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Okay, John, Can you hear me alright?
Yes, sir,
I'll be talking to you over this intercom
when I'm out here, I'm going to pump up that cuff now,
Okay,
The test is about to begin,
Is your first name John?
Yes,
During the first 53 years of your life did you ever do
anything dishonest, illegal or immoral?
Uh, yes,
Before 1981, did you ever engage in an improper
business practice or put false information
on an official form or document?
Uh, yes,
Before age 54, did you ever cheat someone
or take advantage of anyone in a business deal?
Yes, I would say,
Okay, John, How was it that time? A little nervous?
Well, like, ahem, when you get into those
general questions you start thinking back
about bad used cars you sold people,
- Oh, Yeah, - About the,,
Maybe the time you,,
Yeah, I noticed that you answered false,
Committed a little adultery, uh,,
- Mm-hm, - You know, those are,,
Uh, I-I must say that, uh, if you really --
Causes you to think back,
Well, you go through your whole life,
[instrumental music]
John DeLorean is one of the maverick rogues of his day,
And there are very few of those guys around today,
He was a dreamer, he wanted to push things
beyond where other people had taken them,
And in a way that's a marvelous and appealing characteristic
but it's also extremely dangerous,
John DeLorean was a winner
a loser, a champion, a relentless fool,
This guy was the quintessential leading man
that Hollywood producers dream of
and he was real,
I've always wondered why a feature film
hasn't been made of John's life,
I think it'd be a great movie,
Obviously I'd had this dream,
I wanted to build this, uh, automobile company,
Everybody said it's inconceivable that
any new automobile company could survive,
I'm always interested in the story
of the quintessential outsider
full of ambition and hope and works his way up
and ascends to the position he was in,
He had it all, his own auto empire
a beautiful wife, children, He was a golden boy,
And of course, his colossal fall
is almost Shakespearean,
John DeLorean who gave up a shot at the presidency
of General Motors to build his own futuristic sports car
is in jail this morning,
The thing that's remarkable about DeLorean's story
is that it has all of these incredibly powerful elements,
It's got a marvelous celebrity couple,
It's got drugs, It's got drug dealing,
It's got FBI guys,
It's got this incredible political backdrop,
It's the sort of story that's, uh, you know
i -- i -- if it hadn't happened, you wouldn't dare to make it up,
The interesting thing is all of a sudden now
a number of people have been back at me
wanting to do a movie of my life,
It always seemed to be a story
that had been around Hollywood
as early as probably the early '80s,
Often good ideas, you know
produce several films, uh, at the same time,
With John DeLorean, I think it was taken to a new level,
Every single one of these movies had different people
from John's life, different family members
different underlying material,
Which made it this -- this fascinating race
to get the movie made because each one would have been
a decidedly different story,
Still to this day, not one's been made yet,
Every so often you hear
"Oh, somebody's gonna make a movie about DeLorean,
Somebody's gonna make a movie about DeLorean,"
Knock on wood, it'll happen
'cause, uh, I think i -- it could be great,
He was this kind of chameleon-like figure
who could appear one thing to, to one person
and another thing totally to a, a different person,
And I think in a way, that's why
so many scripts have been written about him
because, you know, he is open to interpretation,
You get the impression that he is either a beleaguered man
who was discredited and manipulated
by big business in this country
or he was the greatest conman to ever come down the pike,
[instrumental music]
We have an opportunity this morning to visit with him,
Would you welcome Mr, John DeLorean,
[audience applauding]
You shoot him for your purposes over the arc of how many years?
He ages a bit,
Mostly early '70s to early '80s,,
To early-80s,
So there's a spread
and he ages during that time,
And I wanna see how his behavior ages,
I need to see clips that are a range of that,
But driving you all this time
was this desperate need
to make this car thing go,
My pride is so intense that nothing in the world
would let me let this business
this car with my name on it, go down,
That's the corner of his eye,
You draw a straight line up the brow
overlaps the corner of the eye,
Well, I think it's got to come in a little bit,
- It's got to come over? - Yeah,
Alright, the involvement with cocaine,
Talk about that,
Well, it's a peculiar thing
because, you know, in my life
I have never, ever seen cocaine
touched cocaine, used cocaine
or been in the presence of anybody --
All the time I've looked at DeLorean
before I thought where is he manipulating
and where are the peeks behind the curtain of who he really is?
And then when you play the person
you say to yourself forget about me looking at DeLorean
as a viewer on a TV show and saying
what's behind the curtain with him?
When you start to play him, you go, no, no, no, no,
He's not guilty of anything,
He didn't do anything, In fact, it's the opposite,
He's a hero in his mind, He's a hero,
And you, and you, and you have to play that,
You have to play who he thinks he is,
And you present him as who he thinks he is to the world,
And you let the audience make up their mind,
And that you suddenly thought you were involved with the mob,
And you were frightened for your life
and your children's lives,
Really what happened,,
Let me just show my wife,
She just thinks it's funny,
She thinks this whole thing,,
She's like "Alec, like I can't believe
this is what they, they pay you to do this,"
Oh, God,
Wait, what are you doing? You're doing a movie?
We do re-enactment footage of DeLorean's drama
his caper, his escapades and shoot them as a movie
and cut re-enactment footage into documentary footage
of a movie about DeLorean
and what he did and what he went through,
And the good news is, I don't have to bother
with any of that, They do,
I'm gonna just go put the make up on
and go try to be DeLorean,
[instrumental music]
For John DeLorean, growing up in Detroit
every kid's dream was to go into the auto industry,
One thing you have to understand about John DeLorean
is he was a brilliant engineer,
And so to start with he had some really good instincts
and he had great talent,
DeLorean thrived in the car business first at Packard
for a short while at Chrysler,
And somebody sought him out at General Motors
and offered him his choice of five divisions,
He took on Pontiac, which was the old ladies'
division at the time,
And it was really the place
where he could shine the most,
General Manager, Mr, John Z, DeLorean,
[applauding]
In those days, the late '50s and early '60s at GM
Pontiac particularly was exciting to be there
because they, they were almost ready to be dropped,
And of course, that was the kind of thing that gave you
the incentive to come up with new ideas and make them happen,
And I started as a very unsophisticated young engineer,
And I was given an opportunity to, uh, attain a success
in a business world far beyond anything
I had ever imagined I was capable of,
You know, this was a special guy
who was gonna change the industry forever
and truly become a legend at the company,
Scene two-Alpha, take three, Marker,
The story on the GTO is that we were about ready
to do a brand new line
and we had the '64 Tempest to be
in the garage there with John and a couple other guys,
- Hey, Bill, - John, you heading home?
Yeah, I was about to,
Wanted to stop by and see how you were coming along,
Well, I think she's about as good as we're gonna get her,
He would, uh, encourage e -- everybody
to, to do something new and different,
Was hoping maybe we'd have something
I don't know, sexier?
- You mean sportier? - Yeah,
More high performance, you know?
Well, our bigger 389 engine
has the exact same dimensions as the 326 in here
so we could swap that out, no problem,
How would the car handle the extra power?
That's the thing,
Have to fit the appropriate transmission and rear axle,
But we do that, it'd definitely be sexier, John,
Shoot, we could even run this in NASCAR,
I say we do it,
- Really? - Yeah, absolutely,
But then what? You think you can actually sell it?
[chuckles]
You let me worry about that, Bill,
[engine revving]
I was just gonna drive it back and forth to work
and I had a marvelous time with it,
And I found that every time I lent it to somebody
to use for a day or two, I couldn't get it back,
And I said, "Well, there may be a market
for something like that,"
What the hell is this?
That's a GTO,
It stands for Gran Turismo Omologato
which I think is Italian for fast as hell,
But, uh, it'll beat every car on a track or American street
and it's still a Pontiac,
Hold on a second, Turn that off,
The 14th floor is never gonna go for putting
such a large engine in such a small frame,
Well, GM forbade putting
a so-called big block beyond, I believe, 350 cubic inches
in a medium size car,
The guys upstairs approved this?
I don't need their approval,
[chuckles] It's a new product, John,
All new products need upper management approval,
And John was interesting,
He loved really just figuring out ways to bend the rules
as much as possible,
But it's not a new product,
It's an options package on the new Tempest,
And one that puts a real tiger under the hood,
- It's manipulative, - It's marketing,
Pontiac is primarily the division for older buyers,
What are they gonna want with a hot rod?
We're the division for older buyers
because that's how we view ourselves,
We've got to anticipate
what younger buyers want before they even know what they want,
And once they realize it, give them this,
So how many you wanna produce?
