Original subtitles

[thrilling music]

[photo taken]

[cat meowing]

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 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]

[instrumental music]

[music continues]

[music continues]

[music continues]

[music continues]

[music continues]

[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.