Today I saw a picture of a DeLorean with its gull-wing doors open, and I started thinking about how that car is such an 80's icon, not only because of Back to the Future but of John DeLorean himself, and his narcissistic rise and fall.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes", said Samuel Clemens. I see similar current running through the cadences of Trump and DeLorean. There were also vast differences. DeLorean's father was a poor first generation immigrant. But both came from cold childhoods where not a lot of familial love was expressed. I think there are significant differences in their personal motivations, but the methods were similar.
Both were considered handsome ladies' men, in worlds (Auto and Real Estate) not necessarily known for handsome ladies' men.
DeLorean took the Pontiac division of GM from a moribund, staid commodity to an exciting youth market car at exactly the right time, the Go-Go sixties. He introduced the Pontiac GTO, considered the father of the muscle car movement.
His open necked shirts were a heresy at the button-down world of General Motors.
The photo above was taken in 1969. Sideburns halfway down the ear. Hair touching the top of the ear. Bell Bottom pants.
That's about a close to a goddamn hippie as a GM exec could get in 1969.
Trump took the staid old Bonwit Teller and turned it into Trump Tower, the symbol of a new gilded age in Manhattan.
Then DeLorean started thinking he was more capable than he was. He was going to thumb his nose at the rest of the automotive world, and build a mass production sports car.
It took him more than a decade to get the car into production, and while it wasn't a really bad car, neither was it really worth the wait. DeLorean had horrible problems with getting a company to provide engines, and the Renault 6-cylinder he finally snagged made an anemic 135 horsepower. 0-60 mph took 10.5 seconds. (A Chevy Bolt electric car takes 6.5 seconds by comparison - about 38% faster.) It was a dog, even compared to the smog-device choked engines of the day. A vague transmission linkage meant it was not fun to drive, so if it's slow and not fun to drive, what's the point?
Reviews were lukewarm, and DeLorean advertising wisely concentrated on the sizzle rather than the steak: It still was an undeniably beautiful design (by my all-time favorite designer, Giorgetto Giugiaro). Just show the car with the tagline "DeLorean: Live the Dream". You weren't just buying a car. You were buying some of the DeLorean magic. And that had been how DeLorean had kept the idea of the company together, through 10 years. Elon Musk had some mystique, but he could not have survived for 10 years without making something. DeLorean had 10 years of R&D costs to recoup, investors to pay off, payrolls to meet. The product had arrived, and it wasn't going to recoup its own costs.
DeLorean went for what today would be called 'alternative commodities import venture'. Back then it was called buying 50 pounds of cocaine from the FBI. (See? There's that damned FBI again!)
Now I don't think we're going to find Donald Trump with a suitcase full of coke at the end of this saga. If you ask me, Trump has already built his own DeLoreans more than once. The difference is that he structured the deals so that he always survived, and others ended up paying the price of his failures.
The Presidency is Trump's ultimate DeLorean. Art of the Deal business ethics will not suffice in the White House. But Trump and DeLorean are ultimately like Icarus. They are built of aspirations and hubris.