You're the sales manager, you tell me,
I was thinking about 30,000,
[laughs]
- You're outta your damn mind, - John, be reasonable,
I can't imagine us selling even close to 5,000
but let's start with that number
and let's hope that they don't rust on the lot,
At that time, the sales manager
of Pontiac thought it was stupid,
And he refused to schedule more
than I think about four or five thousand for the year,
It was an outlaw move,
DeLorean snuck it past the GM watchdogs
by a sort of sleight-of-hand,
It was just an options package,
Despite his feeling it wouldn't sell
I think we sold like, 45,000 the first year,
What he figured out before anyone figured it out
was that this exploding youth movement
had interest in cars as something that would represent
the way they wanted to look to the world,
It's the perfect moment in which John was able to marry
both his brilliant engineering as well as his marketing prowess
to create the muscle car,
The muscle car era really advanced Detroit,
It made money,
It made Pontiac,
It made those three letters
GTO, legendary,
There's an odd parallel between the Pontiac GTO
and John Z, DeLorean,
The GTO was a risk taken,
And I think it convinced DeLorean
that taking a risk no one else was willing
to step up to and making it work
at all costs was how you did it,
And after you do it once, why stop?
What I see about DeLorean for me
he took such risks,
And the problem with people who take risks like that
is that when they win, when they make their calculated risk
they become emboldened, they take more risks,
And then they take risks outside of their normal sphere,
Between this and the other,
it'll generate, uh, about four and a half
uh, not less than four and a half mil,
Risk-taking in the automotive industry and risk-taking
with a bunch of drug dealers in a hotel
are two different things when your confidence
in yourself is very, very high,
You don't make mistakes, You don't see them coming,
[indistinct chatter]
This stuff weighs more,,
Gold weighs more than this,
Gold weighs more than this for God's sakes,
- Yeah, Better than gold, - Better than gold,
Gold weighs more than this, for God's sakes,
- Hi, John, - Hi, John,
- Hi, - Jerry West, We're the FBI,
But in the end, when he's arrested
and he tilts his head back
and you have a shot hopefully looking down
from the ceiling
and his head should crane up and look right up
into a thing and look off camera
and he's thinking, and what, what are you thinking?
We should cut to what he's thinking,
He's worried about his family,
He's worried about losing everything,
And there were like, four or five things
if he just made a little adjustment here
and made this decision differently there
all of it would have turned out completely differently,
[instrumental music]
DeLorean was clearly a fast mover
at GM in the early '70s,
Whoever makes the most money at GM
is the most important person,
And everything he touched turn to gold,
So by the time John reaches the 14th floor
better known as the executive level
he's in his mid 40s,
If he just plays his cards right
he's poised to be the next president of General Motors
the largest corporation in the world,
GM was very intentional
on making executives colorless,
And DeLorean was a highly Technicolor person,
He wore open collars, He wore side burns,
He spent his weekends in California,
And you know what an evil influence that is,
He gets significant plastic surgery on his face
to give himself a stronger jaw,
He starts weight lifting and losing weight,
He and his first wife separated
and then he started dating actresses and models
uh, women that were a lot younger than him
uh, and who a lot of GM executives
and their wives thought were age-inappropriate,
I have a reasonably strong sex drive
which I happen to think is an important part of any guy,
No man who ever accomplished something
uh, didn't have that one characteristic,
He married a second wife, Kelly Harmon, Blond bombshell,
She was 19 at the time,
The General Motors PR Department
added a couple years to her age
when the press releases first went out about the marriage,
She lives there in Detroit for two or three years
becomes disillusioned with the marriage and leaves him,
And within a year and a half,
he's married to Cristina Ferrare
the, at that point, world's top super model,
Then he ended up, of course, in the fashion magazines
and that kind of thing,
And while that enhanced his image
outside of the company, it created problems
for him within,
GM can't stand this,
It's pissing them off,
And he goes back to them and says
"Hey, what are you guys worried about?
Look at the sales numbers,"
Tom, how do you feel about our retail sales job this past year?
How do I feel? John, I feel great,
Both at Pontiac and at Chevrolet
he was making so much money for the company,
And all the executives that he reported to
who were upset with his lifestyle
upset with him couldn't quite figure out
how he was doing so well, but they could see the numbers
and they knew that showed up in their bonus checks,
And that was the interesting dilemma
for GM with John DeLorean,
This is Boston Harbor
and those are Volkswagens,
They're coming in,
One of the tragic flaws of GM and again
this is something he knew is that the company
was all too willing to do what it was doing
year after year after year because it was working
even though they were ignoring, for instance
the small car market and let it go a lot of time to foreigners,
He saw what was coming from a lot of these imports
these smaller, more fuel efficient, better quality cars,
And he knew the writing was on the wall,
Obviously, I saw the trends very clearly
and I, and I wanted to react to 'em a little bit
perhaps more aggressively than other members
of the industry management,
He had big aspirations, He wanted to stay at GM,
He wanted to be president, he wanted to do things
take the company in directions that they weren't willing to do
because they were so comfortable being the fat cat at the time
being the number one car company in the world,
And that leads to his demise,
[instrumental music]
There were executives who resented him,
Probably the most prominent
is, is a guy named Roger Kyes,
It was just a total difference of opinion,
I think he considered me, uh, capricious and superficial
and I considered him a pompous ass,
Those enemies in the company
uh, slowly developed kind of a cabal
if you will, against DeLorean,
In 1972, they tasked John
with putting together a speech to talk about GM's quality,
The infamous Greenbrier Speech,
They pre-read all the speeches weeks in advance,
They noticed that the speech not only criticizes
the quality of the cars, but it criticizes a lot
of the executives that are currently there
some of his own bosses,
And they censored a lot of the stuff
that he could say in the speech,
But, you know, he wasn't gonna let it just
rest at that,
There's nothing,
There's something you forgot,
Well, that's the one I'm actually giving
at Greenbrier on Saturday,
This is the speech I should be giving,
What I should be saying is in here
it's somewhere buried like Kyes wants,
- You think it's personal, then? - Oh, sure it's personal,
I wonder how much longer I can do this dance,
I mean, at this rate, it'll be ten years of me
pushing papers that I didn't write
before I'm named president,
And that's, that's not gonna work at all,
Any thoughts on how you might accelerate that?
As a matter of fact, I've got a few ideas, yeah,
If this original speech were to be leaked
there would be some blowback, sure,
But I'd be vindicated,
And in this particular situation
what he wants is for the public and the press
to sort of shame GM and push them in the direction
that he wanted the company to go in,
- Good to see you, Roy, - And you, John,
And he felt that by calling these people out
that this was gonna somehow prop him up and propel him
even faster into the presidency,
His initial speech leaked to the press
and it was all over the news that John DeLorean
is highly critical of General Motors' quality,
DeLorean claimed his enemies had leaked these
the speeches out,
Became apparent that people close to DeLorean
had leaked these speeches out,
You gotta remember this is a person
who was only rewarded for taking big risks,
Dangerous moves,
[chuckles] It didn't work,
No doubt, DeLorean was booted by members of the board
and the corporate directors,
And that forced him out very abruptly in 1973,
DeLorean is ejected from the company
and what should have been a very embarrassing event,
However, he finds a way at making it all heroic,
Being fired or being 1/7th
or 1/10th of some committee
is a very unappealing thing to me,
Obviously, it was very rewarding financially
and it would have been easy to sit there for another
17 years collecting a, you know, a half a million
or three quarters of a million dollars a year
but that really didn't appeal to me very much,
A full career would have been another 15 years,
Well, what's he gonna do?
He's going to count beans with the other executives,
Compared to creating new, cool products
like GTOs, it's completely different,
There's no way DeLorean would have lasted to age 65,
Wow, I can't imagine us selling even close to 5,000
but let's start with that number,
I've got another car, a stainless steel car
you're gonna be crazy about it,
Yeah, okay, Good luck with that, John,
[laughing]
No, that's what the line should be,
T -- the bad version would be
next thing you're gonna be telling us
"You want to build a stainless steel car,"
[laughing]
In the back of his mind
this concept car was always stirring,
What he called an ethical car,
Oh, we're doing a sports racing car here,
It's gonna be designed to have an eternal life,
And so we're using a non-corrosive material
so that it'll just stay together forever and ever,
And, so it's gonna be very beautiful aesthetically,
He wanted to build a sophisticated
contemporary looking sports car for the masses,
That wasn't the norm, you know, if you're gonna get
something that's that exotic
and interesting, you're gonna have to get a Ferrari
or a Lamborghini where they only make, you know
a few hundred cars a year,
John was trying to make a mass-produced car,
He set out to compete with the big boys,
It's difficult, if not impossible to
to start up a car company,
Really, the last one you could name
was Chrysler in the 1920s,
And even Chrysler went through bankruptcy,
There aren't many people who'd do that,
Who wanna risk it all,
When he left GM, and he more or less was forced to leave
that became the, the driving force in his motivation,
I'm gonna show them,
And so, it was part dream and part revenge,
There it is, What we always talked about,
What do you think about being named
the head of the entire product program
for the first mass-produced car since Chrysler?
John, uh, look, obviously I'm, I'm flattered, but,,
No buts, Bill, And I'm not flattering you,
This is what you and I were built for,
This is real innovation,
Does innovation include a pension?
[chuckles]
- Who's asking? - My wife,
Well, you tell Nina that the greater the risk
the greater the reward,
Besides, this finally puts
you in the driver's seat,
Lemonade, boys?
