The ’80s and the ’90s are garnering renewed notice as nostalgic Gen Xers look back wistfully at the seemingly simpler times and culturally curious Gen Zers search for a past time period to naively idolize. Natch, the renewed DeLorean Motor Company surprised everyone this week with a look at some renders of the electrified successor to the legendary DMC-12 — the Alpha5. (Note: Thus far, they’re just that — renders; nothing physical has been built yet.)
The DeLorean Motor Company went down in flames in 1984 after founder John DeLorean got caught up in an oh-so-’80s scandal involving 220 pounds of cocaine. Though he squirmed out of being convicted of trafficking the booger sugar to help finance the insolvent DeLorean Motor Company, the automaker soon declared bankruptcy and shuttered its operations.
The company got a boost to its image when the film Back to the Future featured the stainless steel-bodied car as a time machine on wheels, but it was too late, though it led to more interest in the cars. The name was bought by a Texas rebuilder and restorer of DeLoreans in 1995 and now they have birthed the Alpha5, a subtly designed homage to the original DMC-12.
The Back to the Future movie franchise spawned a host of quotable lines and a cast of unforgettable characters. The t...
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Stats of the yet-to-be-built electric car mirror what most modern EVs can pull off, with a slightly sub 3 second 0-60 estimate and range of over 300 miles — 0-88 is plugged on the site, of course, putting the car at 4.35 seconds. It also features the iconic gullwing doors, with neat LED taillights integrated into them, and rear glass louvers.
Overall the Alpha5 presents a profile that is a bigger, broader, swoopier, and curvier rendition of the classic silhouette.
Other details are scarce as the home page is filled mostly with a bunch of marketing gobbledygook about being “unapologetically human,” the “future never being promised,” and of course, the metaverse is mentioned, for some reason. So will you see it on the road someday? Maybe so, maybe not. And though the cocaine jokes still waft about when discussing the DeLorean brand with car guys, you can be assured that the new site guarantees: “Legacy Does Not Define Our Vision. Our Attitude Does.”
You can reserve your Alpha5 now on the website, and they claim that an actual, physical model of the car (no word on if it will move under its own power) at the 2022 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.
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