For something that boasts a glistening stainless steel body, the DMC DeLorean's tumultuous journey into production is rife with nothing but stains, minor and major; it looked to incorporate novel technologies such as elastic reservoir moulding, unit–construction plastic chassis, airbags, and even a mid–mounted Wankel Engine for 12,000 of the finest 1980s US dollars, but not only did none of that make it past planning, the production version that reached customers' hands saw the Italian styled Lotus chassis pump out a laughable 130HP from a Peugeot–Renault–Volvo V6, hung aft the rear axle for some reason. If you thought all that is a head scratcher, wait till you try to figure out why that shoddily built and largely incoherent mish–mash ended up costing 25,000 USD—over twice its original target price! For everything that John DeLorean had achieved and overachieved in his life up to that point, it seemed that the one thing he'd have benefitted from, but sadly didn't have, was a homie that'd tell him, "You talk too much, homeboy you never shut up!"
Had it not been for a certain movie giving the DMC-12 a starring role, the DeLorean might have quickly faded into obscurity where it arguably belonged. But, the fact is, it's fondly remembered by many because of said movie, so much so that, in 2004, a largely authentic refresh of the original, called the "S2", was unleashed under new ownership, which finally gave the daring, futuristic car some decent shove to back up its looks and asking price... which now amounts to a cool 525,000 Credits... in 2023 money. I suppose that's in keeping with the theme of the original as well.
Boy, if this thing don't have enough power to make this car go fast enough to break special relativity and send me back in time, I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure those new owners end up behind bars.
I've never watched "Back to the Future". I think the car is daylight robbery. But I have it in my garage, and I've driven it. Surprise surprise, it isn't total shite. Quite the opposite, in fact!
Had I not seen the spec sheets prior to driving the DMC-12, I never would've guessed that this thing has a rear engine, rear drive layout—RR for short—code for some of the most heinous, bloodthirsty psychos on four wheels, such as the RUF CTR and the Alpine A110, but the DMC-12 simply doesn't Walk This Way. Putting down power doesn't set off a chain eruption of the Pacific Ring of Fire, and trail braking doesn't immediately rot every rubber plantation in the world. In fact, even with its upgraded 197HP (147kW), it's difficult to get into trouble in the DMC-12. The staggered 195–235mm tyres mean that it's always the front end that's the limiting factor in any situation, from braking into a corner to powering out of it, and they give only slight hints that they may be suffocating for the requisite weight to really challenge the rear tyres throughout. Said 197HP peaks well below the car's 7,000rpm redline, and that is sent forward through a 5 speed manual gearbox geared so tall that mid fourth is all one can reasonably expect to see around most racetracks, which means it isn't going to have the speed to get itself into any real trouble with an experienced set of limbs.
Despite its rather comical, almost off roader 160mm (6.13in) ground clearance, the DMC-12 displays no unwanted or unexpected body motion when a corner approaches, being taut and immediate enough with its suspension setup to put it well into hardcore sportscar territory a cut above established names such as the FC RX-7 and E30 M3. Of course, with its slim front tyres and massively rear biased weight distribution, the front end has to really hunker down on the front tyres to get them to grip, necessitating a softer front end. While this does mean that the front end does struggle for weight and grip into high speed sweepers, it also does mean that the front end is extremely sensitive and responsive to weight shifts, to the point where it felt like my left foot on the throttle pedal was directly tied to a pulley controlling the lift and dive of the front end; every minute twitch with my big toe resulted in palpable weight shift over the front and visible trimming of the turning radii, making the DMC-12 an extremely controllable sports car that offers no excuse to its driver.
In fact, the only hint on–track that the DMC-12 has an RR layout is its featherweight front end, which feels light enough to be carried off by a slight crosswind like a kite. With just 39% of the car's scant 1,288kg (2,840lbs) over the front wheels at rest, one could very effortlessly turn the unassisted steering wheel of the DMC-12 to the point where it goes completely limp and convulses, without ever touching any of the three pedals at speed. This means that drivers will have to be keenly aware of the car's turning radius at any speed, and consciously hold the car within the limits of its front tyres in the corners to avoid understeer, in contrast to modern cars that will at least simulate weighing up the steering wheel when approaching the limits of grip, and let go more linearly past that. Needless to say, the tyres feel incredibly woeful, even for a car of its scant mass and passable power; the DMC-12 largely shares braking points with some of the more unwieldy Gr.4 brick missiles, while itself struggling to surpass 200km/h. While the car is rock solid in the dry, these Comfort Soft tyres are so utterly miserable and almost completely useless in the wet that I couldn't believe that they were radial tyres—I even had to dip well below 50km/h (31mph) for some of Tsukuba's tightest corners in the torrential rain. It really comes alive because of that, though, as I could finally slide the car around, and it retains all the "flickability" and ease of use even in the worst of conditions.
Information on what's been revised on the S2 over the original car is just about nonexistent on the internet, including what's been done to the NA V6 engine to up its power from 130HP to almost 200, but what I can tell you is that it makes peak power at 6,000rpm, past which the charts fall off a cliff, and peak torque is helpfully available from 4,000rpm, making this a car that needs to be short shifted. I personally find best results shifting this somewhere around 6,400rpm of 7,000, which is slightly just past halfway in the game's shift bar. And it just doesn't sound that good. The gear ratios could both be shorter and closer together as well, because as it is currently, it's functionally a tall 4 speed mated to an engine with no top end to redline it on a racetrack. Don't ask me, because I don't know why it's been set up like this, but It's Like That, and that's the way it is.
