Hustler Documentary with new De Lorean info.

[DMCVegas]

I recently came across a great movie on Netflix called, Back Issues: The Hustler Magazine Story. I thought it was a pretty interesting, and well put together documentary in it's own right, and enjoyed it. I did however completely space on the De Lorean connection until footage of the factory, and JZD's arrest splashed across the screen.

Larry Flynt in his own right is a pretty big supporter of JZD, and was very outspoken against his arrest as he states in the movie during an interview. There was the limited television footage of the arrest, but there was something else too that caught my eye. There was archive footage of Larry Flynt holding a press conference at his home where he revealed a second tape. Unverified as it is, it is an audio recording of John Z. De Lorean speaking with James Hoffman, and they play the clip in the movie. In it you hear an exchange between what sounds like De Lorean pleading to be let out of the whole cocaine affair, and another voice that is Hoffman's threatening to kill John's daughter, Kathryn.

I've heard that these tapes existed, and allegedly that JZD's defense had requested them by specific times and dates, but they were all coincidentally damaged or otherwise missing. To hear what is supposed to be one was absolutely chilling.

[David T]

I recently came across a great movie on Netflix called, Back Issues: The Hustler Magazine Story. I thought it was a pretty interesting, and well put together documentary in it's own right, and enjoyed it. I did however completely space on the De Lorean connection until footage of the factory, and JZD's arrest splashed across the screen.

Larry Flynt in his own right is a pretty big supporter of JZD, and was very outspoken against his arrest as he states in the movie during an interview. There was the limited television footage of the arrest, but there was something else too that caught my eye. There was archive footage of Larry Flynt holding a press conference at his home where he revealed a second tape. Unverified as it is, it is an audio recording of John Z. De Lorean speaking with James Hoffman, and they play the clip in the movie. In it you hear an exchange between what sounds like De Lorean pleading to be let out of the whole cocaine affair, and another voice that is Hoffman's threatening to kill John's daughter, Kathryn.

I've heard that these tapes existed, and allegedly that JZD's defense had requested them by specific times and dates, but they were all coincidentally damaged or otherwise missing. To hear what is supposed to be one was absolutely chilling.

Larry Flint only involved himself in JZD's problems because of the publicity it would generate for himself. He tried to insert himself into the whole mess only for his personal ends. Larry Flint was a distraction to the main issues.

[Totally 80s]

Larry Flint only involved himself in JZD's problems because of the publicity it would generate for himself. He tried to insert himself into the whole mess only for his personal ends. Larry Flint was a distraction to the main issues.

Except he had tapes nobody else had.

[DMCVegas]

Except he had tapes nobody else had.

That would be correct. Flynt never makes mention in the documentary about where the tapes came from, only that it was none of the government's business where he got them from. I have heard that the source was eventually tracked down to an intern, or paralegal or someone from JZD's first law firm he contacted after his arrest. This was a firm more for real estate than it was criminal defense, hence why he eventually enlisted Howard L. Weitzman instead.

One of the things too I have found very interesting about John Z. De Lorean's arrest was the public's initial reaction. They were actually very supportive of De Lorean, with the infamous caller to Larry King Live who quipped on air that he had lost his job recently, and had wished that his boss had been trying to sell cocaine or something to save his job.

I've said it before, and it bears repeating that to understand the 1980's, you should really read Hunter S. Thompson's book, Generation of Swine to get an idea of what politics and the media were like at this time. The so-called "moral majority" was in full swing, and conservative, Christian-fueled politics were dictating a large amount of policy at the time. With the "war on drugs" ramping up since Nixon first declared it, conservatives were crafting the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 which would see the financial boom of Civil Asset Forfeitures for law enforcement agencies, the government needed all the support it could get. But in late October 1982, politicians and law enforcement were at least trying to maintain their "tough on crime" image. When De Lorean was arrested, he didn't draw contempt from the public; he had their sympathy based upon many people's belief of entrapment and the many conspiracy theories going around (many of which survive to this day). If you know someone who is old enough to remember, ask them where they were when they first found out about the De Lorean arrest, and what their immediate reaction is. Not what their current opinion is, but what their initial reaction was.

