Pilot 21 now in Germany?

[Dangermouse]

As recently as last year both Proto 1 and Pilot 21 were on show at GCMW facility in Bonita Springs FL, but I notice that Pilot 21 now appears to be in Germany at Deloman's place.

Anyone have any info on whether that is temporary, whether it's been sold, is it being refurbished etc.....


Also is Proto 1 still at GCMW or is it on the move too?

[Rich W]

<snip>

Also is Proto 1 still at GCMW or is it on the move too?

Although not really "moving", Proto 1 is currently on display in PA.

More details in article. Proto 1 is on exhibit at the AACA Museum in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2017/11/09/fresh-from-its-role-in-upcoming-delorean-biopic-dmc-prototype-exhibited-at-aaca-museum/

[GCMW Deloreans]

As recently as last year both Proto 1 and Pilot 21 were on show at GCMW facility in Bonita Springs FL, but I notice that Pilot 21 now appears to be in Germany at Deloman's place.

Anyone have any info on whether that is temporary, whether it's been sold, is it being refurbished etc.....


Also is Proto 1 still at GCMW or is it on the move too?


More to come on Pilot 21. Should be an announcement in February. As for Proto 1, the car is on loan to the AACA museum. Its return back to Bonita has not yet been determined.

thank you,

Mike

[Dangermouse]

Fascinating piece from Hank on the purchase and importation, including the creation of a new VIN for it SCEDT26T5AD0000021

http://www.deloman.de/images/pilot21/2016_08_PILOT21.jpg

http://www.deloman.de/projektemenu/d-m-c-12-pilot21

Plans to restore in time for Eurofest 2021

[Shep]

new VINWhat was the old one (was there one?)

[Dangermouse]

The old one just said D-21 and they needed to have a 17 character VIN to get a title. So they used AD for 1980 and then 000021

[Shep]

That does fascinate me that a VIN had to be fabricated with 17 digits. The old pre-1981 format was under 12 characters anyhow, there's no US law I'm aware of that says a modern VIN must be made up to get a title. Unless this is literally the first case of using the law that lets "hey you heard they're making a new DeLorean???" have some merit to it, that is.

Where was the VIN done, in the US, or once it arrived in Germany?

[pk2678]

The VIN was done in Germany while the car still was in the US at Gulf Coast Motorworks in Florida. The VIN plate was shipped to Florida and installed in the engine bay.

The old "VIN-plate" just showed

D-M-C 12
CHASSIS NO. D 21

So it wasn't a VIN at all. It did not need one, because the car was never registered. It was only used for emission tests on a test bench.
BTW. This was the first DMC-12 that had an automatic transmission.

[Shep]

So the VIN was added to grant a title that allows road use today, to summarize? That makes a lot more sense than how I had been thinking about it (I don't know German laws, so insight from another German helps).

Neat note on the first automatic one. I need to read up on the pilots again.

[Ron]

SCEDT26T5AD0000021

(Too many zeros... ;-)

Seriously tho, shouldn't the check digit be a 9 under ISO for a 1980 vehicle with that VIN??

[Shep]

(Too many zeros... ;-)

Seriously tho, shouldn't the check digit be a 9 under ISO for a 1980 vehicle with that VIN??Check digit or year code? Different things. A is correct year code for 1980 apparently:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_identification_number

Check digit is digit #9, in this case 5. It's probably right, I would need to run it through my VIN calculator (https://github.com/DMCShep/VIN-Calculator) to confirm and can't be arsed to pursue it that much.

[Ron]

Yes, "A" is correct for 1980.
I get check digit = 9

P.S. The page at my VIN calculator (https://github.com/DMCShep/VIN-Calculator) has some problems. I was going to use the old decoder to begin with but it doesn't offer an "A" for the year...

[Shep]

P.S. The page at my VIN calculator (https://github.com/DMCShep/VIN-Calculator) has some problems.Worst bug report ever!!! :angry_whip:

What has some problems? GitHub? My code? Sorry, have to rag on you a bit, I am rarely at an advantage here, even if it will likely be short-lived. My project works fine when I tested it. Try this: Green "Clone or download" button --> Download ZIP, open HTML file.

(EDIT: you didn't take the readme at face value, did you? "download and open vincalc.html" means "download project and open vincalc.html", otherwise you're downloading an entire GitHub page, which doesn't work all that well.)

If you're super lazy and don't care enough to support open source (or maybe actually secretly do and want to avoid burdening open source servers), here's (https://www.cjponyparts.com/resources/check-digit-calculator) a JQuery clone on some random car parts page. If you want to understand the math behind it though, I highly recommend Alton's VIN Calculator (http://www.alton-moore.net/vin_calculation.html). It involves a postback, but does show you how the math works for the check digit at least. Both will tell you if it's right or wrong, and what the correct one is (that last bit is key as there's an insane number that don't do that).

