Back to the Future DMC-12 | PH Heroes
"If you're gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?"
What a day. Two decades of driving weird and wonderful cars in the scenic nooks and crannies of the United Kingdom (and beyond) have never amassed the kind, friendly but downright flabbergasted crowd of today. If that’s not an indelible stamp of its PH Hero status, I don’t know what is.
Crucially, they’re folks of all ages. I’d assumed the DeLorean DMC-12 and its movie car twin would delight Millennials but inspire curious indifference in the generations that have since followed. How wrong I was. We’ve been parked on a Yorkshire moortop barely two minutes before a rental Corsa pulls up and a delighted TikToker leaps out to politely ask if he can carve out his daily content from the movie prop that’s improbably landed before him. I doubt if Marty McFly himself clambered out of the tight cockpit, red gilet fighting off the northern drizzle, our widening stream of onlookers would be any less shocked.
Driving cars from the PistonHeads classifieds can turn up all manner of exotica. Indeed Auto Clicker, which is selling this replica Back to the Future DeLorean, also has a mint Ferrari 360 Modena, a low-mileage Mk2 Focus RS and a gen1 manual GR Yaris in stock. Each of those is a more obvious candidate for an afternoon of blatting back and forth on one of my favourite local roads. But none would freeze the orbit around them quite like this DeLorean does.
At its core is an original, 1981 DMC-12 with a five-speed manual gearbox and its steering wheel on the left. Its Renault-sourced 2.8-litre V6 sits behind the cabin producing its modest 130hp at 5,500rpm for a 0-62mph dash of around 9.5 seconds. Yet this one is so much more than its stats; a circa £60,000 conversion by renowned TV and film prop maker Sam Creed gives it the look and feel of a genuine movie car. One fit for a museum – or the bunker of a BTTF obsessive.
It’s all there, cables, lights and switches adorning just about any surface that’ll take ‘em. Photographer Sim Mainey and I giggle out loud as the trailer rumbles to our rendezvous point. Whether you’re a die-hard fan or not, it’s a bewitching thing to see backdropped by the mundanity of everyday life. Check out its side profile, in particular – the already obscure Giugiaro wedge of a DeLorean exaggerated yet further by its Hollywood glow up. The staggered wheels (14-inch front, 15-inch rear) only compound the melting of your brain.
There’s the nuclear fusion unit and steam vents on its rear deck. A trademark OUTATIME plate. Theatrical doors which swing upward to reveal a Flux Capacitor between the seats and a time travel console on the dashboard, their colours and sounds saturating your senses. There’s even a Sports Almanac to flick through.
This is no mere prop, though. Once our crowd have excitably grabbed their photos, hands surely too shaky to have got anything in focus, it’s time for me to clamber inside for the most high-pressure notch into first and lift of the clutch I’ve ever executed. A car park with an uphill, partially blind exit is the last place I want my acclimatisation with this car to be livestreamed to the ether, yet with a slightly greedy flare of revs to ensure I don’t stall, the time machine and I join the Great British road network without a hitch. Where we’re going we do need roads.
A Flux Capacitor is not immediately conducive to a great driver's car. Not a sentence I ever envisaged typing as I watched BTTF in my youth, but you must adopt an awkward elbow position to snick easily and accurately around the five-speed ‘box with the device in place. All while the sounds and illuminations of its operation distract you nearly as much as modern ADAS. Probably best to travel with those extinguished...
Focus on actually driving the DMC-12, though, and it retains the power to surprise. Clearly it’s not a rip-snorting sports car, yet it’s relatively light, even in its comprehensive fancy dress, and the quoted 0-62mph time borders on the modest if you’re using the revs and executing deliberate, quick shifts. There’s no need to scrub too much of your momentum off in corners, either; it darts into them with an assuredness and grips pretty gamely every step of the way. There’s no word on how much its movie makeover impacts the standard 38/62 front/rear weight distribution, but its slim power and torque figures mean you can (and probably should) get back on the power early to propel yourself keenly onto the next straight.
Right up to 88mph? Not with the crowds we’ve inadvertently assembled today. The US-spec speedometer only goes to 85mph, too, the result of a Richard Nixon safety act of the '70s. Authentic film cars show 95mph…
You don’t need speed to have fun, though. It’s well damped, doesn’t perilously hug the ground and you can wrestle it like an '80s hot hatch if you so wish. There’s a surprising heft and solidity to it, too, and the encouragement to dig deeper into its capabilities. Headroom is scant and heaving it around in the car park with non-assisted steering and no rear visibility ain’t fun, though I suspect a Countach or Testarossa would feel no better in the circumstances. And I don’t think your onlookers would be rooting for you with the same gleeful reverence.
The price for this involuntary fame? £109,990, a sum which could also glean Auto Clicker’s Ferrari 360 alongside either the Focus or Yaris for a dream duo. Albeit one that won’t inspire the same contagious joy as this wild and wonderful wedge of stainless steel. Our divided little world increasingly feels like it could use a time machine to sew it back together and cheer us all up. Maybe all it truly needs is a car that shamelessly cosplays one.
SPECIFICATION | DELOREAN DMC-12
Engine: 2849cc, V6
Transmission: 5-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 130@5,500rpm
Torque (lb ft): 153@2,750rpm
0-62mph: c9.5secs
Top speed: 130mph
Weight: 1,290kg
First registered: 1981
Recorded mileage: 35,878
Price new: c$25,000
Yours for: £109,990
Setting the flux capacitor to activate at 88mph in a delorean was presumably a safety measure to prevent accidental time travel. It sounds like you would have to be very committed to reach that sort of velocity in this car.
Wonder if it was a tactic to make the car feel quicker by seeing the needle move round faster if you only had the dial going to 85.
Wonder if it was a tactic to make the car feel quicker by seeing the needle move round faster if you only had the dial going to 85.
Wonder if it was a tactic to make the car feel quicker by seeing the needle move round faster if you only had the dial going to 85.
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