Hi there car lovers,

As many of you will know, I own a DeLorean, which in Australia is pretty rare. (I’m told there are maybe ten in total in Australia).

I’m often asked about the car, how it drives, if it has a Flux Capacitor, and how people respond to it when they see it on the street—so I figured I’d address some of those issues here.

THE CAR – THE DELOREAN DMC-12

Delorean DMC-12

My DeLorean is a DMC-12, made in 1982. It has a 2.8 litre V6 engine that is a mix of Peugeot/Renault/Volvo engines—although my mechanic tells me it’s mainly Volvo. The engine is in the rear, leaving a small (read: useless) trunk compartment in the front.

The car’s silver panels are made of brushed stainless steel. It is not painted.

Just about everything about the DeLorean’s engine has been done in the most complicated, non-user-friendly way: the battery, for instance, sits in an enclosed compartment behind the driver’s seat.

My DeLorean is a very rare right-hand drive model. There were no factory-built right-hand drive DeLoreans. I bought mine in Melbourne as a left-hand drive model, drove it back to Sydney, where I got Torque Chevrolet (specialists in coverting Corvettes from left-hand drive to right-hand drive) to do the conversion. As you can see, they did an awesome job.

DRIVING THE DELOREAN AND THE ‘R’ WORD – RELIABILITY

As I sit in my DeLorean, once again waiting for the NRMA Road Service (the Aussie equivalent of Triple-A) to arrive, I watch other people driving by in normal reliable cars and I wonder if buying a DeLorean was a wise move.

In short, you don’t buy a DeLorean for reliability—hell, the Soviets built motor cars that were more reliable—but I’ll tell why you buy one: when you’re in that low-slung shiny silver beast zooming down Mona Vale Rd doing 90km/h in a canter and eating up the fucking road, you feel like you’re in driving heaven. It’s low, Lotus low. It’s wide, Ferrari wide, but the ride is not as rigid as a Ferrari: the DeLorean is cushioned as only an American car can be.

And those doors.

Oh, those doors. Check out the picture at the start of this article, and behold the DeLorean’s gullwings. When I go out to get a coffee, people stop and glance at the car. But when I open the driver’s side door…their eyes pop out of their heads.

Every car has doors, since they are kinda necessary. And over the years, some sports cars have had interesting doors: the Lamborghini’s scissor doors; the old Mercedes 500SL’s gullwing doors (which were, let’s face it, a bit wussy).

But the DeLorean’s doors are big, chunky, stainless-steel monsters—they swing up all by themselves and when you close them behind you, you feel like you’re in a solid steel cocoon.

Sure the car breaks down every few months, and sure, sometimes it doesn’t start for reasons known only to it, but who cares when it’s this much fun to drive.

WEIRD FACT: DELOREANS MAKE PEOPLE SMILE

Without a doubt, one of the best things about owning a DeLorean is the way people react to it: believe it or not, my DeLorean makes people smile. It generates the most extraordinary goodwill.

People just love the car.

Whether it’s because of the Back to the Future movies, or the DeLorean’s relative rarity, or the well-known tale of John Z. DeLorean (and his dream of building a sports car that would rival classic European supercars, a car with stainless steel panels and which was light-years ahead of its time…and the sad fact that this dream bankrupted him), I don’t know. Perhaps it’s all three. Maybe the car just appeals to people on a basic aesthetic level.

Whatever the case, people take photos of my DeLorean at traffic lights. They stop me on the sidewalk to ask me about its specs. I once parked outside a Blockbuster store in Neutral Bay and returned to my car to find two awestruck video store clerks taking photos of it from every angle. I opened the doors for them, and they took even more photos.

It’s the only car I’ve ever owned that elicits spontaneous shouts of ‘Phwoar!’ from people walking down the street (I hear them outside my house).

Honestly, if you want to make an entrance, buy yourself a DeLorean—only be careful, it may not start when you want to leave and, as someone who’s had this happen to him, let me tell you, it’s a little embarrassing.

Happy driving. And if you see me broken down by the side of the road, honk twice and I’ll know you’ve read this!