In any case, public sympathy for a defendant in a drug-related criminal trial wasn't something that the government wanted, and of course controversy sells, so the image of JZD was really switched around in order to change public perception of him. Especially with all the cocaine jokes that further fueled negative speculation.

James Espy had a great saying in regards to why most people never knew that JZD was acquitted. To paraphrase him, When you're arrested, it's front page news. And when you're acquitted, it's buried back on page 8. There's allot of truth to that. More so with such an embarrassing trial for the DEA when they had not only bumbling witnesses and a severely flawed case, but their own agent testified against them.

Now you may not like what Flynt does for a living. And whatever your reasons for that may be, they're inconsequential. It doesn't change the fact that he had those tapes, and is a part of the story now. The trial seems to be a huge part of the story as well that always gets glossed over. We talk about De Lorean, and we go into detail about the company up until his arrest. Then we just have a quick skip ahead to his acquittal with a quick mention of a divorce, completely skip over the bankruptcy trial, barely mention LMC's history, and then go right to his eviction from Bedminster and then his death. There is a whole lot of history that we're ignoring here.

[Jimmyvonviggle]

That's why I'm waiting for George Clooney to play him in a movie.

[dmcjohn]

I recently came across a great movie on Netflix called, Back Issues: The Hustler Magazine Story.
<snip>
Unverified as it is, it is an audio recording of John Z. De Lorean speaking with James Hoffman, and they play the clip in the movie. In it you hear an exchange between what sounds like De Lorean pleading to be let out of the whole cocaine affair, and another voice that is Hoffman's threatening to kill John's daughter, Kathryn.

I've heard that these tapes existed, and allegedly that JZD's defense had requested them by specific times and dates, but they were all coincidentally damaged or otherwise missing. To hear what is supposed to be one was absolutely chilling.

Thanks Robert for this - I'll be checking this out on Netflix. Like you, I had heard about this but never realized these tapes still existed. It really would make a great movie someday.

thanks,
John

[skill]

Robert ~
Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed the documentary and it was a good few hours spent. I do thank Larry Flynt for his battle against the Goliath on Free Speech. Also, I praise Ron Jeremy for his points. I wish we could find our more about these tapes, source and well the existence as it could shed more light on DeLorean and explanation. Regardless of Flynt's type of raw-business and tactics he means well.

[DMCVegas]

Thank you to everyone for the encouragement. Finding out more about the tapes has been something that has been nagging me for quite a few years now. I've been researching the information, and I plan on submitting a Freedom Of Information Act Request to the DEA to get ahold of all the audio and video recordings, along with all notes and paperwork from the investigation, as well as everything from the trial as well.

I do however have 2 massive hurdles at the moment that are standing in my way:

FOIA Requests can cost varying amounts of money. This one I'm not too worried about, because of Section VIII of the DOJ's FOIA Reference Guide that does allow for Fee Waivers if: "Under the FOIA fee waivers are limited to situations in which a requester can show that the disclosure of the requested information is in the public interest because it is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations and activities of the government and is not primarily in the commercial interest of the requester." I would say that given the trial's outcome as well as with the questioning of the investigation, public understanding is a given. I also have no interest in a book or movie deal. Whatever materials I receive from the FOIA Request will be donated to The DeLorean Museum, Inc. which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Whatever they wish to do with the items, it's up to them. I'm just curious. Crazy, I know. But it's just an itch I need to scratch. But everything would be donated to the museum once I'm done so that others could go over the information and we can have a full public interpretation of the materials.
I'm moving in 2 months. Houston's job market, especially for IT people is going downhill fast. There have been thousands of layoffs here, and I'm one of them. So right now it's a race to see where I get hired first: Houston, or Las Vegas. Even if I stay in Houston, I'm moving to some place cheaper. So I don't want to have any correspondence lost in the mail.



