No one can ever say that Detroit lacks legends. 

That said, John Zachary DeLorean was more than a motor canon figure – he was the wild card, the suit-clad rebel engineer, the man who turned muscle cars into cultural revolutions and corporate boardrooms into rebellion arenas.

He wore wide lapels and shouted louder ideas, existing somewhere between mechanical brilliance and Hollywood flash.

He was a rock star turned messiah turned corporate heretic, and for a time, he seemed utterly untouchable.

Until he wasn’t.

As with his gull-winged car, John’s story ends with the thought that maybe he was just too unique to survive.

John DeLorean was a native Detroiter born in 1925 to a Ford factory worker and Romanian immigrants.

He grew up in a small neighborhood near the Hamtramck border in an ambitious household with dysfunctional parents, his father Zachary’s alcoholism and violence later influencing his obsession with control and reinvention.

At Cass Technical High School, a feeder school for Detroit’s engineering elite, John graduated with high marks and later earned degrees in industrial and mechanical engineering from Lawrence Technological University and the University of Michigan, as well as an MBA from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

He was brilliant. 

Charismatic. 

Cunning.

And his proving ground was Detroit.

DeLorean found his way to Packard Motor Company in the 1950s and eventually became the president of General Motors.

By the early 1960s, he was running Pontiac, GM’s sleepy middle child, which saw him helping to develop a street-legal monster in 1964 – the infamous Pontiac GTO – a cheap, fast, stylish muscle car that all but invented the muscle car market and made Pontiac cool overnight. 

It was a shot of adrenaline straight to John’s aging bloodstream, one that quickly made DeLorean a household name and paved the way for several other hits, such as:

• The Pontiac Firebird
• The Pontiac Grand Prix
• The Chevy Vega 

By 1969, John was GM’s youngest division head, his slick hair, square jaw, and penchant for dating supermodels making him more movie star than engineer. 

The guy was everything Detroit was never supposed to be – rebellious, glamorous, and openly critical of the corporate culture that made him.

But the machine hates it when its parts have ideas of their own.

In 1973, with a clear shot at the GM presidency, DeLorean walked away. 

Voluntarily. 

He was sick of the bureaucracy, the politics, the lack of innovation….not to mention the many enemies that had made him fight executives and push one too many boundaries.

Still, to the outside world, it was a mic-drop moment.

A man at the top leaves it all to build something himself.

And that “something” became the iconic DeLorean Motor Company – the beginning of a myth that would end in handcuffs.

DeLorean’s vision was radical: 

A stainless steel, gull-wing sports car that would rival European brands such as Porsche and Ferrari but would still be affordable and futuristic.

He took on millions in private investments, eventually landing a $120 million deal with the British government to build a factory in Northern Ireland.

By 1981, the first DeLorean DMC-12 had left the line.

It was sleek. Sci-fi. A rebel with steel skin.

Yet, it was also underpowered, overpriced, and plagued by production issues.

The hype did not work.

Sales stalled. 

The company lost money. 

And right when DeLorean’s dream was about to falter, the world itself turned upside down.

In 1982, John DeLorean was arrested in a Los Angeles hotel room for allegedly trafficking $24 million in cocaine to save his sinking company.

The footage showed DeLorean in a hotel room examining bricks of cocaine like a Bond villain. 

The man who once built muscle cars for the American Dream now looked like he was selling powder for a nightmare.

But in court, he made one last classic DeLorean move: he got acquitted.

The defense contended that overzealous FBI agents exploited his financial need.

It was a landslide victory, but it did not matter.

John’s company was dead anyway, and his image was forever tarnished.

Just like that, Detroit’s prodigal son turned from messiah to pariah.

DeLorean car production ceased in 1983 with less than 9,000 units produced – a story that ultimately ended in the scrap yard.

That is until the car was immortalized in Back to the Future in 1985, making the DMC-12 the most iconic time machine in cinema history. 

Suddenly, kids who had never heard of John DeLorean wanted the car their parents never bought.

It was a strange twist: a financial failure remade into a cultural legend.

The late John DeLorean lived in New Jersey in semi-seclusion, occasionally trying out new ventures that never took off. And although he faced his fair share of lawsuits and financial ruin in the last half of his life, he represented an era of Detroit where people were not afraid to take risks. 

He was:

A rebel in a grey suit world.

A visionary who did not bother reading the fine print.

An engineer who thought like an artist.

And a man who flew too close to the sun and left scorch marks on everyone watching.

John DeLorean did not shake the industry like Henry Ford.
He did not save a company like Lee Lacocca.
Instead, he captured the emotional core of Detroit: one part ambition, one part failure, one part reinvention / myth…all through a car that looked like the future.
He died in 2005 at the age of 80.
Not rich.
Not absolved.
But certainly not forgotten.

Victoria Jackson (Editor In Chief)

Victoria Jackson is a lifelong student and sharp-eyed documentarian of all things Detroit, from its rich musical roots and cultural icons to its shifting neighborhoods, storied architecture, and underground legends. With her finger firmly on the pulse of both the city’s vibrant past and its rapidly unfolding future, she brings a deeply personal, historically grounded lens to every piece she writes.

Published on: June 26, 2025