The ultimate disappointment for any fan of the Back to the Future films should involve the DeLorean. Not because they don’t time travel or because you just can’t fuel it with beer down a garbage compactor strapped to the back, but because of the scene that introduced you to the car in the first place. You saw the Time Machine start and move, but what you heard was all from a Porsche 928’s V8…not a PRV V6. So when Doc Brown is flinging the car around the Twin Pines Mall parking lot in the early morning hours, you are hearing a lie. And to be fair, when he’s got the car line-locked into a burnout before the first test-launch with Einstein the dog inside, we have to wonder how much more movie trickery was involved.
We can’t wait to hear the kickback on this one, but this is essentially the DeLorean setup I’ve been dreaming of for years now: the LS4 V8 from a GM W-body front-driver, modified to work in the back end of the stainless steel wonder from Northern Ireland. It’s real, from the Renault-sourced five-speed manual that is only just barely surviving behind the Chevrolet mill to the headers-into-glasspacks-to-GLORIOUS NOISE exhaust system. Lotus suspension, John Z.’s own stylistic visions, and a soundtrack that is fitting for the car’s status, shape and exclusivity. Here is the DeLorean as it should be: as wild, brash, and polarizing as the man who thought the car up in the first place.
Nice.. I do wonder how much extra weight is hanging past the axle center line..
I was WTFing ’till he mentioned he’s an engineer. That cleared things up for me.
This opens up an interesting question. The PRV V6 wasn’t exactly a great engine for these cars. What would have been a good engine to have used that was available when the car was new? An iron block V8 behind the rear axle would have been too heavy. 1980 was not a good year for high performance small engines. Would a Buick V6 have improved matters? Or should they have gone upmarket with a Porsche mill, gone for a Mazda rotary, or what?
That is kinda the problem.. most forget what there was to pick from back then.. and most that didn\’t live it forget how lucky we are today..
you can walk through a junkyard and pick tons of all alum. v6\’s
or pick from a oem\’s parts bin..
was not an option back then..
Wonder what our glorious leader thinks of this knowing his unusual hatred of the DeLoreon and his even more unusual love of Chevrolet products…
Randal has to love this thing…
Where’s Geordie?
I would have gone back in time and strangled Louis Chevrolet at birth – in a Delorean with a hot Mazda rotary…