I don't know where I would get the court records from. That might be a separate request directly to the DOJ. And likewise I need to go ahead and find out as much information as possible. Information regarding the trial itself is probably where I need to start in order to get a better idea of what information to request from the DEA. If not specifics, at least requests that are not so vague. I'd love to talk to Gerald Scotti, but he's long since died. I'm not sure where in the world Valestra and Hoffman are, and I don't know if Tisa would be up for a chit-chat or not. Though I've managed to track him down. (http://bentisa.com)

Now what I also learned from the Hustler documentary was that in the credits, USC's archives appear to be where the factory footage was sourced from. But speaking of footage....

I can see century-old movie footage on YouTube right now. There are photographs of the gold AmEx car in Reno that I tool back in 1999 that are still floating around. Yet who the hell has the raw, unedited footage of John Z. De Lorean's arrest? I just can't find it anywhere. No one has it. Anytime we see footage of it, all we see is JZD picking up a package of coke, dropping it down. Trying to help the agents put it back in, and then him being handcuffed. It appears as though the footage being used is solely from the edited news archives. That is very interesting to me. Interesting because I've heard an allegation that there may be more to that tape than we've seen... I'd like to see an unedited copy from long before De Lorean entered the room, until long after he left. I don't know how much footage Flynt has, but I'd like to have more than even that.

[Jeremy Popp]

Thank you to everyone for the encouragement. Finding out more about the tapes has been something that has been nagging me for quite a few years now.

Have you read "The Delorean Tapes" book? It's a pretty good resource, but I somehow doubt it's a complete account of everything.

[DMCVegas]

Have you read "The Delorean Tapes" book? It's a pretty good resource, but I somehow doubt it's a complete account of everything.

No, I have not. I've heard of it, but opted not to read. The reason being is that I do not want someone else's opinion. I want to formulate my own, and Fallon has been pretty biased against De Lorean in the past. Interestingly enough you bringing up this book just makes the proverbial rabbit hole go deeper and deeper...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338260/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Novel

Novel I believe is the elusive 4th businessman who upon his divorce, the settlement going to his wife killed off De Lorean purchasing the KAPAC inventory to reboot the DMC-12 as the Forester 500. Which also coinsides someone with C.R. "Dick" Brown (if I remember correctly) hearing a cross-connected phone call with JZD anonymously speaking with someone to clear out the Dunmurry plant to have everything shipped to Panama to escape UK creditors. If true, it would make perfect sense why the Kirksite dies were defaced with plasma torches and dumped into Galway Bay.

In any case, like I say, I do not want outside interference in the form of personal bias on this search for truth. It may be my Dr, Zaius moment where I should let it go, because I may not like what I find. But I am prepared for that.

[Patrick C]

killed off De Lorean purchasing the KAPAC inventory to reboot the DMC-12 as the Forester 500.

Firestar 500

[DMCVegas]

Firestar 500

Absolutely correct. Apparently I didn't catch Autocorrect's screw-up there. Even Google keeps doing the same. Thank you for that.

And in case anyone doesn't know what we're talking about...

34263

[Shep]

Absolutely correct. Apparently I didn't catch Autocorrect's screw-up there. Even Google keeps doing the same. Thank you for that.

And in case anyone doesn't know what we're talking about...

34263I have an archived version of an eBay listing with that drawing in black. Had no idea that's what it was, I thought it was a concept made when 80's DMC was still around.

I am learning so much from this thread, seriously. Also chiming in to say thank you, both for the learning opportunities and the work you're doing to uncover the truth. Keep on trucking! :thumbup:

[Timebender]

Seems like the black modded DeLorean with the yellow interior is kind of close to that. If I saw that though on the road I'd mistake it for a Ferrari.

