Since being established in 1995, the modern DeLorean Motor Company (actually legally known as DeLorean Motors Reimagined LLC) has continued business associated with the famous stainless steel sportscar featuring gull-wing doors that appeared in ‘Back to the Future’ in 1985. While it’s done pretty well with the business, it has decided to also produce a brand new car and has been teasing this new model for the past few years.
Various teaser images have been released from time to time and even the design studio, ItalDesign, showed a darkened image of a sportscar with the gullwing doors, suggesting the model would be the DMC-12 reimagined for the 21st century. Interestingly, ItalDesign (owned by Volkswagen since 2015) was founded in 1967 by Giorgetto Giugiaro who was the designer of the DMC-12.
Today, the company has released a number of images that show us the complete car, uncamouflaged, which will be known as the Alpha5. “The Alpha5 is a representation of the past 40 years of DeLorean,” said Troy Beetz, Chief Marketing Officer of DeLorean Motor Company. “There was this enormous responsibility to make sure we honoured the history of the DeLorean brand, but an even greater responsibility in curating its future…I think we did both with the Alpha5.”
Already confirmed earlier was the fully electric powertrain that the Alpha5 will have. The DMC-12, went on sale in 1981, had French engines (from Citroen and Peugeot) which were underpowered, but the performance hinted by DeLorean for the new car will allow it to take on electric sportscars like the Porsche Taycan.
It will be able to go from 0 to 100 km/h in around 3 seconds, with the top speed electronically limited to 250 km/h. As to whether it will have four or two driving wheels, that will be known later. For now, DeLorean will say it has a battery pack of 100+ kWh and will be able to go up to 480 kms. But for sure it will not be able to travel through time like the DMC-12 in the movie.
It would have been tempting for the designers to reimagine the DMC-12 more closely but the wedge form that was the in-thing in the 1980s would look dated today. So it is mainly the louvres at the back and the gullwing doors that connect to the past while the rest of the car is the typical sleek and aerodynamic form of sportscars today.
While the DMC-12 was futuristic in its day (and still is), it had poor quality with a lot of problems that owners had to live with. The Alpha5 should be a lot better built with modern manufacturing techniques and the strict safety regulations will also ensure that it has to be strong and have all the required safety systems.
From what Autocar UK has learnt, the car will be built in Italy. Since ItalDesign can also handle low-volume manufacturing, perhaps they will make the car. The British magazine was also told that there will be 88 units offered initially and this particular number references the speed at which the DMC-12 as a time-travel machine could go back in time in the movie – 88 mph (142 km/h).
The global debut of the Alpha5 will be at the Pebble Beach Concours d’ Elegance in California in August this year. However, production is expected to start only in 2024.
