John Zachary DeLorean, the dashing former General Motors executive whose flamboyant lifestyle faded into obscurity after charges that he tried to use drug money to salvage his own fledgling DeLorean Motor Co., has died. He was 80.
DeLorean, who created the gull-winged car adapted as Michael J. Fox's time-traveling vehicle in the "Back to the Future" films of the 1980s and '90s, died Saturday at Overlook Hospital in Summit, N.J., of complications from a recent stroke, a funeral home spokesman said.
The innovative carmaker -- tall, handsome, charismatic, known for his flashy clothes, his lavish tastes and the beautiful women who accompanied him -- was acquitted in 1984 of drug and conspiracy charges, but his DeLorean Motor Co. had been fatally wounded.
Despite being videotaped in the act of allegedly buying cocaine -- and pronouncing it "better than gold" -- DeLorean never admitted guilt in the case that led to his arrest in a Los Angeles hotel room Oct. 19, 1982.
He said he was the victim of a government frame-up by drug agents and prosecutors bent on self-promotion, and the jury apparently agreed with him.
Howard L. Weitzman, the Los Angeles attorney who successfully defended DeLorean in the drug case and other litigation, described DeLorean on Sunday as "a very complicated individual who was willing to play close to the edge.
"He was smart, innovative, and a gambler," Weitzman said, reiterating that DeLorean was innocent of the drug charges in California. "His arrogance and entitlement clouded his judgment.... I've represented many people over the years, but John DeLorean had one of the most warped views of right and wrong."
DeLorean, who said he became a born-again Christian during the months he awaited trial, did concede that, over the years, there were some things he had done wrong.
"I think my ultimate sin -- and it was really terrible -- was that I had this insatiable pride," he told journalist Robert Scheer in a Playboy magazine interview about two years after the acquittal. "Looking back at it, I see that I had an arrogance that was beyond that of any other human being alive."
Few debated that point. But if there was pride, it was based, at least in part, on the remarkable achievements of a man from humble beginnings.
Born in Detroit to immigrant parents in January 1925, DeLorean was reared in a working-class neighborhood about a mile from the Ford Motor Co. plant where his father, an abusive alcoholic, was a foundry worker and a union organizer.
