Yeah, he was a larger than life character, and the end of the company was spectacular. Most companies end with a whimper, his ended with an explosion.

I have a little personal anecdote about the end of DeLorean Motor Cars. At the end, I was living in Cleveland, OH, where DeLorean's brother had a Cadillac dealership, which also sold DeLoreans, of course.

When the company crashed, the government, or the bank, or the court, or somebody, was coming to take all the cars that were sitting in the factory parking lot in Detroit. The local news caught a helicopter shot of a long line of DeLoreans driving out of the lot, and down the road in a long line. They didn't bother to follow them.

A few days later, it was reported that all the surplus DeLoreans were missing, and DeLorean was hiding them somewhere, and they showed the footage of the cars driving off.

A few days after that, I was taking one of my favorite shortcuts through Lakewood, the suburb where DeLorean Cadillac was located. My shortcut was a small road/alley, with far less traffic and lights, which went behind the businesses along the main road.

One of those businesses was DeLorean Cadillac, with a big parking lot behind the dealership. I'd passed that lot many times, and it was always a mix of Caddys and DeLoreans, but this time I saw that it was FULL of nothing but DeLoreans, packed in like sardines. I had no doubt that these were the missing DeLoreans that the authorities were searching for.

So, of course I notified the authorities where they could find the cars, right? Fuck NO. DeLorean didn't seem like a bad guy, just a major dreamer who got desperate. I always kind of admired him. So I kept my mouth shut, and made the authorities find the cars without my help.