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34263&d=1431060934

[Shep]

Here's the one I was thinking of. Hmm, could've sworn it was black, but apparently he stuck with stainless.

http://dmctalk.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=34417&d=1350763911

See the remainder of the attached images for timeline -- looks like a Legend Industries project back in 1981, so at least that part's right. Maybe he got the idea for the Firestar 500 from this project? It's from "dmcseller" on eBay, so I'm 99.9% positive it's legit too. There's more where that came from too :)

(By the way timebender, I'm with you on that one -- looks like a Ferrari to me too! ;) )

[DMCVegas]

Here's the one I was thinking of. Hmm, could've sworn it was black, but apparently he stuck with stainless.

Yes, the Firestar 500 was a Post-DMC project. In 1981 when DMC needed extra working capital, they decided to raise it with a stock offering. However SEC "blue sky" laws (preventing you from selling stock for something that is entirely worthless such as nothing more than the blue sky) prevented a generic stock offering merely for the sake of raising cash. So the idea was to have something tangible, and it was increased production. The cash was raised, and credit with vendors were maxed out instead of purchasing the parts, but the massive parts orders came in. Parts for cars that would never be built were shipped to Dunmurry, and eventually wound up in KAPAC's warehouse in Columbus, Ohio. Until Stephen Wynne purchased them, and now they all sit in Houston.

But back in the 80's, JZD wanted to purchase all of those parts, and instead build brand-new DeLorean cars with them. In this case, they would have been the Firestar 500. Named so for a 500bhp engine that would go into it. But I've no details about it. Otherwise, as you can see it would have been the same car, except new fenders & quarter panels as well as a new look for the facias with a bumper delete in the back where the upside-down tail lights are.

The car that you're looking at there was during DMC's time, and I believe was a conceptual drawing for a DMC-12 for professional racing. In order to support the DMC-12, De Lorean was very keen on building both a large aftermarket support base with an owner's club, as well as a pedigree in professional motorsports. Though I absolutely love that rear wing and would love to somehow graft onto my own car.

The street legal version though with the Legend Twin Turbo engine for the '84-'85 year was supposed to look something like this:

34425

After JZD's criminal trial where he was acquitted, the second trial began in the US for DMC's bankruptcy (separate from the UK trial for the £12M misplaced by GPD). All of the documents that DMC had, from the most detailed reports to blank letterhead, all wound up with the trustee for DMC's bankruptcy. dmcseller and dmctrustee are the family of that attorney that over the years have been slowing selling off all of those documents.



I am learning so much from this thread, seriously. Also chiming in to say thank you, both for the learning opportunities and the work you're doing to uncover the truth. Keep on trucking! :thumbup:

Thank you very much for the support, I really do appreciate it. It's an absolute rabbit hole sometimes with things you discover. Especially all of these weird-ass sub companies under DMC's corporate umbrella that have been found, and other weird things that you just have to either have to try and decipher or just shake your head over.

[Shep]

In the eBay description, it does mention photo negatives of guys standing around an engine. Not sure who won that auction, but I'm curious if they belong to the racecar version, the Firestar 500, or possibly both.

I can't imagine this would be the case, but would it be possible for dmcseller or dmctrustee to have something about the trial and subsequent acquittal? It might be a long shot, but if they do, it might help you here.

[DMCVegas]

I would seriously doubt that they would have anything for the criminal trial.

The bankruptcy trial for DMC itself was drug out for a long time. The end result was something like .97¢ on the dollar paid back to all creditors. Which is an absolutely unheard of amount of cash. It's one of those situations where it would have been better for DMC to have stayed in business, but Sol Shenk was really the last chance for that to happen. The arrest of JZD was so embarrassing for the Brits, that they couldn't have allowed the project to continue.

DMC had a very bright future ahead of itself. Lots of people criticize the side projects like the DMC-80 bus and the DMC-44 OHV Utility vehicle, but those were actually niche automotive categories that like sports cars had minimal competition and lots profitability. GM's bus division was sold in the 80's as Roger Smith solidly set the company into a death spiral, and we've seen an entire industry spring up around Rhinos and OHV motorsports that didn't even exist when DMC was in business.