- Bill, - Thank you,
- Honey, - Thank you,
And you've got the money for this?
Oh, yeah, we've got several sources
of, uh, initial investment,
You two are quite persuasive,
[chuckles]
Lemonade was my idea,
It's delicious,
You talk to your wife,
I probably thought about it and my wife would say we should
probably not have done it, having been at GM
where money was never a problem,
You know, you were sort of gambling and you hoped
this thing was gonna work out,
The company really has its founding in two people
that's John DeLorean and Bill Collins,
Collins never reached for glory,
He didn't have so much ego that he needed his name
on the product, He was always behind the scenes,
He was the guy who made DeLorean look good many times,
Bill is a super, wonderful gentleman,
He is one of the world's finest men,
He really is, He is a good man,
And, uh, it was like his dream, was to do this,
I think from the beginning, John's major concern
always was fundraising,
So my objective was to start out
building the first prototype,
This was definitely Bill's baby,
I mean, if there was an issue
that had anything to do with the car
Bill Collins was the guy leading the charge,
That played out basically for the first three years
of the project,
When we finished the first prototype
it was a huge event because now we could say
you know, this isn't some
you know, dream kind of fakery here, This is the real McCoy,
We hadn't solved all the engineering problems yet
but it was exciting, it turned out
to be a great car, in my opinion,
To be part of this thing that might grow into something
that who knows where it would go
it was electrifying,
This is a presentation of The DeLorean Motor Company,
Imagine how many of the men who have headed
each of the major automotive manufacturers have wanted
to create a product starting with a clean sheet of paper,
That is what the DeLorean Motor Company
intends to do,
We were basically a company with no foundation,
And the less you have to secure an investment
the more risky you are to an investor,
And we were pretty risky,
Our asset was John's background experience,
And so he really had to be what we initially were selling,
John DeLorean wants to build a car,,
You have to portray him as being on top of the mountain,
being adored by the world as a savior
of the auto industry,
And we were the dog and pony show experts,
We'd do the set up, We'd do the show,
And then at the precise moment
John DeLorean would come in,
They'd actually see the man and it looked like
he was levitating,
[applauding]
Most of you have already seen my lovely wife, Cristina,
[applauding]
I know she's likely the real reason you're all here tonight,
[laughing]
But in all seriousness, I do have her to thank
along with many others,
In particular, I'd like to recognize
the man I handpicked, essentially stole from GM
to head up the entire DeLorean Motor Company
private program,
Perhaps the finest automotive engineer
I've ever met in my entire life,
Bill Collins,
[applauding]
I know that we may be the new boy on the block
but I also know that on this, the bicentennial
of the American Revolution, we can start making
our version of the American dream a reality,
Allow me to introduce the first incarnation
in the evolution of my dream,,
,,,our first vehicle code-named the DMC-12,
The DeLorean Motor Car,
[applauding]
In the early stages
this was all but the second coming,
It was described in Detroit as significant
as the invention of the Ford Model A,
That this was gonna change everything,
I don't think I've sat in one of these probably
since my dad had one on the farm,
There's not much of a tie,,
,,,for me to the car as much as people would think,
I don't know if that makes sense,
Being young when this car was built
you just don't understand
the magnitude and the gravity of it,
You know, it's flying over your head at 1,000 miles an hour,
And you know, it's like my dad built this car,
You know, it's got our name on it,
I mean, when I'm in it or I see it
I see my father, I feel my dad,
Uh, but between me and this car
i -- it's a, I think it's a
love-hate relationship, probably,
Half the time, I don't even know what to think of it
you know, to be honest with you, so,,
Probably the, the closest person
I've ever been close to my whole fucking life
was my father,
He adopted me when I was, I mean, two weeks old,
As far as like DeLorean or DeLorean Motor Company
you know, it was just dad going to work
dad's building a car,
I had no clue how famous he was,
Had no clue how famous my mother was,
I think we moved to New York
probably I would say in '74
because then my sister was born in '77,
Throughout my life I understood
that there was this man John DeLorean,
And with this man John DeLorean
came this history of, um, all the things
that are again iconically encompassed by the car,
And then there was my dad,
And I understood that they were
two different people,
When I was little
my dad was at the peak of everything,
There are pictures of us,,
,,,and I used to say it's the royal family,
My mom was always so perfect and put together,
And my brother always in his perfect little suit,
Oh, we were so cute,
Like seriously, we were just so cute,
My dad was my best friend,
He just, he taught me everything,
He taught me how to fish, He taught me how to drive,
He taught me how to ride a motorcycle,
This is everything he had been working for,
This was his dream, I mean, being married to my mom
having a family, having an, an apartment
on Fifth Avenue, uh,,
,,,buying a farm out in New Jersey
having the car company,
That was probably the best time of his life,
Can you see this well? Is this lit well enough for you?
Because, I mean, I don't,,
I'm a firm believer that that can't be faked,
And now, how happy she is, I don't know,
And she seems pretty happy, but she's a kid,
They're always fairly happy as a rule,
And, but look at how happy he is himself
the subject of the film,
I don't think that can be,, I think he's very happy,
And I have a picture of my family,
And I'm a couple of years older
than my wife than he is from his wife,
So I get this, I get this,
And the problem is that he wanted both,
And when you want both, you can have both
but that's very tough to do,
Cristina, you have been married to this man for seven years,
Tell me about John,
Well, I, unfortunately for everyone else
all of our other friends, they do not know John
the way I do, And if they did --
Well, that may be better,
No, no, let -- let me be more specific about,,
Because most of the people know John as the
as a businessman and an executive
but I know him as a husband and a loving father,
And he is a totally unselfish, gentle, giving human being,
I grew up and married Prince Charming,
- Really? - That's exactly how I feel,
- Yes, - Alright, John,
Describe her to me,
[chuckles]
Yeah, of course, it would take days, but, uh,,
I never in my wildest dreams ever believed
that my life could be so complete and so happy,
And, uh, when there's any kind of a family crisis
she suddenly becomes the Rock of Gibraltar,
She really is the solid, stable part of, you know
our relationship whether,,
She was very perky, Peppy, Upbeat,
And, and she is that way in a lot of the footage
that I've seen,
Do you want me to walk you to the elevator
like I do every morning?
- No, - No? Okay,
Goodbye, sweetheart, Have a wonderful day,
Goodbye, darling,
That's John, Anyway,
But, every woman who has it all
and who works and who has children
and who is in love and who has a loving family
like you cannot be 100 percent at everything,
When I was watching footage, it was to sort of see
what was the public Cristina versus what was the personal
where the cracks were,
I just found out a few hours ago, I know nothing,
I caught a plane, I'm here,
She's so composed, It's amazing, right?
I mean, I feel like she was caught in between
what she wanted things to be like
and, and this is just me speculating obviously
but, like, what she wanted things to be like
and then what would, the reality was,
Not yet, We were just rehearsing,
- Sit down, Sit down you,, - What are you doing?
And obviously with what happened in their lives
with John being arrested, that's a huge,,
I think that's sort of like the culmination of it all,
And, and along the way I'm sure that in their relationship
there were moments where she was very much in love
but wondering,,,you know
he's incredibly driven and ambitious
and how does she fit into that picture?
Eventually the car will get built
but right now I'm trying to build a brand,
Well, it concerns me where we're gonna raise the children,
Well, wherever we set up shop
we won't have to spend much time there,
All that matters is which government gives us
the most money,
Well, it matters to me,
And it matters to the kids,
Don't worry, It's gonna be great for all of us,
Trust me,
[explosions]
Northern Ireland's now experiencing rioting
on a scale not seen for many years,
Why pick Belfast, Ireland to build your, your motor plant?
Oh, it's very simple, nobody anywhere in the world
would come up with the financing we needed,
Now, nobody else would go to Belfast
because it's such a terrible, dangerous place to be,
I read in the newspapers that John DeLorean had secured
the investment he needed to establish his car project
in Northern Ireland against the background
of the famous troubles that was rife at that time,
The long civil unrest between Catholics and Protestants
scares off industrialists depriving Northern Ireland
of jobs which it needs more than any other area of Britain,
The unemployment was insane, It was 30, 40 percent,
And John had something to offer,
Jobs,
The labor government in Britain at the time
was willing to put in subsidies, loans
a piece of land, But here's the catch,
It's got a population that has never built a car before,
There's no pre-existing structure
to build a car company there,
And you have to do it in two years,
[laughs] I mean, are you kidding me?
And all they have at this point is a hand-built prototype,
So it was a long list of things to accomplish
to eventually be able to productionize the car,
It became clear to everyone that they needed to have help
to weed out all the problems and actually engineer
this car to be mass-produced,
Well, Colin Chapman comes into the picture,
Probably the finest automobile engineer
I have ever met in my life, Colin Chapman,
I'll introduce Colin now,
[applauding]
Colin Chapman is the founder of Lotus Cars,
He was a pioneer in the racing industry,
He dominated Formula 1,
A deal had been struck with Lotus Cars as a company
and Colin Chapman as a named individual to engineer
and develop DeLorean cars that could enter production,
Well, the idea of working with Lotus sounded like a good idea,
We would all get together and we'd become
a joint organization and go
finish the production design work,
Well, when we first got to Lotus
I mean, right out of the chute, it was kind of awkward,
Here Bill and I and some others had spent years
getting us to this point and then now it was like
Bill Collins and Bob Manion and whoever else was involved
they can kinda, like, just, you know, watch us,
And that of course isn't what
I was gonna do and it certainly
wasn't gonna be what Bill was gonna do,
This is Bill, John in?
