all he says. I don't understand why the rest of us need to become defensive and stone him.

It is what it is and he is happy with that fairy tale. Let the man be and give it a rest.

Too much denial and defensiveness on our behalf are signs of jealousy. So look out for your response;) hihihi

[DL4567]

Of all the arguing and usual time-machine nitpicking going on in this thread, I'm surprised no one has mentioned what jumped out at me in that article.

"Uncanny: Top, Steve's car's dashboard and below, a Delorean prop used in Back To The Future III"
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/10/01/1412161837683_wps_56_Mandatory_Credit_Photo_by.jpg

Are they saying that picture is supposed to be a screen-used Part III car? Clearly, it is not. Black interior, and obviously not-accurate parts.

[Kane]

Of all the arguing and usual time-machine nitpicking going on in this thread, I'm surprised no one has mentioned what jumped out at me in that article.

"Uncanny: Top, Steve's car's dashboard and below, a Delorean prop used in Back To The Future III"
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/10/01/1412161837683_wps_56_Mandatory_Credit_Photo_by.jpg

Are they saying that picture is supposed to be a screen-used Part III car? Clearly, it is not. Black interior, and obviously not-accurate parts.

That's kind of my point. Journalists don't know anything about this stuff so it's real easy for him to mislead them into thinking his is the movie car without actually lying.

[ALEXAKOS]

About that photo, I was too surprised they used that terrible interior and Steven was also pissed they took this image and named it bttf 3 interior. He did mention that a couple things in that article when wrong.

[TTait]

Since you had no rebuttal to my statements about Steven spreading lies I'll assume you do not disagree.

I do agree - yep. I'm here to talk and have fun - not win. Did not mean to offend you. Just sharing.

I guess what I can add to the discussion is this: Another reason there are no (or dare I say few?) Universal cars out there is that Universal is... difficult?

It took me 3 years to negotiate the purchase of my car from them - and that was with forceful support from a Senior VP who was in my corner. They have forms and procedures for acquiring anything they need or want, they have inventory procedures to track where stuff is, they have accountants to amortize and write assets off, they have moles who watch for illegally liberated items that show up on ebay, and they have trash pickup services. They do not have a good process for selling off assets - it's just not part of the core business, and nobody wants to touch the task as it's thankless and could only lead to accusations of malfeasanse.

If they get rid of stuff, like the 24 fiberglass delorean bodies from the BTTF ride - they toss them in the trash. Sometimes little stuff quietly makes it out of the dumpster and out the gate in the trunk of a car (like, say... A Cylon head - for instance that was getting tossed out in the 90's, or a set of blueprints for the Jurassic Park visitors center set) but that stuff stays under wraps for the most part and one rarely mentions owning such things. Ahem.

Anything cool that is owned by that studio sits and rots, or gets tossed. It's kind of a shame. My car - not a time machine conversion, eroded away over the dozen years they owned it. Jet Skis were stacked on it, glass was broken out, someone spray painted on it (thank god it was stainless). It's kind of a miracle the A car survived as well as it did or that they put any money into restoring it. Sadly, the resto on that one was aesthetic only, the car itself has not run for many years and was not attended to despite the pleas from the restoration team. It barely ran in '89, but it did, I got a chance to drive it about 20 feet.

Universal is a roach motel - cool stuff goes in, but it does not come out.

Tom

[Timebender]

Of all the arguing and usual time-machine nitpicking going on in this thread, I'm surprised no one has mentioned what jumped out at me in that article.

"Uncanny: Top, Steve's car's dashboard and below, a Delorean prop used in Back To The Future III"
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/10/01/1412161837683_wps_56_Mandatory_Credit_Photo_by.jpg

Are they saying that picture is supposed to be a screen-used Part III car? Clearly, it is not. Black interior, and obviously not-accurate parts.

So whose car is this? I'm not a huge expert on BTTF Time Machine conversions (yet), but c'mon- besides the black interior, automatic, knob vs. battery cleaner, small switch box... and the list goes on.
As far as news reporters, the majority do nothing to get facts straight, find what they can to make a deadline, and make up anything else to get a high readership. Been through that with being misquoted when running for school board, my daughter's article in the Reader about her music career had stuff she hadn't mentioned by the writer decided to add his own interpretation for drama (they said they'd write an apology but what's online will be there forever), and so on.

Heck, most news reporters Google their information and regurgitate it.

[TTait]

automatic

And in fairness - the automatic knob is such an easy fix... Danny does it on his conversions. He removes the shift quadrant and handle and reworks a 5 speed shift knob to go on top of the selector shaft, with a modified pull up release. He then installs a slightly oversized custom shift boot and it looks the part pretty convincingly... You either have to look pretty close to notice or look for the clutch pedal at that point.

[Gary Weaver II]

Now on ABCNews.com :giggle:

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/dad-drives-daughter-school-back-future-delorean/story?id=25897427

[Timebender]

Yeah I've seen that- Danny's pretty talented.

[Gary Weaver II]

What did Danny build on this one? My understanding is that this isn't one of his.


Yeah I've seen that- Danny's pretty talented.

[Timebender]

Nothing I'm guessing. Tom was just mentioning that Danny had a mod for an auto to look like a stick, and I said that I had seen that in the past before.

[Dangermouse]

Of all the arguing and usual time-machine nitpicking going on in this thread, I'm surprised no one has mentioned what jumped out at me in that article.



Not this part then:

'The original from the film is in such a state of disrepair that it's not driveable so this as close as you can get really".




:8ball:

[DL4567]

Not this part then:

'The original from the film is in such a state of disrepair that it's not driveable so this as close as you can get really".




:8ball:

I didn't read all the text of the article, just looked at all the pictures and captions. But yes you're right, that too is totally wrong.

[MikeWard]

:popcorn: http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?6248-The-BTTF-Car-as-seen-on-stage-with-Michael-J-Fox-amp-Christopher-Lloyd

[Kane]

:popcorn: http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?6248-The-BTTF-Car-as-seen-on-stage-with-Michael-J-Fox-amp-Christopher-Lloyd

Thanks for finding that thread. All that drama is what I was referring to with this guy.