The first problem of course was that JZD never actually purchased a car from a dealership. He had no idea what it was like for the average car buyer, and "consumer financing" it would seem was completely foreign to him. Had he used the stock offering to form a consumer credit division, things would have been very different. He would have kept the cash, and instead lent it out for consumer purchases. That would have purged dealer lots and QACs of inventory, it would have increased DMC's wealth since their holdings would still include those vehicles customers purchased, there could have been interest accrued on the loans, profits would of course injected fresh capital into the company, and if production needed to be ramped up they could THEN have utilized credit lines. How do I know? Just look at Hyundai's transformation from the 80's to today. It was their own in-house financing that enabled them to stay afloat. This was especially crucial as GMAC pulled back financing (and others followed suit), and interest rates were so sky high. Well qualified buyers now get 0% APR financing on new cars. In 1981 the best I've ever seen was 12% from Ford Motor Credit. Sure a Corvette was like $12,000 cheaper on MSRP. But if DMC had offered painfully low rates, the monthly note would only have been like $20 more per payment when you compare 0%-5% financing compared to the high-teens to low 20%'s that GMAC was offering.

Anyhow, back to the Brits... JZD had always complained about the lack of export financing. But again, consumer credit would have made that redundant. Now one big thing that JZD justifiably complained about was being placed into receivership. It means two totally different things in the US compared to the UK. In the US, it means your company is dead, and is being liquidated by an appointed representative. In the UK it means that the representative is instead there to analyze what the hell is going on, and may take the reigns to keep the company viable. The DMC project was of course very viable indeed. So much so that Sir Kenneth Cork had proposed DMC taking over the Triumph TR8 so that DMC could rebadge it as their own and increase their offerings, as well as keep British jobs. This was pretty much the last straw. The Brits had been trying to help DMC along, and even after William F. Haddad (and with checks to him from GM, there is a great deal of suspicion that he was involved in industrial espionage) had tried, as it appeared, to possibly sabotage DMC by having secretary Marion Gibson take internal documents to Scotland Yard for investigation. Not only was no problem found, but they kept it quiet at the time to avoid hurting DMC's reputation. See the whole "Gold Facets Memo" for details. Anyway, this final offer was worth a ton of money. I need to look up the details, but it was going to be something like £80M in the form of loans and grants from the British government, the Triumph TR8, and at least a seat on the board of directors for the UK's interests. But the key was ensuring in the British government's eyes that JZD would tend to the company by making sure he had something to loose. That was a $20M stake that they wanted him to invest. For $20M, of which he had already secured a $10M loan, and still had less than $30M in assets he could have liquidated at the time, he could have gotten the additional £80M and DMC would have been saved. Cork worked very hard at getting that deal, but in the end, De Lorean took a plane flight to California and was arrested.

I honestly do have a theory as to what I'll find. JZD was acquitted, NOT found innocent. That is key. It was a six of one, half dozen of the other situation. JZD as he says was tired of being pushed around by James Hoffman, and tired of the threats against his family. As he wrote in the letter to his lawyer, his intention was to get revenge by defrauding the drug dealers with a shell company that had no assets (a similar tactic he was contemplating to undermine any Government board members), and they would have lost all of their money if the deal progressed. Likewise if the money from the deal came in, he wouldn't have to pay it back, nor answer to the UK people. So in truth, JZD actually did want to be there. That is why when interviewed, the jurors always refused to say "Not Guilty", but did acquit him of the charges.

The whole scheme that led to the acquittal was of course that Hoffman wanted JZD to invest cash, which of course JZD had none. This eventually broke down into the idea that Hoffman would front De Lorean's investment in the cocaine purchase. Once the drugs arrived and the narcotics were distributed, Benedict Tisa's fake Palm Springs, CA Savings & Loan would be a front to launder the profits from the drug sale. After which Hoffman would receive all of the money, and then give JZD his cut, sans a percentage for himself as he put up JZD's investment for him. Which that right there is the kicker: Why was De Lorean even needed for this deal? No money nor drugs ever changed hands with him, DMC, or any other subsidiaries. So he was never involved in any sort of deal at all for the purchasing of narcotics, and absolutely wasn't involved in their distribution. And if he wasn't involved in a deal, why was he there in the first place, let alone what was he being arrested for? Hence the acquittal. But he did technically want to be there for the other aforementioned reasons, so that's why there was never a "not guilty" vote.