Bill, how the hell are ya?
Look, John, I got the contract you sent over,
I have to say, it raises some questions,
You've got a lot in here about Lotus, John
but nothing about me,
Oh, you don't have to worry about that, Bill
it's just a lot of paperwork,
Uh, you know what you're doing,
I understand that, John, but I, I thought
this was supposed to be a collaboration on the redesign
but Chapman's nowhere to be found,
Well, they're doing a lot of R&D, aren't they?
That's the other thing,
This, this company in here, this GPD
I've never even heard of it,
You don't need to worry about that, Bill,
It's not going to affect you at all, Okay?
I don't see how that's possible,
T -- they got a hefty line item in here on engineering
but that's what we're supposed to be doing,
It just seems like you're paying twice
for the same thing, John,
Well, I, I,, It must be some kind of a tax shelter, Bill,
I don't know, I'm not a CPA, I'm sorry,
John, what am I doing here?
Why am I even here?
I liked Bill, I think he'd done a tremendous job,
But the moment I found him reading the contract
it was quite clear that what he'd already decided
in his own mind was true, that he was out of a job,
Colin Chapman was not gonna have
anybody looking over Colin Chapman's shoulder,
To do business like this, don't you have to be pretty ruthless?
Um, I don't think you have to be ruthless,
I -- I think you have to be prepared to make
some unpalatable decisions at times,
'Cause frequently you're faced with
making a decision between two evils
and, and you're gonna hurt somebody,
John DeLorean himself, he knew,
He'd arranged with Chapman that
that this is the way it's gonna be,
Nobody had told the -- the guys from the US team,
It becomes painfully clear that Bill
and his engineering team are out of a job,
And not only that, there's something very fishy going on
with the finances of this deal,
Colin Chapman was going to be willing to do things
that Bill would never have been comfortable with,
And for John, I think that was an important aspect
to this partnership,
And it was the type of thing that was so important to him
at the time that he was willing to sacrifice Bill,
"Dear, John, after much deliberation on my part
"I feel it is obvious to both of us
"that my participation in your venture
"is no longer the same as intended,
"Under the current circumstances
"I feel the only alternative for me is to
"tender my resignation
"in all my present positions at this time,
I wish you and the rest of the team the best of luck,"
All these years later,,
,,,it still looks great,
And it would be nice to have a brown interior,
Well, it'd-it'd been a long long time
that we'd been working on the project
and -- and I felt that I was being totally undercut by John
and he really owed me a hell of lot more than to
treat me the way he did,
And it just seemed like the time to move on,
Do you remember having the conversation with John
where you said, "I -- I'm resigning?"
No, I don't remember,
I just,,
I think he was happy to see me go,
- Do you really? - Yeah,
He didn't try to stop you at all?
No,
We're all males
but there's something to be said about
being the guy that's sort of the guy that bore the baby
as it were with the DMC-12,
[engine whirring]
Before we started filming, we knew nothing,,
[Chris chuckles]
,,,about John DeLorean, really,
[instrumental music]
We basically came to the project
because a British television station wanted
to do something on Ireland,
And I was thinking, "Oh, boy
we can do a -- a wonderful piece on Yates,"
They said, "No, no, we want it to be about automobiles
because everybody in England just loves automobiles,"
Like most of our films, you know
the idea was to kind of watch somebody who wants to
fulfill a life dream and, you know, that's who John was,
John Zachary DeLorean certainly doesn't smile much,
The reason is simple,
The most important project in his life
is yet to be accomplished,
He was very guarded because he had so many things
I guess, on his mind to get figured out all the time,
Uh, we've had some kind of criticism right from day one,
First, uh, we were never gonna get the program together,
Then we'd never get the financing,
Then we'd never build the plant,
I don't think the motor car manufacturing industries
whether it be America
UK, mainland, actually ever thought
that it could be done,
Now the critics are forecasting our failure
two or three years from now,
So, I think as long as you can always keep your failure two
or three years in the future, you're probably gonna do okay,
I think DeLorean's problem was at that time
he needed cars and he needed cars in a hurry,
You gotta pick the three or four big markets and go after 'em,
We can't wait 14 months to start selling,
It was a constant panic of racing the clock
and it was a damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead,
It was such a process of building the car
and seeing what -- what was working
and what wasn't working,
We've had problems on the upper control arm
around the ball joint
but we also had a torsion rod failure
at 41,000 cycles,
Everybody knew that there were gonna be problems,
The view you took was, well, yeah, we expected this,
Fine, let's get on and fix it,
It was crazy, Absolutely crazy,
But it was exciting,
You were an operator on the floor seeing that lovely
stainless steel car going together the way it should go,
That was very rewarding,
You felt part of a family when you went in there,
Uh, there was absolutely no trouble
no Protestant, Catholic divide,
One of the proudest achievements, I think
of DeLorean is that it was a form of social experiment,
You had for the first time in Northern Ireland
Catholics and Protestants working alongside each other,
The social experiment was beginning to work,
You can have a mixed work force and be successful,
And two years and eleven months
we had built a factory,,
,,,we had designed the car,
The cars were built,
And that was the best time
I have ever had working in any company,
When the first six cars came rolling out
the news crews were all there,,
John was the biggest hero in Northern Ireland that day,
It's incredible that he got 3,500 cars
into the United States on a boat,
We actually sailed on the damn boat, too,
Uh, because I just was so excited to see that happen
because I knew he showed them that he could do it,
Buyers are reported to be queuing up in the United States
for the company's futuristic Goldwing DMC-12,
And D,A,, and Chris, you watch their movie
and the perception you get at the end is, this is a success,
Everything was hunky dory and it was great, you know?
We'd succeeded in October '81,
DeLorean is four or five little moves away from victory,
He's on the doorstep of that victory,
You know in -- in the music of it it's like Bolero,
You know, John just says,,
[humming]
We don't migrate from that,
He's played a pretty high stakes game
and he really, really stays calm and very contained,
And the drama is in him being contained
while everything collapsed around him,
Things started to go south very quickly
um, around the fall of 1981
there was a series of monumental cockups,
So everything's going really smoothly, But it's -- it's --
Well, I wouldn't say smoothly,
I don't want to, uh, give the appearance that, you know
everything's just absolutely, uh, perfect,
When those cars first came off the boat
they were just a product warranty nightmare,
The door won't close, The gaps are all wrong,
The, uh, window wiper won't work,
The door mechanism won't work,
You know, that happened when it -- it happened to me once
getting stuck in the car, Couldn't -- couldn't open the door, you know?
We reviewed the car,
It costs more than a Corvette,
It didn't handle that great, It was kind of slow,
It was not the car he promised
this fuel-efficient, high performance car,
It started to go south when
this happened in the teeth of
uh, a diminishing economy,
Now the dream seems to be fading,
Sales are way down in the United States
perhaps for economic reasons
perhaps because of some dissatisfaction with the car,
In a scenario where there's a few thousand cars
coming to the US, there's these quality control issues,
The lesson that should have been learned from this is
let's slow production down a little bit more,
Let's figure out a way to work out all these issues,
Unfortunately, that's the opposite
of what John decided to do,
He pulled the trigger on basically doubling production,
And what happened?
These cars were backing up like plague rats
you know, on the docks,
And it was just the wrong, wrong move,
So the question has to be
well, why did he do this?
It was a typical John move because
he saw a little angle in the contract
where if you upped the amount of people that were working there
and increased jobs
then the government was supposed to be giving him
an infusion of cash,
And so he thought he was going to take advantage
of this little clause,
Anyone who deals with the government knows
that there that's a risk in itself,
What if the politics change?
What if the administration changes?
Well, Margaret Thatcher happened,
We'd had a change of government by now,
The Conservatives were in power,
Margaret Thatcher, the arch privateer, was prime minister,
Between Margaret Thatcher as prime minister and us
there was a secretary of state
for Northern Ireland, James Prior,
Well, I suppose my role with DeLorean
was to keep him under control,
Labor government had started off the DeLorean business,
The conservative government
took a tougher line towards subsidies
for Northern Ireland for DeLorean,
DeLorean wanted another
$76 million from the British,
If not, he said, "There would be layoffs,"
I don't care about the British
taxpayers' money or my own money,
I think the most important thing is we have some people there
this is a very, very important part of their life
and nothing in the world
should be permitted to interfere with it,
John overestimated the fact that we had created jobs
and that it was the jobs that would secure
even more money to keep us alive,
That was not the way Margaret Thatcher saw it,
She genuinely took the view that we couldn't go on
pouring a lot of money after bad,
And in the end we had to say no,
The result? We ran out of cash,
Therefore, we were heading for insolvency,
And that's at the point when
things got very serious indeed,
We have a group right now that, that has got the ability
to come up with, um, for sure 30 million and up
you know, upwards of there,
And during this whole process
John's back was really up against the wall,
He had to figure out a way to pay some of the money back
to the British government as well as present to them
a feasible way to keep the company open
and make it profitable
or else they were threatening to come in, seize the factory
liquidate the assets
and everyone was gonna be out of a job,
Today DeLorean said he is looking for outside financing,
All I wanna do is keep the factory open
so that people can work, That,, Nothing else,
You last said that you'd keep the factory open
if it was your last breath, Do you still stand by that?
