Original subtitles

Okay, John.

Can you hear me all right?

- 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?

- Yes.

Before 1981, did you ever engage

in an improper business practice

or put false information

on an official form or document?

- 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, 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.

You know, I must say that if you, it really--

Causes you to think back.

Well, you go through your whole life.

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 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,

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 had always seemed to be a story

that had been around Hollywood

as early as probably the early '805.

Often good ideas produce several films

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 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,

- He was this kind of chameleon like figure

who could appear one thing to one person

and another thing totally to a different person,

and I think in a way,

that's why so many scripts have been written about him

because 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.

We have an opportunity this morning to visit with him.

Would you welcome Mr. John DeLorean?

- You shoot him for your purposes

over the arc of how many years?

He ages in the piece.

Mostly early '705 to early '805--

To early '805.

Right, so there's a spread,

and he ages during that time.

Yeah, that's--

- And I want to see how his behavior ages.

I need to see clips that are a range of that.

- And 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.

Anybody.

All right, 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,

well, 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, 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 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 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.

- 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 2. DeLorean.

- In those days, the late '505

and early '605 at GM,

Pontiac particularly was exciting to be there

because 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 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 encourage everybody

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.

- Well, 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?

- You let me worry about that, Bill.

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 the GTO.

It stands for Gran Turismo Omologato,

which I think is Italian for fast as hell,

but 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 approve this?

- I don't need their approval.

- 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.

- You're out of 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 5,000 for the year.

It was an outlaw move.

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 2. 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 about four and a half,

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,

but your confidence in yourself is very, very high.

You don't make mistakes.

You don't see them coming.

- That's better than gold.

- No, just say it's better than gold.

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 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--

- With the FBI.

All of it would have turned out

completely differently.

DeLorean was clearly a fast mover

at GM in the early '705.

- Whoever makes the most money at GM

is the most important person,

and everything he touched turned to gold,

so by the time John reaches the 14th floor,

better known as the executive level,

he's in his mid forties.

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,

women that were a lot younger than him

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

didn't have that one characteristic.

He married his 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 wanted to react to them

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.

There were executives who resented him.

Probably the most prominent

is a guy named Roger Kyes.

- It was just a total difference of opinion.

I think he considered me capricious and superficial,

and I considered him a pompous ass.

Those enemies in the company 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 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 10 years of me pushing papers

that I didn't write before I'm named president,

and 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 blow back, 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 the speeches out.

Became apparent that people close to DeLorean

had leaked these speeches out.

- You got to remember this is a person

who was only rewarded for taking big risks,

dangerous moves.

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

in 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 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.

And cut.

- No, that's what the line should be.

The bad version, you'll be going,

"Next thing you're gonna be telling us

"you want to build a stainless steel car."

- 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.

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

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 start up a car company.

Really, the last one you could name

was Chrysler in the 19205,

and even Chrysler went through bankruptcy.

There aren't many people who'd do that,

who want to risk it all.

When he left GM

and more or less was forced to leave,

that became 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, look, obviously 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?

Well, who's asking?

- My wife.

- Well, you tell Nina that the greater the risk,

the greater the reward,

and besides, this finally puts you in the driver's seat.

- Lemonade, boys?

Thank you.

- Honey.

- Thank you.

- And you've got the money for this?

- Oh, yeah, we've got several sources

of initial investment.

- You two are quite persuasive.

- The 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 were sort of gambling,

and you hoped the 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 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,

this isn't some 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 DeLeorean 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 the top of the mountain,

being adored by the world as a savior

of the auto industry,

is very popular.

And we were the dog and pony show experts,

and 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.

- Most of you have already seen my lovely wife, Cristina.

I know she's likely the real reason

you're all here tonight,

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.

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.

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.

It's flying over your head at 1,000 miles an hour,

and it's like my dad built this car.

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,

but between me and this car,

I think it's a love hate relationship, probably.

Half the time, I don't even know what to think of it,

to be honest with you, so,

probably 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,

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 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 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 apartment on Fifth Avenue,

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'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,

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 me be more specific about,

because most of the people

know John 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.

- All right, John.

Describe her to me.

- Yeah, of course.

It would take days,

but I never in my wildest dreams

ever believed that my life

could be so complete and so happy,

and when there's any kind of a family crisis,

she suddenly becomes the Rock of Gibraltar.

She really is the solid,

stable part of our relationship,

whether it's--

- She was very perky,

peppy, upbeat,

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.

Good bye, sweethea rt.

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 % at everything.

