Q 6

PLAYBOY: Did General Motors try to squash your project right away?

John De Lorean: Big organizations certainly seem capable of hostility. I did a market survey among a few dealers to find out whether or not they were interested in supporting my sports-car project. The minute G.M. heard about that, they terminated my bonus, taking something like $600,000 away from me. I thought that was unfair. No one had worked harder for them than I had. Some of the records I set while running the Pontiac and Chevrolet divisions still haven't been equaled.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: How much of a car can one design? Is there a little John De Lorean in the fenders as well as in the transmission?

John De Lorean: Yeah. A lot of it is me. Of course, with anything as complex and difficult as an automobile, you have people helping you. But when you get down to it, just about every great car ever built belongs to an individual, such as the Ferrari and the Bugatti.

Besides, you have to take into account the fact that optimum solutions to many design problems now exist. You don't have to build everything from scratch anymore. For example, the disc brake is the standard of the world. Anybody who's using anything else does so to cut costs. Today automotive design is mostly a matter of integrating components into a balanced machine.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: But don't you specialize in a particular area of automotive design?

John De Lorean: My background is in drive trains, transmissions and chassis design. And I'm very fussy about handling characteristics. I've tried to design the De Lorean in a way that it will be very responsive to an outstanding driver but not intimidating to the ordinary driver.

Q 9

PLAYBOY: Have you ever been intimidated by an automobile?

John De Lorean: I sold my Porsche Turbo. It was more than I could handle. I think Porsche is one of the world's sensational cars. But I always felt as though I should have been a little better driver than I was to handle a Porsche. That's all right, though. It's part of the Porsche mystique.

But I just love to drive. I love to get out there on the road when I have something to think about. I'll get in my 6.9-liter Mercedes and do about 400 miles. It's a wonderful experience. You have your own completely controlled environment. You turn on the kind of music you want. You drive through your favorite scenery. By the time I come back, my head is nice and clear.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: Sex has certainly played a role in America's romance with the automobile. Has it figured in your own relationship with the car?

John De Lorean: Well, when I was young, you just didn't check into a hotel or a motel. I haven't had sex in a car more than 11,000 or 12,000 times. Sex would be extremely difficult in a De Lorean, though. You'd have to be a real acrobat.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: Does the Edsel's ghost haunt the launch of any new-car enterprise?

John De Lorean: The Edsel should have failed. Number one, it was so ugly it was almost a joke. It also had a number of new mechanical devices that just didn't work. It had an automatic-transmission shift mechanism that was spectacular in its inability to function. And, of course, momentum had a lot to do with it. The Edsel was going down the tubes so fast, nobody could do much about it.

Q 12

PLAYBOY: Does momentum ever work the other way in the automobile business?

John De Lorean: The Volkswagen Beetle was a sensation. It was a cult car that sold nearly half a million units a year in the United States. But I thought that the Beetle was one of the biggest pieces of junk of all time from certain standpoints. Its handling was pathetic, performance mediocre, braking almost nonexistent; and the buffeting and noise level inside the car were enough to make you sick. On the other hand, it was fabricated by real craftsmen. They turned out a quality product in spite of a mediocre design.