I'm still trying,
During the months of, sort of August, September
we'd had periodic contact with John DeLorean,
Uh, he on a regular basis
was coming up with potential funders,
I spent a lot of time and effort
but I think we're now just starting out on
um, a very successful relationship,
Oh, I think so, too,
It just took a while to put it together and that's all,
The workers and, uh, the people closest to him at DMC
were being told, "Hey, listen
"everything's gonna be fine,
I definitely have the sources coming through,"
And we were still at the stage
where we were hoping and hoping that it would go alright,
In terms of having that -- that
you know the first ten million
it sounds like that's gotta be Tuesday, right?
I would say I should be able to get that going very quick,
The impression we got at that time was that
John had pretty well gotten the money
by the 17th of October, 1982,
[phone ringing]
Hello?
[intense music]
What?
What are you talking about?
We're in the city
in the apartment at 8:34,,
Um, the phone rings,,
Mom, who was that?
And,,
,,,one phone call, my life changed forever,
John DeLorean was arrested yesterday
after he met with undercover drug agents
who DeLorean apparently thought were going to help him make
a huge profit in a cocaine deal
involving more than 100 kilos of cocaine,
DeLorean's wife, Cristina Ferrare, an actress and model
arrived in Los Angeles early this morning,
Wait a minute, Wait a minute,
I just found out a few hours ago, I know nothing,
I caught a plane, I'm here, I'm,,
Everybody was in total shock,
Uh, nowhere in our wildest dreams did we think
anything like this would occur,
John DeLorean may be the perfect proof of the old saying
"The bigger they come, the harder they fall,"
And we might add, "The more people want to hear about it,"
It was just disbelief,
And then the news just progressively got
worse and worse and worse,
He was expressing an interest in financing
some type of operation
that would produce quickly
large sums of money
on return from the investment,
I was shocked out of my socks,,
,,,to see him there in this position that I've never
I'd never seen him in anything
except being pretty much on top of the world,
The sensational case involves
more than 200 pounds of cocaine
an elaborate undercover investigation
the end of the DeLorean car, and much, much more,
It -- it's been said,
it's a cliche now
that the dream had turned
into a nightmare,
Could you imagine how we felt
seeing John DeLorean, our angel,,
I feel like, there he was going away
and everybody was downtrodden because we felt sure that, um
he had done so much, he'd come through again,
But this time unfortunately, he didn't,
Well, you're walking out the plant
for the last time today, how do you feel about it?
- We got nothin', - Pretty upset, Yeah,
What're your chances of getting another job now?
- None at all, - Not very good at all,
I had to go into the plant that morning
call the people together,
They'd all heard the same thing, of course,,
And it really was the end,
I was going around with a auctioneer,
And, uh, he was putting tags on every piece of equipment,
That was my last day,
The expectation of everybody working their hearts out
over there to get these cars built to a good standard
and they felt it was, it was gonna be their life,
And it all fell apart, And it was incredibly sad,
I meet up with people now and then
that,,,either they worked there
or their dad worked there
or their granddad worked there
and you get the same questions, "What was it really like?"
It was the best job that we ever had,
And it was the worst day of their lives
when it finally closed,
After entering a plea of not guilty
to all nine drug charges against him
John DeLorean came out of the federal courthouse
in Los Angeles with his wife, model Cristina Ferrare
and the four lawyers who are now
putting together his defense,
DeLorean said nothing today
but he is reported to have told his lawyers
he was desperate to save his company,
DeLorean's lawyers are preparing to argue
the government entrapped DeLorean,
Give him some room, guys, Give him some room,
It was the case of the century for that year,
Because every year has a case of the century
trial of the century,
So we were the trial of the century for 1984,
The sidewalks in front of the courthouse
will be jammed with reporters
and camera crews from all over the world,
Unless you were there and you lived it
you don't know how captivating it was for the nation,
A young entrepreneur started hanging around the courthouse
steps today hawking buttons that say
"John Z, DeLorean Cocaine Trafficking Trial
Los Angeles, '84,"
Our public views these as if it's a bad guy, get 'em
and if it's not a bad guy, get the government,
It's all really kind of entertainment to the public,
John DeLorean had some bad news today,
The Automobile Association named him dealer of the year,
A businessman down on his luck
tries to make money in a dope deal,
I mean that's the, that's the John DeLorean that I knew,
The case was of overwhelming strength,
Here's the cocaine and here's your target,
And he's holding up a glass of champagne, toasting,
To a lot of success for everybody,
And says, that this is better than what was it?
Better than something, uh,,
It's better than gold,
[laughs]
Gold weighs more than that, for God's sakes,
Everybody believed that the events were
showing John DeLorean in the middle of a drug deal,
One of the things I asked the jurors very early on was
"Would it surprise you if I told you you weren't seeing a drug deal?"
And just hang on and watch the whole movie,
And at the end, you're gonna see
it isn't what it appeared to be,
A real thriller, of course, which it turned out to be,
Uh -- uh, the case starts with a guy named James Hoffman,
He was the informant,
He was somebody who had been a major
narcotics trafficker who had the bad luck of being caught,
And he decided to cooperate,
Valestra,
Mr, Valestra, It's Jim Hoffman, your favorite CI,
Uh-huh,
You're not gonna believe who I had a call with,
John DeLorean,
When I got the call from, uh, the CI,,
,,,who's a neighbor of his,
We were neighbors, uh, out here in California,
I was across from his ranch in Pauma Valley,,
He says to me, CI, that John needs some money
and the inference of drugs was right there,
You seen the kind of dire straits
his company's in right now,,
- Uh-huh, - He needs cash bad,
And, uh, he doesn't care where it comes from,
You know, he -- he's gonna be back in Pauma Valley
at his ranch next week,
He wants to meet me, We've already set it up,
Seriously, Jim? You're kidding me,
My hand to God,
This is happening,
I said, well, see what he's got to say,
Go ahead, See what he has to say,
Have I ever done you guys wrong before?
I'll be in touch,
So at this point it's 1982,,
Reagan's just announced the war on drugs,
In a comprehensive attack on drug trafficking
and organized crime,
In this time period, a confidential informant
like James Hoffman can actually make a living
by introducing the DEA to high-level criminals,
John,
- John, great to see you, - You too, Jim, Been a while,
And in this case
it's the perfect storm for John DeLorean,
When Jim first approached John
i -- it seemed like a very farfetched idea
that he'd be actually able to help John out,
These investors,,
But Jim was throwing out some numbers that seemed
very alluring to John,
Ten, twenty, fifty million,
I thought your investors might like to see these brochures
that we have made up that really can show you
how we're all set to --
Yeah, Um, there's no need,
They're not exactly the kind of guys
that get hung up on paperwork, you know,
They're Colombian,
- They in the coffee business? - You might say that,
[both chuckling]
They met and the first conversation was not recorded,
So we don't really know what was said,
And it was when Hoffman then met with DeLorean,
At that point, Hoffman comes back to Valestra
and says, "Yeah, he wants to talk dope,"
I say, Really?" I mean, uh, well, if he, if he said that
we'd better,,,have him say it again somewhere,
Which we did,
- How you doing? - Doing great,
What am I doing, interrupting your lunch?
No,,
And on September 4th
the meeting at the Lafont Plaza takes place,
That's a one-on-one meeting with the CI and John,
That, uh, video,,
that's pretty explicit stuff,
CI writes it all out,
And the scenarios are right there on the, uh, on the paper,
During this period of time
John now is supposed to come up with
uh, the 1,8 mil,
That was where it was left,
So he'd have to put some skin in the game,
Government attorneys in the John DeLorean trial
today introduced a videotape
that is perhaps the most damaging
evidence against the auto executive,
The tape was played as part of the testimony of James Hoffman
a paid undercover informer who was the government's
key witness against DeLorean,
Defense attorneys describe the meeting in Washington, DC
between John DeLorean and the undercover informant
as a clever lure,
And as for DeLorean's participation
in that discussion, the defense team says
"There's no harm in listening to someone else
talk about a drug deal,"
For three months during the trial
we moved to my grandmother's
grandfather's house in Brentwood,
You know, I play it all out in my head all the time,
Something will come up and I'll start thinking about stuff
and -- and -- and, uh, it'll -- it'll spark a memory
or trigger something,
Guys, no matter what happens,,
Hey, we're gonna be fine,
Everything's gonna be fine,
My father was looking at hard-core time,
And to my parents' credit
they did what they could to make it as best
a situation as they could,
You know, how the fuck do you tell your kid
that shit ain't okay?