When I was watching footage,

it was to sort of see,

what was the public Cristina

versus what was the personal,

They arrested John DeLorean.

- 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 this is just me speculating obviously,

but like what she wanted things to be like

and then what the reality was.

Not yet.

We were just rehearsing.

Sit down.

- What are you doing--

- Sit down, you little.

And obviously with what happened in their lives

with John being arrested,

I think that's sort of like the culmination of it all,

and along the way I'm sure

that in their relationship,

there were moments where she was very much in love,

but wondering, 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.

Northern Ireland's now experiencing rioting

on a scale not seen for many years.

- Why pick Belfast, Ireland,

to build 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 was 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.

Prolonged 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 %,

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.

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.

Colin Chapman is the founder of Lotus Cars.

He was a pioneer in the racing industry.

He dominated Formula One.

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 kind of like just 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.

Johnin?

Bill, how the hell are you?

- Look, John, I got the contract you sent over,

and 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.

You know what you're doing.

- I understand that, John,

but 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 and D, aren't they?

- That's the other thing.

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?

- Well, I don't see how that's possible.

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, 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?

- I don't think you have to be ruthless.

I think you have to be prepared to make

some unpalatable decisions at times

because frequently you're faced with making a decision

between two evils,

and you're gonna hurt somebody.

- John DeLorean himself, he knew.

He'd arranged with Chapman

that this is the way it's gonna be.

Nobody had told the guys from the U.S. 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 gonna 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 been a long, long time

that we'd been working on the project,

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 itjust seemed like the time to move on.

Do you remember having the conversation

with John where you said,

"I'm resigning?"

- No, I don't remember.

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.

- Before we started filming,

we knew nothing about John DeLorean really.

We basically came to the project

because a British television station

wanted to do something on Ireland.

- And I was thinking, oh, boy,

They said, "No, no, we want it to be about automobiles

"because everybody in England

"just loves automobiles."

Like most of our films,

the idea was to kind of watch somebody

who wants to fulfill a life dream,

and 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.

- We've had some kind of criticism right from day one.

First, 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 got to pick the three or four big markets

We can't wait 14 months to start selling.

- It was a constant panic of racing the clock,

and it was damn the torpedoes

and full speed ahead.

It was such a process of building the car

and seeing 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.

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.

- In two years and 11 months,

we had built a factory.

We had designed a car.

The cars were built,

and that was the best time

I've 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,

and we actually sailed on the damn boat too

because I just was so excited to see that happen

'cause 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 dOI‘Y:

and it was great, you know?

We'd succeeded in October '81.

How is it?

- DeLorean is four or five little moves

away from victory.

He's on the doorstep of that victory.

In the music of it, it's like Bolero.

John just says.

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.

Around the fall of 1981,

there was a series of monumental cockups.

So everything's going really smoothly, but it's--

- Well, I wouldn't say smoothly.

I don't want to give the appearance

that everything's just absolutely 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 window wiper won't work.

The door mechanism won't work.

That happened.

It happened to me once, getting stuck in the car.

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 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 U.S.,

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 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 gonna take advantage

of this little clause.

- Anyone who deals with the government knows

that 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.

The 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 has got the ability

to come up with for sure 30 million

and 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

liquidate the assets,

and everyone was gonna be out of a job.

Today DeLorean said he is looking

for outside financing.

All I want to do is keep the factory open

so that people can work, 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.

He on a regular basis was coming up with potential funders.

It's been a lot of time and effort,

but I think we're now just

starting out on 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 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 all right.

In terms of having that,

the first 10 million,

it sounds like that's gonna 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.

- Hello?

What?

What are you talking about?

- We were in the city in the apartment at 8:34.

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.

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'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'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 he had done so much.

He'd come through again,

but this time, unfortunately, he didn't.

Well, you're walking out of the plant

for the last time today.

How do you feel about it?

- We got nothing.

- Pretty upset.

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 he was putting tags

on every piece of equipment,

and 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 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.

Come on.

- It was the case of the century for that year

'cause 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 2. DeLorean Cocaine Trafficking Trial,

"Los Angeles, '84."

- Our public views these as if it's a bad guy,

get them, 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 John DeLorean that I knew.

Okay, you know how--

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.

- Is it better than gold?

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.

- 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 the CI,

who's a neighbor of his.

- We were neighbors out here in California.

I was across from his ranch in Pauma Valley--

- He says to me, the 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 he doesn't care where it comes from.

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.

Bring to the attention of.

So at this point, it's 1982.

Reagan's just announced the war on drugs.