I pulled mine offline and later made it open source after noticing insurance fraud at my former place of work that seemed to match the timeline of when I did this (for example, someone added a six-figure brand new Mustang GT to his policy with a VIN ending in "...000000" and the check digit was correct) and voluntarily choosing to avoid any legal issues. Open sourcing it means I'm no longer liable as per any of the available go-to licenses (I'm surprised I chose Apache, I usually go BSD these days as it's both more free and also more protective), and hosting it on GitHub means that it's available to anyone and none of my servers need to care. By the way, my calculator confirms that check digit should be 9 as you said, but it limits the input box to 17 characters and did immediately say "check digit of 5 is correct", but the VIN ends in 0002 that way. I think that's where Dermot ran into the issue -- probably added an extra zero and got the miscalculation.

Now imagine trying to do long-hand VIN calculations!!! If you don't understand how that works, I can see if I can dig up an old Excel spreadsheet (maybe a Google Drive doc by now, I need to see) that showed the approach. This was exactly what I had to learn when I wrote that bastard. And you thought long division was hard!!!

[pk2678]

In fact the VIN is SCEDT26T5AD000021. Not SCEDT26T5AD0000021. One zero less. The authorities recommended to get a modern 17 digit VIN to ease the upcoming procedures for getting a title, exporting, importing, ... And because it was said that it would be difficult to get a VIN plate in the US, it was done in Germany. And the title was required to export the car from the US. No title, no export.

[Ron]

Shep,
~Everything on the page gave me a 404 error.
Yes, I did exactly what it said to do. lol Then I tried saving the 4 files to a folder (of course that didn't work either). I can't swear the green button wasn't there, but I doubt I missed it...So I gave up. I just visited it again (to give you a critique from hell armed with a double major in CSC and MAT ;-). But, it works now (Did you fix it or ???). My only suggestion now is to change "To use, download and open vincalc.html" to say something like "To use, download or clone and open vincalc.html" and move it or the green button so that they are together (MHO). (And to politely spank the user if they don't enter 17 characters ;-)
It and Alton's came up with the same as I did, 9.
FWIW, I don't see where Dermont dealt with the check digit.

I originally did it long-hand using the ISO standard. It's not all that bad:
[The fixed font is screwy (and, yeah, I'm lazy), so I just pasted it. Click to enlarge.]
55197

The check digit is wrong per ISO.

[Dangermouse]

(Too many zeros... ;-)

Yes, I know. Counting zeros is hard.

But in my defense I included a photo of the VIN plate, so bonus points to me :)




FWIW, I don't see where Dermont dealt with the check digit.

I didn't. I didn't create the number.

(and Grrrrr - you know why ;) )


Seriously tho, shouldn't the check digit be a 9 under ISO for a 1980 vehicle with that VIN??



I originally did it long-hand using the ISO standard. It's not all that bad:
[The fixed font is screwy (and, yeah, I'm lazy), so I just pasted it. Click to enlarge.]
55197

The check digit is wrong per ISO.

Yes, by my calculations, it should be a 9 too. Must be a metric VIN.:hihi:

[pk2678]

snip...

Yes, by my calculations, it should be a 9 too. Must be a metric VIN.:hihi:

You are right. In Europe position 9 of the VIN is just one of the digits that tells something about "the general characteristics of the vehicle" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_identification_number). The check digit is only used in North America. Since the manufacturer was located in Europe (SC = Europe / United Kingdom), the value for position 9 could have been any allowed value. It could have been the 9. But now it is the 5.
So the VIN is ok. Otherwise the US authorities wouldn't have accepted the VIN for the title.

There is a lot more information about the history of Pilot 21, its current condition and what is planned. Even that the content of http://www.deloman.de/projektemenu/d-m-c-12-pilot21 is in German. You could use Google translator to browse through the pages and view the pages as an English translation:

Go to https://translate.google.com/?hl=en
On the left side select "German" as language to translate from.
The right side should then show "English" as language to translate to.
In the left hand box enter the webpage address http://www.deloman.de/projektemenu/d-m-c-12-pilot21
In the right hand box a link appears for the translated page.
Click on that link to view the Pilot 21 page in English.
On that page you can click on further links to "Electrical systems", "Front door" (means luggage compartment cover), "Interior", "Body", ... and you will see the translated pages. A lot of information has been published there already. And more to come.
Try it yourself and see if the quality of the Google translator is ok for you.

[DMC-81]

^ Thanks for the links. The translation worked great, and it was a fascinating read. I chuckled as I read the exchanges with Mike... "Only the mechanic" :hihi2:

I'll be following the restoration.

[deloman]

Hello from Bavaria!

55375

I hope you enjoy:

https://youtu.be/TSrrkrJg9sk

Wolfgang

[BladeBronson]

Great video, Wolfgang! What unique challenges have you found already with the pilot car vs. a production car?

[deloman]

Great video, Wolfgang! What unique challenges have you found already with the pilot car vs. a production car?

Hi Christian and thanks for response! Well, we are at the beginning of this project, but you will find the first details here:

http://www.deloman.de/projektemenu/d-m-c-12-pilot21

[Rich]

I hope you enjoy:

https://youtu.be/TSrrkrJg9sk

Wolfgang

This initial teardown movie is great, Wolfgang. Thanks for sharing.

Also, the soundtrack selection is ideal.

-Rich