He just asked me if we're both coming back from court or,,
I am not going away for this,
The jury will see how asinine this whole thing is
and how they set up an innocent man, for God's sakes,
[John sighs]
What do you think about this tie?
It's fine,
You sure the brown works?
I mean, I had a blue one on when they snapped
this picture, but they can't tell
'cause it's in black and white,
- Either -- either way,, - I don't want it to read black,
I mean, I don't want to send the wrong message,
- To who, the judge? - No, to everyone,
Next time they snap my picture, it could be a magazine cover,
John, either one works fine,
'Cause it -- it'll be in color if it's a magazine,
Hey!
You have to talk to the children,
Kathryn, Come and give Mommy a hug, sweetie,
She seems pretty upset,
Zach, I know you're worried
but I need you pulling for your old man to win this thing
alright?
I just wanna go back to New Jersey,
So do I, And we will as soon as this thing is over,
Alright? Zach, look at me,
Your dad's a winner, right?
For me it's a double-edged sword that I walk all the time,
The evidence is there that they set him up,,
,,,but common sense and reality tells me
that he's not a fuckin' idiot,
That he must have known
somethin' was fucked up at some time,
Come here, sweetie,
I'm gonna wear the blue tie, okay?
So, it's like, you know, how the fuck
could you put our family in jeopardy like that?
Twenty-one days into the John DeLorean cocaine trial
defense attorney Howard Weitzman says
there's no question that John DeLorean can be seen
and heard on tape talking about narcotics,
But he says, "The question is
"how far can the government go
in dangling a lure in front of a desperate man?"
When I look back at this case
Hoffman had said if you give me
you know, a million and a half two million dollars
three million dollars, I can get you ten
fifteen, twenty million dollars back,
John didn't have the money,
And logic would tell you
that that's the end of the investigation,
Are you sure he can't put any cash in?
At this point, I don't think DeLorean can scrounge 20Gs
let alone two million,
Listen, I've been poring through all these tapes
and I just don't think we have him yet,
I think he's got it in collateral,
Okay, but if collateral's all we get
then it's got to equal at least that much,
And -- and listen to me,
We have got to get it on tape,
This is my first rodeo, Jerry,
I know how it works,
I'm just, I'm just saying un -- until now
he -- he's been real careful about
how he parses all his words, so,,
Well, it's different than a phone call now,
He's about to walk into a real bank,
He knows your IC is legit,
So he won't for one second think that I'm not,
Still, the more drug references you can slip in, the better,
We got this, Jerry,
[chuckling]
[clears throat]
Throughout the entire thing
they had to continue changing the script,
It wasn't going to be, "Here's the two million dollars,
Here's the drug money back," Boom, you're arrested,
So then it turned into James Hoffman
the CI convincing him
"Hey, I know this crooked banker,"
- Hey, John, - Hi, Jim,
- Great to see, - You too,
Have you been here in this area before?
I've been in San Jose, uh,,
And, of course, San Francisco,
The DeLorean case was just one of other cases
that I was involved in from the standpoint of being a
an undercover operator working at a bank,
So the bank provided the perfect undercover front,
We finally, uh
shall we say, got together after all this time,
Yeah, after so many conversations, right?
Can I get you a cup of coffee?
At this point of the story John's not gonna put
any actual money into the game,
He can potentially put up collateral,
Ben Tisa is the one that's supposed to now set up
an alternative situation for John,
Uh, we had a particular suspect, his name was Hetrick
uh, who was a pilot who flew cocaine in from Colombia,
This particular individual has been very successful
in his business, okay?
So, the idea came in,
Well, maybe the dope dealer would invest in
John DeLorean's company,
Uh, John DeLorean being told
the money was going to come from sale of cocaine,
Would it be possible, um, to allow this gentleman to have, say a,,
I see no reason why I couldn't do it from my private company,
Great, That's great, That works,
In John's mind, once again
the genius at bending the rules
finding the little loophole,
Hey, I'll take this money
even if it comes from drug -- drug folks,
But it's coming through a legitimate bank,
Enter Morgan Hetrick,
He was somebody that was flying in hundreds
and hundreds of pounds of cocaine from South America,
So the government felt that at that point
that was the best opportunity
to bring both John and Hetrick down
is to merge the cases,
The government told
Hetrick that John had put in two million dollars
and that he wanted to do this drug deal with Hetrick,
And he was given an opportunity
to stay in the deal without putting money in,
And, uh, uh, he took it,
I -- I -- I think it's a great opportunity for me
from that standpoint,
So in terms of the drug case
you've got hours of phone conversations
hours of videotape showing John
with these drug dealers and crooked bankers,
Is the feed secure?
You sure he's not gonna be able to
hear anything through this wall?
John still hasn't given the government anything,
So they have to introduce this new character
this sort of mob drug dealer guy,
Show time,
He's really gonna crank the pressure up on John,
Okay,
When I meet him at the hotel room
I would be the one that would be handling the drugs,
All Jim had to do was put it together
get a, uh, finder's fee
whatever, and me and my network
would be going out to
quadruple the, uh, our investment,
I'm asking for what,,
What're you putting up?
There's no more money from you,
There's no free lunch, either,
At this point of the story
each participant in this deal is trying to outsmart
and outmaneuver the other person
for their own gain,
[instrumental music]
John wants to get money to save his company,
You've got Jim Hoffman who's leeching off of the government,
He begins to enjoy this lifestyle of working
with the feds,
And then the feds, they're trying to have that big
big case for Reagan to tout his war on drugs,
So everyone is hungry for that one thing
that they want out of this,
When you analyze a case like this
you realize, wait, the informant
kind of created this
with the government working with him and it didn't work,
So they went to a savings and loan, a legitimate bank
got them to let them use the premises
you know, like the set in a movie,
Phase three, they put John together with Morgan Hetrick
a legitimate, by legitimate, I mean a real smuggler,
Then they bring in the DEA,
And John Valestra becomes kind of a mafioso,
And what they finally came up with
so John would get his ten
fifteen, twenty million dollars
is they got him to put up stock certificates,
John with his lawyers, corporate lawyer, gives them
worthless DeLorean stock in a defunct company
that had no assets,
Worthless paper,
And the con was reversed in John's mind,
So he's putting up zero
Mr, Hetrick, the smuggler goes and gets the cocaine,
And then they call DeLorean,,
You're still on the East Coast?
I'm on the East Coast and I can do anything you want,
Uh, it might be conducive, um,,
,,,to you being close by when this thing goes down,,
And they say to him, "Come to Los Angeles
we have ten million dollars for you, Come get your money,"
Maybe we'll pop a, uh, a bottle of champagne someplace,
That would be wonderful,
And sit back and relax,
[engine whirring]
And DeLorean
who can only think about
"I gotta get the money to the company," comes to LA,
And the government picked him up, took him to a hotel room
opened a bottle of champagne, toasted to their success,
And one of the agents said
"Now, John, here's the fruits of our efforts,"
So John, what we're talking about,,
It's gonna be, uh,,
And went to the closet, brought out the suitcase of cocaine
and opened it up,
Between this and the other half,,
,,,it's gonna generate about four and a half
not less than four and a half mil,
[John chuckling]
This is better than in gold,
Gold weighs more than that, for God's sakes,
[chuckling]
That's when DeLorean said
"This is like gold, This is better than gold,"
This is better than gold,
Gold weighs more than that, for God's sakes,
Classic line on that tape,
Hi, John,,
Jerry West,
I'm with the FBI,
And -- and then he was arrested,
So he wasn't gonna take the drugs,
He didn't get the ten million dollars,
Will you stand up, sir?
And he never was supposed to take the drugs,
He was only supposed to get the money,
So why would they bring the drugs out and show them to him?
And the answer is pretty simple,
Well, if you're dealing with twelve laypeople
in the jury box
you're gonna make them think this was all part of the deal,
John DeLorean says it's all in God's hands,
That was his reaction today when six men
and six women began deliberating his case,
The jurors, who appeared relaxed
when they arrived for court today
began their deliberations shortly before 10:00 a,m,
Los Angeles time,
Outside court, John DeLorean's attorney, Howard Weitzman
expressed the mood on the defense side,
This is a very difficult time when a case goes to the jury
'cause you never really know what they're thinking
or what they're interested in,
These are very hard cases
and it requires a unanimous verdict,
If he got convicted
he would have received a pretty stiff prison sentence
for sure,
And the government was very confident in their case,
Throughout the case the DeLorean defense
has hammered away at the tactics used
by federal agents in their undercover investigation
of John DeLorean,
Weitzman asked for acquittal saying, "The government is
in a sense on trial here,"
We did not believe
there was an entrapment defense in this case,
That was a throwaway defense,
After the long trial, DeLorean's lawyer said
he'll be stunned whichever way the jury votes,
John DeLorean put it more simply,
John, how do you feel?