- Together 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.

- Bring problems in these areas to my attention.

- When Jim first approached John,

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.

- 10, 20, 50 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, 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.

- 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, well, if he said that,

we'd better let him say it again somewhere,

which we did.

How you doing?

We're 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.

- There aren't many people

that can pick up the phone

and get $30 million in three or four days

without a lot of hassle.

I can't think of any,

to be honest with you.

- That's right.

- That video, that's pretty explicit stuff.

The CI writes it all out,

and the scenarios are right there on the paper.

So we can take 34 kilos.

When you initially asked me what it would take,

and I said, well, about 1.75 to two,

here this would be coming,

so you're really gonna receive 40--

- During this period of time,

John now is supposed to come up with the 1.8 mil.

That was where it was left,

so he'd have to put some skin in the game.

- Nobody wants you to do something

that you're uncomfortable with.

- I'm relying on you saying

that there is no way to connect me

to this at the end.

That's why--

- Well, you're not gonna be handling the product.

- Government attorneys in the John DeLorean trial

today introduced a videotape

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, D.C.,

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

- For three months during the trial,

we moved to my grandmother's,

grandfather's house in Brentwood.

I play it all out in my head all the time.

Something will come up,

and I'll start thinking about stuff,

and 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.

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.

What do you think about this tie?

- It's fine.

- You're 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 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'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 all right?

- I just want to go back to New Jersey.

- So do I, and we will

as soon as this thing is over, all right?

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 fucking idiot,

that he must have known something

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?

21 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 a million and a half,

$2 million, $3 million,

I can get you 10, 15, $20 million 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 could scrounge 20 Gs,

let alone two million.

- Listen, I've been pouring 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 listen to me.

We have got to get it on tape.

- This is not my first rodeo, Jerry.

I know how it works.

- I'm just saying.

Until now 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.

Throughout the entire thing,

they had to continue changing the script.

It wasn't gonna be,

"Here's the $2 million.

"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.

You too.

- Have you been here in this area before?

I've been in San Jose,

and, of course, San Francisco--

- The DeLorean case was just one of other cases

that I was involved in

from the standpoint of being an undercover operator

working at a bank,

so the bank provided the perfect undercover front.

We finally, 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.

- Let me just background

what I intend now,

the background on the individual I had in mind,

and how I think it may help you,

and this other transaction.

We had a particular suspect.

His name was Hetrick,

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,

John DeLorean being told that the money was going to come

from sale of cocaine.

And just so the cards are on the table,

and you know exactly what's going on,

he's very successful bringing in cocaine and putting it out.

Would it be possible

to allow this gentleman to have,

say, some stock options?

Here's what I have in mind.

- Oh, sure.

I don't think we can do that in our public company,

but 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 folks,"

but it's coming through a legitimate bank.

Hello, John Delorean.

This is Morgan Hetrick.

Hi, Morgan, how you doing?

Nice to meet you.

How are you?

- 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 $2 million

and that he wanted to do

this drug deal with Hetrick.

'Cause he's already given me, I've mentioned.

I've told him.

I have the 1.8, and I'm sitting on it,

and it's cash in hand.

I have it,

so there's no problem there.

- And he was given an opportunity

to stay in the deal without putting money in,

and he took it.

You can't go wrong

with something you make a lot of money at.

- Yeah, you can.

Well, a little bit of common sense

and you don't get too greedy.

- There's a risk, reward ratio,

and that's what you're playing.

- That's what life is,

and 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.

- Thanks again for coming here.

- Oh, it's my pleasure.

- You got some food coming, huh?

- It's coming, Jim.

It's coming.

- 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 finder's fee, whatever,

and me and my network

would be going out to quadruple our investment.

We're ready to consummate the end of the deal

where the turnover is for your purposes

within 48 hours.

- Great.

- I'm asking for, what are you putting up?

There's no more money from you.

There's no free lunch either.

You know, there's no free lunches.

Basically, I want to know what's in it for me.

At this point of the story,

each participant in this deal

is trying to outsmart and outmaneuver

the other person for their own gain.

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, 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 10, 15, $20 million

is they got him to put up stock certificates.

- The stock certificates should be

in Eureka Federal Savings and Loan

in a trust account,

and then eventually, I would see us

being 50, 50 partners.

- 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.

- It might be conducive to you being close by

when this thing goes down so that--

- And they say to him,

"Come to Los Angeles.

"We have $10 million for you.

"Come get your money."

- Maybe we'll pop a bottle of champagne someplace.

That would be wonderful.

