What Was a DeLorean Car Value in the 80's?

[Pags44]

I've been interested if any of you know how much a DeLorean was worth in the 80's AFTER the company went out of business? Were they basically worthless? It's kind of like a modern day situation with the GM lines of Saab, Saturn, Pontiac, etc. but DeLorean was only one car where GM is a parent company and is still around. Just curious. Thanks!

[David T]

They were being advertised as low as $9,500. But realize that is in 1983-4 dollars. There is an advert somewhere.

[Pags44]

Dealers must've had the cars for years then, wow.

I wonder what the used market prices were.

[David T]

Dealers must've had the cars for years then, wow.

I wonder what the used market prices were.

That price was by Consolidated. They had the largest # of Deloreans. Many dealers tried painting them hoping that would make them more sell able. The main problem was the question buyers had of who would service them and if there would be any parts available. People, for the most part, were not buying Deloreans as collectables, they looked at them as daily drivers and would require service. And new car buyers generally don't do their own service. So who buys a new car and doesn't expect a warranty? Not many which is why the price dropped so low.

[Iznodmad]

The original owner of 16128 paid $16k for it in April of 1984 from Consolidated, one of the last 5 cars they had left over for sale then.

[mr_maxime]

I've wondered the same for Fisker Karmas especially considering how much more complicated it is and that their battery supplier went bankrupt. At least there were plenty of replacement parts for the delorean.

[David T]

While it is true there were a lot of parts, it was not common knowledge and who knew how to work on them anyway? It only became obvious later that there was this treasure trove of parts. What was common knowledge was that the company went bankrupt and when you hear that you assume there is nothing left. Often, when the dust settles, someone steps up and tries to continue something in some fashion but that was not apparent at the time. There was just all that bad publicity about how under-powered and unreliable the car was. Remember, there was a BIG fuss when Johnny Carson got stuck in his car on his ride home from the dealership and JZD was arrested on video. The publicity was horrible. It didn't improve till the BTTF movies came out.

[Gregadeth]

It didn't improve till the BTTF movies came out.Did the value of the cars noticeably spike up because of the movie, due to increased demand? I would imagine after July 1985, DeLoreans were commanding relatively higher prices across the board.

[SamHill]

I think there had to be some segment of the ownership who were rich guys and they were just plain done with it.

[Dangermouse]

Did the value of the cars noticeably spike up because of the movie, due to increased demand? I would imagine after July 1985, DeLoreans were commanding relatively higher prices across the board.

I wouldn't necessarily think so. It was originally a kids movie. Most of the BTTF fans today are fans "because they saw it when they were a kid", and kids in 1985 didn't have 10-25k to spend on a car. It has only when they got older and have some disposable income that they can afford such a car from their youth.

[Pags44]

They were being advertised as low as $9,500. But realize that is in 1983-4 dollars. There is an advert somewhere.

Anyone have the advert? Would be cool to see it.

[DMCVegas]

To answer your question, the best thing you could do would be to hit up your local library. They should have archives of old Kelly Blue Books, NADA Guides, and/or other used car price guides from back in the 1980's until today. Those would have the numbers that you seek.

It's definitely had it's ups and downs here in the community. From what I gather, the three spikes in DeLorean collectability came from:

John Z. De Lorean's arrest.
Back to the Future.
The DeLorean Mailing List.


Once DMC got shut down with JZD's arrest, there was an immediate, albeit small surge in collectability of the DMC-12. The same thing happened after BTTF came out. Both events helped to boost desirability a bit, but the really huge surge came in the late 1990's and forward with the rise of the DML.

We really take for granted both the instant communication we have online now. You can post a problem, and sometimes within minutes you've got a reply back with a solution. That clearly was not the case in the past. As Gen X got older and started to come into some money, we started looking at cars we wanted, and the DeLorean was one of them. Thanks to the DML you could get not only support, but a mind-blowing crash course in car repair and auto restoration. As the older owners started cashing out their investments, or just wanted to get rid of derelict cars, those of us from the Internet were all to eager to snatch them up since we knew how to repair them. Which was honestly in a very stark contrast to the owners of the past. There was definitely a flood of DMC-12s hitting the market around the turn of the century, so that did keep prices down. But the increased desirability and dwindling supply of cars has grown the price organically.

[Pags44]

That's an interesting idea about going to the library. Ironic because it links into your other points about how technology has changed. People don't really go much to libraries anymore, but I bet they have old guides like that. Thanks for the info.

If anyone comes up with anything cool like an old advertisement or kbb showing value please post it for the community!

[DMCVegas]

That's an interesting idea about going to the library. Ironic because it links into your other points about how technology has changed. People don't really go much to libraries anymore, but I bet they have old guides like that. Thanks for the info.

If anyone comes up with anything cool like an old advertisement or kbb showing value please post it for the community!

I kind of have my own rants about books and the library. Especially when it comes to people no longer visiting, but I won't even get into that here.

Yes, the libraries are not used nearly as much as they once were, but they're still invaluable. Believe it or not, John Z. De Lorean is the perfect example. There wasn't nearly as much mass media and instant communications then as there was today. So there are all these books that were published one after another up until his trial. All different authors, somewhat different angles, which despite the same subject material all equals comparative yet different articles with varying information sources. Nowadays, more than ever, we just see the AP model of one author writes a piece, and then it just continues to get reprinted through aggregator sites. It's a damn shame because we loose so much objective aspects of the similar material to help us form our own opinion, as well as additional information.

The big thing though to keep in mind is that the Internet is only as good as the information which has been provided into it. Physical media is cataloged by volume, but not content, so there is no metadata to scour. The best example was Roy Nesseth. I'd no idea what he looked like, and no real content about him was ever uploaded to the Internet at the time. But I read in De Lorean's autobiography and other books about how the next day after his arrest, Christina Ferrare was in Los Angeles with Roy escorting her. So I had to pull the microfiche for the L.A. Times at the Vegas library until I found a picture of her with Roy behind her. Boom, there here was. So I printed off the grainy photo, and scanned it at home to upload. That was the only online photo of the man, and it's been passed around all these years since.

When you go through physical archives, it is definitely work. But man, there are so many hidden items that the internet just can't bring you because no one knows they exist.

If anyone does find the old KBB's from the 80's & 90's, for a good laugh I recommend also looking up the Renault Fuego.

[dodint]

Found this interesting article (https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=G5dPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-wUEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3680%2C3873574) after few minutes of browsing Google's Newspaper Archive. It's a short piece about what people thought the value would be moving forward after the drug arrest. Specifically it talks about the immediate jump from the low $20k range to just scraping $30k.

[David T]

The ad I was referring to was done by Consolidated and was only for a short time and was in a local newspaper. I can't remember where I saw it but it was $9,500. Someone saved it somewhere. Back and white with a bad picture of the car.