(Grunting noise)
Because of its limp front end and long stopping distances, I find that I really have to ironically baby this car when driving it hard around a track in order to extract the fastest time from it, to really take care of it and not let it trip over itself. There are no sharp and hard movements to be made with my hands or feet; I have to slowly roll into the steering wheel, ease into the pedals, give the car ample setup and "warning" before diving into a corner, lest I ask the car to do something it isn't loaded up properly to do. Ordinarily, sentences like that I intend as complaints towards the big, heavy, and unwieldy, but the lightweight DMC-12 is hardly uncooperative; it just needs a bit of help and patience to do what is asked of it. Driven right, the DMC-12 not only feels barely like an RR car, but it can also feel a lot lighter than it's near 1.3 tonne mass, almost like what I imagine a Lotus Elise would drive like, dare I say. That is to say, the DMC-12 an intensely engaging drive that puts a microscope to a driver's ability, clearly subdividing drivers of similar skill levels.
Now, you might think that a modern day resuscitation of an 80s icon might not have many rivals to compare it to, but I have not one, but two cars this week which I feel are apt comparisons! The Toyota SPRINTER TRUENO GT-APEX (AE86 Shuichi Shigeno Version) '00 is likewise a boxy, lightweight 2 door rear drive sports car born in the 80s, made into a cultural icon via a work of fiction, and touched up for the turn of the millennium. The Mazda RX-7 GT-X (FC) '90 is... a turbo RX-7. It's a well regarded sports car.
How does the steely DeLorean stack up against these two benchmarks of performance?
At first, I thought to myself, "yeah, no way I'm going to be able to work the 86 into the review as a comparo car; it's way cheaper at 120k Credits, the base car drives SO well, it has more power, less mass, and even with a Comfort Soft tyre downgrade, it sits some 50PP above the DeLorean." Of course, I thought that before having driven the damn thing, because when I did drive it, I found it to be an abhorrent pile of garbage that I will never again touch in "stock" guise. It oversteered badly on corner entries and exits, couldn't put power down, couldn't turn, and got left behind by the DeLorean if there wasn't a lengthy straight to reel back in the time travelers. After an ultra embarrassing outing at Streets of Willow, a track I chose, I swore to myself I am NEVER again going to touch this piece of crap without a tune. I would even go as far as to say that the Shigeno 86 is the perfect example of a car ruined by mods, and it makes the S2 look like a freaking rockstar just by giving context of how badly someone can muck up a car; the Shigeno 86 had an excellent base car to build upon with a sensible layout, but failed so badly, whereas the S2 had an infamously garbage base with a layout that only Porsche can make work, yet fought on equal footing against the Shigeno 86 around Streets of Willow all in spite of common sense and statistics going against it.
The FC RX-7 from all the way back on Week 1 of GT7 Car of the Week however, is a much more competent rival to the DeLorean. Sporting a Wankel Engine, the FC RX-7 not only gives a peek at what could've powered the DeLorean, but as an 80s sports car itself, also what a fully realised DeLorean could've been competing against. Being late to realise its potential in 2004, one could say that the DeLorean went forward into the past to do battle against the Mazda RX-7 at Tsukuba ;)
In a comparison between an FR car and an RR car, one would reasonably expect the FR to be the easier, more composed, and much more predictable drive, but instead, the unconventional rotary rocket flips the script by being the rowdy, lairy car of the two, one that never lets its driver let down their guard, holding a knife edge with a snappy arm to the driver's throats to make sure that they never mistreat the car and always have a flick of counter steer primed at the ready. Despite being the lighter and much better balanced car, the manga meister loses marginally to the movie megastar in the corners, only eking back out a small time advantage on the straights with its combined power and mass advantage over the DeLorean. Of course, that's the result of my own testing, and Vic didn't get the memo. The best I could do was to hover between 0.7 to 1 second to his gold plated glare machine at sunny Tsukuba. But hey, it's Tricky to hang with Vic, to hang with Vic in spinny bricks, it's Tricky. It's Trrricky. I did outrun every other DMC in the race though, for what it's worth!
Cars made famous by movies tend to be pretty shite in real life; think of your Pontiac Firebirds, your Lamborghini Countachs, and your Dodge Chargers. These movie star cars are pretty much the embodiment of the saying, "never meet your heroes". Someone has clearly met their hero with the original DMC-12, and they did a fantastic job of making sure that everyone who was inspired by a DMC-12 had a suitable hero to look up to in creating the S2, outperforming contemporary machines both in pace and ease of use, and even being able to hold its own against modern sports cars like the GT86, all in spite of the fact that it's an RR car. If all the S2 did was to bump the power of that abysmal engine, I think the original DMC-12 could've genuinely been a world beater, if things had gone just slightly better for John DeLorean and his company. For a passion project by a small, independent company, and for the end product to have been so, so good, I think that half a million credit asking price is... begrudgingly justifiable.
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