Monday, July 3, 2023

DeLorean should have been more successful. Musk proves it can be done.

 


28 comments:

  1. Didn't the DeLorean suffer from shoddy workmanship? I know I thought the car was cool when it was first introduced.

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    1. repairing stainless steel fenderbenders must have been nightmarish.

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    2. So did the Tesla. Over 10% of the models needed rebuilt after production.

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  2. The DeLorean really wasn't very good and Musk isn't an arrogant coke head. If the car had been worth the asking price, the dealer infrastructure had been built at the same time and JD had a somewhat cleaner lifestyle he clearly would have been "more successful" at the very least.

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  3. Musk had daddy's money as well as government funding. He's a fraud.

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    1. Ya a fraud, keep that in mind every time you see a rocket ship land on it's tail.

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    2. ‘@Don’t mind me’ what have you personally created, with or without your “daddy’s money”?

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    3. Elon Musk kinda rubs me the wrong way most of the time but someone needs to do a little reading. Elon was making tech money from the time he was 12 years old and before he was 30 had personally profited over $300m just on the sales of companies that he helped create. As for "government funding", NASA has paid SpaceX almost $5b so far for flights but never "funded" the development of the company.

      So yeah, I won't mind you.

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  4. I'd take a DeLorean over the musk junk anytime.

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  5. Elon doesn’t do nose candy.

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  6. Steve the EngineerJuly 3, 2023 at 9:51 AM

    I seem to recall a "car & driver" article on the car and the main thing was it was underpowered, for what it was. And oversteer I think. Buy yah, totally cool design - plus it came with the available time machine option if you could get some plutonium.

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    1. If you still have one, ECC will give it electric power: (details start at 5:25)
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfPelgfEjpo

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  7. Had one back in the mid 80s when I was in Army helo flight school. Parts were exceedingly expensive unless, you had the cheat manual. Need a radiator cooling fan since you hit into a curb? DeLorean price $200. GM truck part, $50. They're back in limited production now in TX. Get one with the 500 hp grand national V6 engine. Then it moves smartly.

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    1. Weren't stationed at Hunter, were ya?

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    2. think the army flight school was at Rucker

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    3. I understand that. I was hoping this was the same guy that cut me off twice in different parts of Savannah one Saturday afternoon. That DeLorean ended up with a nice sized dent in the drivers door the second time it happened. It had a HAAF sticker in the windshield, and belonged to a officer (identified by sticker color) and was frequently seen in the one area of flightline parking...next to the hanger I worked out of. Just wanted to catch up with an old 'friend'.

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  8. What killed Delorean was that he spent his available funds on building cars without a dealer network to sell them. No money was saved back for ongoing expenses.

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  9. delorean blew it.

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  10. The Delorean vehicle was garbage, period! I personally believe Musk is weirdo, however he is a self made weirdo. Delorean’s company was propped up by the British government, that’s why it was manufactured in Northern Ireland

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  11. big difference is that people actually want to buy musk's vehicles.

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  12. Delorean tried to succeed using private money. Much of Musk's success with Tesla has been due to the amount of tax dollars he has received in various manners for a variety of reasons. If Musk had been forced to build the Tesla company without tax breaks and other forms of government incentives he likely would have failed. And the company may still fold. The only major profits it produces are from "carbon credits".

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  13. Part of the DeLorean problem was that the plant was in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland about a mile from my ex-inlaws house. The labor issues there explain a lot of the problems with the car.

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    1. It didn't help that when they imported axles, the Brits thought they were smuggling in machine guns.

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    2. The problem was that Dunmurry was in an area with no history of engineering with a high level of long-term voluntary unemployment.

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    3. But it was in an area where the UK govt would pay to build the factory .I think the govt paid for the entire factory construction cost and then some .

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  14. The DeLorean was a cool looking p.o.s.
    If John DeLorean had been designing Hot Wheels, instead of building actual cars and doing coke, he'd be a billionaire now.

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  15. I bought one in 1981 from Trent Olds in New Bern N.C. Turned out to be a real piece of shit.....fell apart sitting in the garage cuz I was afraid some little old lady would back into me in the Publix parking lot and there were no parts.....speedo broke first time I exceeded 100 mph, and never did get the part....tail light assemblies were printed circuits that warped after they got wet....taped an empty Kool cigarette pack to the back of the driver's side to make it work....windshield wipers came on when they felt like it, and wouldn't shut off, unless it was raining, of course....overheated with too much city driving, as the radiator was too small and the electric fans were ineffective....mine had the new "gas cap door" so I didn't have to raise the trunk lid to put gas in....all the weather stripping fell off for no reason....could go on, but I've smeared it enough....Delorean started out to build a car for less than 25 grand, but couldn't sell them for that...mine was 28 and I heard I got off light....keep in mind I could've bought a brand new Ferrari for 30 at the time....hey, I was young and dumb and that stainless steel was nice looking....and don't forget the gull wing doors that trapped Dusty Hill from ZZ Top for a few hours before they figured out how get the torsion bar doors open....there was only a Bank drive through window, so you weren't climbing out through that...wound up getting a great tax write off as this was during the business friendly Reagan years, and the car cost me net zero.....traded it even up for a brand new 1984 Mark Cross Le Barron with all leather, a very nice car except for the female voice that would tell you "Your Fuel Is Low" and wouldn't shut up until you put gas in.....all said and done, the car cost me nothing, but it was an interesting experience...

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  16. But Elon hasn't been caught selling coke.

    Yet.

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