It's in the hands of the Lord,
[intense music]
In the matter of the United States versus John Z, DeLorean
the jury finds the defendant,,
,,,not guilty on all eight counts,
[sighing]
Praise the Lord!
[chuckling]
Howard,
Well done, Howard, Well done, And thank you,
[crying]
[sighs]
[sobbing]
[instrumental music]
[knocking on door]
[dog barking]
Come on, boys,
Back up, Back up, We got a guest,
Yeah!
What's up, buddy? Ah, fucker,
Water everywhere,
Sit, You guys gonna chill?
Sit,
Uh, yeah, this is my, uh,,
Uh, this is where I live,
[laughing] You know, so,
It's just this, uh, it's a shitty little apartment,
You know, the paint's fuckin' peeling, uh,,
And, if you find my housekeeper, tell her she's fired
'cause she doesn't do a good job
of cleaning the fuckin' place but,,
So it's kinda, you know, like, uh,,
I don't, you guys, I don't know if you've seen
the apartment or any of that stuff
but when people know who I am and who my family is
then they come over, they're like
"What the fuck?"
You know, in, even today
I'll see the car going down the street
and I'm just like, "It's just fuckin' weird, man,"
For me there's a lot behind the meaning of that car
not just my family name on it
but what that fuckin' car did to our family,
Are you surprised that, um, a feature film hasn't
been made about your, your dad and his life?
Yeah, Yeah,
I mean, it's got all the good shit in it, It's got cocaine,
It's got fuckin' hot chicks, It's got sports cars,
It's got fuckin', you know, war torn,
You know, bombed out buildings overseas,
It's got fucking Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan
the war on drugs, You got FBI agents,
You got, you know, fuckin' hardcore drug dealers
but,,
,,,my fear with Hollywood is
they're gonna end it with him
coming out of the courthouse with Cristina,
"Whoo-hoo, fucking acquittal!
Yeah, yeah, yeah!" Fucking credits, You know?
While that coming out of the courthouse, you know
ticker tape parade shit is real,,
Look at what it cost him,
The sting operation fell through, You were acquitted,
Um, your wife Cristina stood by you
throughout the entire trial
and then
not but several weeks later, left you,
- Several days later, - Ah,
You claim to have been shocked that your wife Cristina
announced her intentions to divorce you
shortly after the trial,
She appeared on this program, spoke, uh, of you
and, uh, most wifely of terms,
Here's what she said,
Can't make a judgment right now, It's not fair,
It's not fair for, for John and it's not fair for you either
because if you were in a situation like this
or any one of your loved ones
you -- you will find yourself defending them
as ardently as I'm doing with John,
That must make you feel at the very least
mixed to see that,
It makes you cry, does it?
Yeah, it's pretty, uh, pretty painful,
At the time, if I was my mom
the carpet just got pulled out from underneath me,
She's 31 years old, man,
She's still got another eight, nine, ten
12 years of being top dog,
And that whole fuckin' career pulled out from underneath you,
Your whole career has fallen apart,
I was at the top of my modeling profession,
I've been doing it for 20 years,
The last 15 years I've been at the very top of it
commanding top money,
And this is July and since January I've had one booking
and I've made $105,
And no one will have anything to do with me or my name,
Not at all,
I try not to ask my mom about my dad,
Not because I think that she doesn't have any good memories,
More because again
I don't want to
draw up any, any painful ones,
It was terrible and tragic what she had to go through,
So, she had to do something different with her life,
She had to leave all that behind,
Shortly after all of that she had her show, AM LA,
She defined who she was,
She rebuilt her life and she rebuilt it in
a fantastic way,
And credit to her, I get it, I understand it,
That, you know, you're trying to keep a roof
and keep a normal
stable household for your kids,
Guess what? It's fuckin' gone,
Stability and sanity left the fuckin' house two years ago
when he got arrested,
I had to do an art project for school
and we had to do appropriation,
So I appropriated this painting,
On this side, there's photographs of
everything perfect,
And as it goes on
I started to put in the articles
from this perfect life to this destroyed life,
And on the bumper, it says, "Destroy my childhood"
for DMC,
- Alright, man, You good? - Uh, yes,
- We get any last looks on Alec? - We're ready to go,
That's fine, Let's go, Let's shoot it,
I'd love to figure out what's the actual turning point?
When does DeLorean get to a point
where he could have turned back,
And maybe avoided everything?
And whether he went on to complete the car project or not
he would have lived to fight another battle,
You know, and, or try another
iteration of all that,
And probably succeeded, 'cause he's a very clever guy,
What's that moment where you could sit there and go
too late?
Is it the cocaine deal itself? Or is it before that?
Is it a series of things?
Is it a period of time where he's doing a few things?
When does John
put in all the chips on the table and he loses?
[instrumental music]
I saw the drug trial as a sideshow,
To me much more substantial
was how DeLorean was handling the money
that he had gotten to build the car in Northern Ireland,
You know, every piece of paper tells a story
of what people were doing and how they were doing it,
Well, this transaction happened before this transaction
and that led to this transaction,
I was brought in to analyze the affairs of
DeLorean Motor Company and go deep into its affairs
its activities and its transactions,
We didn't really understand that at first,
but it turned out to be the critical moment
in untangling the affairs of John DeLorean,
And as it became clear you start to see yet again
another side of John,
When the company was developing in those heady days of
excitement and energy around the company around John
investors all wanted to get a piece of it,
You know, in -- in trying to raise all the capital
John was really selling himself,
He was selling his image,
Ah, you know, the slogan "Live the Dream"
that's what people were supposedly buying into
when they invested in his company,
And John sensing that interest and wanting to raise money
if it was available was able to raise
seventeen and a half million dollars
for the development of the vehicle,
But as it turns out, the British government had also
put up enough money by then
that their funds were actually being used
to pay for the development of the vehicle,
And therefore this money wasn't needed so much at that point,
And John, seeing this pot of money, couldn't resist,
Federal investigators and bankruptcy lawyers say
they have uncovered another secret DeLorean deal,
This one arranged at a hotel in Geneva, Switzerland
long before the alleged drug deal,
A deal had been struck in Switzerland
with Colin Chapman, the chairman of Lotus
and the mysterious organization
called GPD Services,
And what's interesting
becomes very clear that Bill Collins was onto something
several years earlier when he was analyzing
the DeLorean-Lotus agreement,
When I looked at the numbers that they put together
I said to John, "What's the deal?"
GPD?
I've never even heard of it,
It just seems like you're paying twice
for the same thing, John,
Obviously looking back on it now
there were things going on behind the scene,
John and Chapman were trying to figure out
the, uh, game they were playing with GPD
and trying to get various,,
,,,uh, arrangements put together,
In the scene we shot yesterday, he hangs up with Collins,
And everybody who's good
they've all got to go, You know?
Because their goodness becomes useless to John,
You know, they just don't do me any good,
Apart from denying that he had any of the GPD money
John DeLorean is reluctant to discuss GPD,
Can you give that an answer now to those allegations
about the missing $17 million?
So now we fast forward into the investigation
and we start peeling back the layers of GPD,
GPD is supposedly
this middleman company
to deliver certain other engineering services,
In truth, it had no other engineers,
It had, it had no facilities
to deliver these engineering services,
GPD was a mailbox,
GPD is a phony, a shell company
nothing more than a post office box in a neighborhood branch
of the Geneva Post Office,
Post Office Box 33,
It turns out, John made a deal with
Colin Chapman at Lotus Cars that he would send
the seventeen and a half million dollars from investors
into GPD and then Colin took the money from there
funneled it into European bank accounts, split it with John,
John then maneuvered that money
back to his own accounts in the United States
therefore converting the investor money
into his own money,
I think there's a real fascinating allegory here,
You did sell your soul, John DeLorean,
You sold it for the greater glory of John DeLorean
who was going to whip General Motors and all these
multibillion dollar, multinational companies
with your own dream car,
And in that vision, not only did you jeopardize
the well-being of your family
you've risked yourself for a jail term
got off because the government blew it,
Now we have other indictments
which, which indicate that it's possible that, that
your, that your fatigue and your egomania
have forced you to use money for your own purpose rather than
the original intent of the investors,
That's what seems to be most apparent to anybody
who gives a cursory review of the evidence in this case,
Well, as I said early on
I think that we will prove conclusively
that every single cent was legitimately and honestly
uh, come by and that all these charges are totally false,
[instrumental music]
So, a -- as these questions are being brought up
and John is preparing to have to answer these questions
uh, he needed to show some sort of proof
that made the deal not look shady,
And that proof was actually a loan letter
from GPD Services and a paper trail
that GPD services was a loan to him
and that he still had several years before
he had to pay back that loan,
He puts together these documents
that only he and one other person would be privy to
and that being Colin Chapman from Lotus,
Well, several years earlier, Colin Chapman dropped dead
of a heart attack,
And the only other person
in, you know
this little transaction was John,
So while I was busy studying the records
and looking at financial transactions
the lawyers were busy talking to Cristina Ferrare,
Cristina testified under oath
that she saw John
working in a large closet
with latex gloves on
signing documents, backdating them
and then aging the documents under a sun lamp,
So when the documents would be forensically examined later on
his fingerprints wouldn't be on it,
His skin oil wouldn't be on it
and of course the paper would have aged under the sun lamp,
And she testified that she saw him do that,
So, John was very busy creating a set of documents
in the dark of night, but his wife was watching him,
After reviewing the records, there came a time
when the trial started to recover this money
that John had taken from the company,
And I started to really get a good look at John as a person
and the true nature of his character,
So, he walks in court one day
and then he looks at me and he says
"I was on the radio this morning,
I was talking about you and your testimony,"
He goes, "But I'm not sure I got your name right,"
He said, "Is there one H in Shithead or two?"