- And sit back and relax.

And DeLorean, who can only think about,

"I got to 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.

- Here's to a lot of success for everybody.

And one of the agents said,

"Now, John, here's the fruits of our efforts."

- So, John, what we're talking about,

what we're talking about,

it's gonna be like a magic act, John.

And went to the closet

and 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.

- This is better than in gold.

Gold weighs more than that, for God's sakes.

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 then he was arrested,

so he wasn't gonna take the drugs.

He didn't get the $10 million.

Will you stand up, sir?

And he never was supposed to take the drugs.

He was only supposed to get the money.

- I don't understand it.

- Please turn around.

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 12 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, how do you feel?

- It's in the hands of the Lord.

- In the matter of the United States

versus John Z. DeLorean,

the jury finds the defendant

not guilty on all eight counts.

- Praise the Lord.

Howard.

Well done, Howard, well done.

Thank you, thank you.

- 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.

Yeah, this is where I live.

It's a shitty little apartment.

The paint's fucking peeling,

and if you find my housekeeper,

tell her she's fired

'cause she doesn't do a good job

of cleaning the fucking place,

but so it's kind of like,

you guys, I don't know if you've seen

the apartment or any of that stuff,

but so when people know who I am

and who my family is,

and then they come over,

they're like, "What the fuck?"

Even today, I'll see the car going down the street,

and I'm just like,

"It's just fucking weird, man."

For me, there's a lot behind

the meaning of that car,

not just my family name on it,

but what that fucking car did to our family.

Are you surprised that a feature film

hasn't been made about 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 fucking hot chicks.

It's got sports cars.

It's got fucking war torn,

bombed out buildings overseas.

It's got fucking Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan,

the war on drugs.

You got FBI agents.

You got fucking 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,

ticker tape parade shit is real,

look at what it cost him.

- The sting operation fell through.

You were acquitted.

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 of you in 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 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 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 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,

10, 12 years of being top dog.

And that whole fucking 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 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're trying to keep a roof

and keep a normal, stable household for your kids.

Guess what?

It's fucking gone.

Stability and sanity left the fucking 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.

All right, man, you good?

Yes--

We get any last looks on Alec?

I got some--

We're good.

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

or try another iteration of all that

and probably succeeded

'cause he's a very clever guy.

What's that moment where you sit there and go too late?

Is it the cocaine deal itself?

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?

- 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.

- 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.

In trying to raise all the capital,

John was really selling himself.

He was selling his image.

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 $17 and a half million

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 game they were playing with GPD

and trying to get various 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.

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 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 $17 and a half million

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 indicate that it's possible

that your fatigue and your egomania

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 come by,

and that all these charges are totally false.

- So as these questions are being brought up

and John is preparing to have to answer these questions,

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 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.

"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 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 that 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.

And he had still had $17 and half million

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.

- 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, right--

- Bear with me, Marty.

All your questions will be answered.

Roll tape--

- Yeah, okay I'm rolling--

- 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?"

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.

We, I think, did a great job

in making the DeLorean glamorous

and endearing it to generations

of movie fans and car fans.

- 88 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 Futurell makes the car

and the man truly immortal.

100 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,

and he said, "Thank you for keeping my dream alive."

- Back in a time when

I was lead to believe films about him were percolating,

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,

the scene that we're gonna shoot today.

Yeah, I was on the phone with him,

and 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 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 then it went away.

I never heard from him again,

but, I mean, to me,

DeLorean is a lot of things.

Every day, I think about who is he,

I have a different answer.

Today my attitude about DeLorean,

you watch historical footage,

and you get kind of inflamed

of bad things to some people,

and he hurt a lot of people,

and he stole from people,

and at the same time,

I feel like he was somebody who,

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, right?

It was one of a kind.

It really was one of a kind.

- 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.

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.

Who've this has been an extremely

difficult thing for them,

but life is life.

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 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.

It was an amazing experience.

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 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.

It's a tragedy--

- 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 want to say something very

specific to him about the car.

Cool.

- 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.

- I think he was still

trying to make fucking deals on that DMC-2

when he got the heart attack,

and I think that would be a good way to end the movie.

You could have him

on the phone eating some breakfast

with an open notebook thing

that you'd show investors

with 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 God pulled the plug on his ass, man.

You're out of here, buddy.

Then 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 another car company,

build another car company,

and I'd be okay with that.

And slate, that's good.

Scene 28 alpha, take two.

Great, thank you.

Action.

- I mean, if we can't get the money

to distribute this movie,

would 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.