JZD's reasoning was always that he was under a ton of pressure, and thanks to an intense schedule, as well as wine & sleeping pills, he wasn't in the right state of mind to make those decisions. But still, I really want to see those documents, and all unedited video and audio footage. I don't quite want to say what it is that I'm looking for, but there is something that I heard about and want to try and find.

[OverlandMan]

I'm moving in 2 months. Houston's job market, especially for IT people is going downhill fast. There have been thousands of layoffs here, and I'm one of them. So right now it's a race to see where I get hired first: Houston, or Las Vegas. Even if I stay in Houston, I'm moving to some place cheaper. So I don't want to have any correspondence lost in the mail.




There's a thread on Ferrari Chat in the Texas regional sub-forum discussing the massive layoffs in Houston, mostly as a direct result of the oil crash over the past several months or so. I imagine this factors in to what you're citing. I've been working in IT up in the Dallas area for approx 10-15 years. The market up here is certainly less volatile than down South of late. Not sure what precisely you do within the technology arena but I can let you know of opportunities I hear of as time progresses.


Parts for cars that would never be built were shipped to Dunmurry, and eventually wound up in KAPAC's warehouse in Columbus, Ohio. Until Stephen Wynne purchased them, and now they all sit in Houston.

On a side note, anyone know how much Stephen purchased the entire lot for? I'm only interested from a business perspective.

Alright - back on topic. :offtopic2:

[DMCVegas]

There's a thread on Ferrari Chat in the Texas regional sub-forum discussing the massive layoffs in Houston, mostly as a direct result of the oil crash over the past several months or so. I imagine this factors in to what you're citing. I've been working in IT up in the Dallas area for approx 10-15 years. The market up here is certainly less volatile than down South of late. Not sure what precisely you do within the technology arena but I can let you know of opportunities I hear of as time progresses.

The oil crash is definitely the reason why. Wildcatters formed all of these startups to utilize fracking to extract oil and gas to sell off. The problem though is that they ended up flooding the market with cheap petroleum because there were so many of them. OPEC isn't happy, but the Saudi Oil Minister has remained steadfast that they won't decrease petroleum exports. Which is pretty much a long-term solution to increase/stabilize prices by bankrupting all these small companies to curtail production.

My wife works in oil & gas, and they're projecting that it'll be about 2-3 years before oil prices to recover. Speaking of which, since first posting, she got a layoff notice too. She's good until the end of the year since she's needed for helping with the transition to the new restructuring plan. She's only got a handful of classes left to complete before she obtains her degree, so we'd like to stay here long enough for her to complete her studies, but man... It's just getting harder and harder.

My skill areas are in telecommunications with a focus on RF engineering, and Enterprise IT, but mostly with Macintosh in education. I was in healthcare doing IT before I got let go, but the job market here is super competitive. I get offers from around the country, and especially in Austin & DFW within Texas. But Houston has become a nightmare. I have certs, but everyone here wants a degree instead of experience. I had that happen twice so far where I've lost out on a job because the other person was a fresh graduate with a degree, even though I had the experience. I'm going to school to get a degree, but this stuff has really made explore other options for a career change. In the mean time, it's just a race to see where a job pops up at first.

I do appreciate the help though.



On a side note, anyone know how much Stephen purchased the entire lot for? I'm only interested from a business perspective.

According to a Forbes article from about 10 years ago (http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2005/0919/090.html), the price was "...less than $1 million."

It doesn't seem like much, and Wynne's then-estimate of a $35M value makes it seem all the more so. But at the time of that purchase nobody really knew how big the parts inventory was, so it was a much bigger gamble. I'll say that based upon James Espy's 2005 Open House story of the accidentally tipped parts bin where they found parts long thought to be extinct that were merely buried at the bottom of deep bins.