1981 DeLorean DMC-12 - Irish Roots
Monday, March 17th 2014
Everyone knows and loves the DeLorean in Back to the Future. But people rarely know much about the DeLorean itself. Today I'm not going to go into details. But I wanted to celebrate St. Patrick's day by talking about the DeLorean's Irish roots. Only about 9000 DeLoreans are said to have been built. All of which were built in Northern Ireland. Where?
Dunmurry, Northern Ireland to be exact. Dunmurry is located between Belfast and Dublin (closer to Belfast). The town is known for industry and also residential. It is considered a neighborhood of Belfast. Gotta love Wikipedia right? When considering possible locations for the factory DeLorean had debated between Northern Ireland and Puerto Rico. However Northern Ireland's Industrial Development Agency (NIDA) made DeLorean an offer at the last minute. This offer was intended to help bring jobs to Northern Ireland.
In October of 1978 DeLorean broke ground to what would become a 6-building complex over 660,000 square feet in area. The factory opened later in 1981 with over 2,500 employees. Of which many were new to the work force. Due to some issues with new workers, quality control was a major issue. There were reports of ill-fitting body panels being the most common. However several training standards were used to help aid these new workers. Included special black "mule" cars without the stainless steal panels (just fiberglass). These cars were used only for training and were never marketed.
Just as the plant workforce was becoming experienced things took a turn for the worst. Costs of producing the new car were exceeding sales and profit was little or none. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in late 1982. This would be the end of the Northern Ireland plant. An end to the DeLorean production. At least until recent light of the company making a come back. More on that later. Till then stay green my friends may luck be with ya!
References: DeLorean Museum, How Stuff Works
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Categories: 1981 DeLorean DMC-12, Back to the Future