And I said, "Wow,"
But by then I also realized we had him,
In other words, he was acting out because we knew we had him,
Between us having the financial evidence
and Cristina would testify
that John had been forging documents and aging documents
John needed to settle that case
actually cough up the money
that had been stolen from the investors
in the DeLorean partnership,
Would you deny therefore that you had
any of that $17 million?
Excuse me a minute, I have to get a drink,
John DeLorean was not prepared to answer any further questions
about the missing $17,6 million,
In the drug trial, John really could grasp on to that idea of
I was the victim here, you know?
I got sucked into a situation of overzealous people
overzealous government that was trying to take me down
as a legitimate business owner,
In the case of the money trials
it's very hard to take the approach that he was the victim
because all of it was his own doing,
You start to see, you know, this real true character
this underlying nature of John, not the public persona that
he had worked so hard to cultivate for years,
He had built this giant bubble of an image
making him believe he could kind of get away with anything,
This was not the little guy fighting
the Goliath like GM,
This instead was someone in his business dealings
who acted like the Goliath
and trampled on other people's dreams
and really hurt some individuals very badly,
I'm not a psychiatrist, but I think that
he was okay in the beginning
and I think he just got carried away,
I think he could have saved it if he'd had the right attitude,
But I think he thought it was more important to make a buck
than to be successful,
That is part of the real tragedy
in going back to the what-ifs,
You know, what if John and Colin hadn't embezzled that money
and he had still had seventeen and a half million dollars at the time
when he needed desperately cash to keep the company open?
We're the FBI,
By stealing that money
John really painted himself into a corner,
And he had to find the money somewhere else,
And to think if he could have only held on
for a few more years,
[engine revving]
[dramatic music]
Doc!
- Marty! You made it! - Yeah,
Welcome to my latest experiment,
This is the big one, the one I've been
waiting for all my life,
- Wow, it's a DeLorean, - Bear with me, Marty,
All your questions will be answered, Roll tape,
When Bob Zemeckis and I first wrote "Back To The Future"
the time machine was a refrigerator,
And Bob Zemeckis, the director, said
"Wouldn't it be simpler if Doc actually built
the time machine into a car?"
And then he says, "And what if the car was a DeLorean?"
You know, it wasn't my idea
but I know damn good idea when I hear one,
This was a damn good idea,
So I said, "Yeah, that's great,"
When this baby hits 88 miles per hour
you're gonna see some serious shit,
[beeps]
[screeching]
We, I think, did a great job
in making the DeLorean glamorous
and endearing it to, uh, generations of
of movie fans and car fans,
Eighty eight miles per hour!
If only we'd stayed alive
and we'd continued for another two years,
You can't buy that publicity now, can you?
"Back To The Future"
makes the car
and the man truly immortal,
A hundred years from now
people will watch that movie
And the last running DeLorean may have consumed
its last drop of fuel and eaten its last piston
but that movie will carry on,
After the movie came out, about two or three weeks later
we got one of the best fan letters we ever got
and it was from John DeLorean,
He said that he'd just seen the movie
he thought it was brilliant,
Uh, and he said
"Thank you for keeping my dream alive,"
You know, back in a time when
I was lead to believe films about him were
um, percolating
you know, there were a couple of them
to my recollection that people were gonna make,
I get a phone call
and it was DeLorean,
And I have to imagine he was probably
out of the house, the big house, and living in this apartment
you know, the scene that we're gonna shoot today,
Yeah, I was on the phone with him and he was, uh,,
He was like, "Alex, this is John DeLorean calling,"
He's very old, He sounded older,
He said, "I understand they're making
"this motion picture about me
"and, uh, I would be very flattered
if you were to portray me in the movie,"
I thought, "Wow,"
I mean, to have the guy who's the real guy pick you,
And, um, and then it went away,
[laughing]
I never heard from him again,
But, uh, I mean, to me
DeLorean is a lot of things,
Every day, you, I think about who is he,,
I have a different answer,
You know, today my attitude about DeLorean
you watch historical footage and you get kind of inflamed
'cause you see that he did a lot of bad things to some people
and he hurt a lot of people and he stole from people,
And at the same time, uh,,
I feel like he was somebody who,,
He just, like a lot of great American stories
he just perverted some dream that he had,
You remember the DMC, don't you? Yeah,
How could you forget it? It was one of a kind,
It really was one of a kind,
As -- as full as John's life was those first 60 years
the last 20 years are actually more simple,
This is one of John's bibles
which he actually gave to his nephew Mark,
He became a born again Christian,
Uh, it was a very important part of his life,
He dated several women throughout the years
and then ended up re-marrying late in life,
And then in 2000, had to declare bankruptcy
in which he lost his Bedminster Estate
and lived the last five years of his life
in a one-bedroom apartment,
His whole fucking life, his whole dream
everything that he worked for
from the time they broke ground
till the time of the arrest, gone,
Was it a blow to your pride to you trying to
shape your life again?
Well, I felt terrible about it for a long time,
I felt terrible for my children who've had a,,
This has been an extremely difficult thing for them,
But, you know, life is life, You go,, It goes on,
Your father is shamed and goes to jail,
Your family loses all their money,
Your parents get divorced,
Everything in your world changes,
And for the next 15 years of your life
you get chased by, "Is your father in jail?"
and cocaine jokes and all of these things
that just followed along with it,
My entire life, I had to live it down,
It was, it followed me for a very long time,
It followed me around until I started to
get involved into the DeLorean community,
People used to invite my dad to
all these car shows all the time,
And I asked him,
I said, "Dad, dad, let's go,
You have to experience this,"
Knowing how much he was still loved
would definitely make a difference in his life,
- Thank you, - Thank you,
It was an amazing experience,
It was, it was everything
I hoped it would be and then some,,
I just met John DeLorean for the third time,
Document that,
The man is unbelievable,
He really did get to bask
in his glory a little bit again,
Do you consider the whole DeLorean dream
to have been a failure?
Oh, I think that I showed a lot of people
that whether, uh
you know, you survive or not
the key is, it's like Shakespeare said
"It's better to have loved and lost
than not to have loved at all,"
I gave it the best shot I had, I tried as hard as I could,
And I think that I did reasonably well,
I think DeLorean was very much alone,
Part of the fallout from compartmentalizing his life
the way he did
is that he really didn't have anybody
who knew him through and through,
This is not a man who's looking at his family life
or his friends to qualify
his reason for living,
It's, "What have I accomplished? What have I done?
What am I doing next?"
That in his mind, this is what really
reflects on him as a human being,
When we come around here, what I'd like to do is
repeat this action,
And just put this down here and then look up at the car,
And I wanna say something very specific to him about the car,
No film can tell the definitive story of anybody's life,
Anyone's life is just too vast
and complex for one film,
But a film could certainly
create the legend of John DeLorean
and we print the legend,
The legend is what we love,
That's what we should have,
Let's just hypothetically say
that when he went into the hotel that night
he knew he was walking out
with a suitcase full of cocaine,
I can't necessarily blame him,
How far would you be willing to go
to save something you worked your whole life
for your life's dream?
What would you do to see that succeed
no matter what?
He always kept trying,
He never gave up the dream,
He never quit believing
that there was a potential for him to recover
that he was going to invent the next great thing
that he was going to be able to reclaim his former glory,
He was John DeLorean
and he was John DeLorean until the day he died,
You know, I think he was still trying to make fucking deals
on that DMC-2
when he got the heart attack,
And I -- I think that would be a good way to end the movie,
You could have him on the phone eating some breakfast
um, with, an -- an open notebook thing
that you'd show investors with, you know
all the nice little pictures and stuff,
Talking on the phone and then it just fades to black,
Because then that last image would just be him
working to get that deal done,
And he just fuckin',,
God pulled the plug on his ass, man,
You're outta here, buddy, You know?
Then, you know, it just goes black and then
John DeLorean died in Morristown, New Jersey
at fucking 80 years old on this date, you know?
Never to have fulfilled, you know, another car company
build another car company,
And, you know, and I -- I'd be okay with that,
And slate, That's good,
Scene 28 alpha, take two,
[indistinct chatter]
Action,
[instrumental music]
[music continues]
I mean, if we can't get the money to distribute this movie
what if we sell cocaine to try to get this movie distributed?
- Sure, - We don't want to lose, either,
- No, - I'm counting on you, Sheena,