Packard Motor Company DeLorean was at Chrysler for less than a year. In 1953, he was offered a salary of $14,000 () at
Packard Motor Company under the supervision of engineer Forest McFarland. DeLorean quickly gained his new employer's attention with an improvement to the
Ultramatic automatic transmission, giving it an improved
torque converter and dual-drive ranges; it was relaunched as the Twin-Ultramatic. When DeLorean joined Packard, it was experiencing financial difficulties because of the changing postwar automotive market. While Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler had begun producing affordable mainstream products designed to cater to the rising postwar middle class, Packard had retained its prewar notions of high-end, precisely engineered luxury cars. This had a positive effect on DeLorean's attention to engineering detail, and after three years at Packard he became McFarland's successor as head of
research and development. While still profitable, Packard suffered alongside other independents as it struggled to compete when Ford and General Motors engaged in a
price war. James Nance, Packard's president, decided to merge the company with
Studebaker Corporation in 1954. DeLorean was considering keeping his job and moving to Studebaker headquarters in
South Bend, Indiana, when he received a call from
Oliver K. Kelley, vice president of engineering at General Motors, whom DeLorean greatly admired. Kelley offered DeLorean his choice of a job in any of GM's five divisions.
General Motors Pontiac In 1956, DeLorean accepted a salary offer of $16,000 () with a bonus program, choosing to work at GM's
Pontiac division as an assistant to chief engineer
Pete Estes and general manager
Semon "Bunkie" Knudsen. Knudsen was the son of the former president of GM, William Knudsen, who had been called away from his post to head the war mobilization production effort at the request of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt. DeLorean received almost total credit for its success—its conception, engineering, and marketing—and was rewarded with a 1965 promotion to head of the Pontiac division. far higher than 1968's 32,000 full-sized Grand Prix. During his time at Pontiac, DeLorean had begun to enjoy the freedom and celebrity that came with his position, and he spent a good deal of his time traveling to locations around the world to support promotional events. His frequent public appearances helped to solidify his image as a "rebel" corporate businessman, with his trendy dress style and casual banter. Even as General Motors experienced revenue declines, Pontiac remained highly profitable under DeLorean, and despite his growing reputation as a corporate maverick, on February 15, 1969, he was promoted to head Chevrolet, General Motors' top-selling marque.
Chevrolet was released under DeLorean's leadership of GM's Chevrolet division By this time, DeLorean earned an annual salary of $200,000 (), with yearly bonuses of up to $400,000 (). He was ubiquitous in popular culture. At a time when business executives were typically conservative, low-key individuals in three-piece suits, DeLorean wore long sideburns and unbuttoned shirts. He invited Ford president
Lee Iacocca to serve as best man at his second wedding. DeLorean was a
limited partner in a pair of American professional sports franchises. The first was the
San Diego Chargers, as part of a syndicate led by
Gene Klein and
Sam Schulman that bought a controlling interest for $10 million in August 1966. The other was the
New York Yankees of which he was one of fifteen investors led by
George Steinbrenner and
Michael Burke who completed the purchase from
CBS for $10 million on January 3, 1973. DeLorean continued his jet-setting lifestyle and was often seen hanging out in business and entertainment celebrity circles. He became friends with
James T. Aubrey, president of
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, and was introduced to celebrities such as financier
Kirk Kerkorian,
Chris-Craft chairman Herb Siegel, entertainer
Sammy Davis Jr., and
The Tonight Show host
Johnny Carson. The executive offices of General Motors headquarters continued to clash with DeLorean's
nonconformity. When he was appointed, Chevrolet was having financial and organizational troubles, and GM president Ed Cole needed a manager in that position to sort things out. The new model Camaro was due out for the 1970 model year, and it was rapidly falling behind schedule. Redesigns for the Corvette and
Nova were also delayed, and unit sales had still not recovered from the past four years of turmoil, much of that because of the bad publicity surrounding the
Corvair and well-publicized quality-control issues affecting other Chevy models, including defective motor mounts that led to an unprecedented recall of 6.7 million Chevrolets built between 1965 and 1969. DeLorean responded to the production problems by delaying the release of the Camaro and simplifying the modifications to the Corvette and Nova. He used the extra time to streamline Chevrolet's production overhead and reduce assembly costs. By 1971, Chevrolet was experiencing record sales in excess of 3 million vehicles, and his division alone was nearly matching that of the entire Ford Motor Company. in 1970 The
Vega was assigned to Chevrolet by corporate management, specifically by Cole, just weeks before DeLorean's 1969 arrival as the Chevrolet division's general manager. In a
Motor Trend interview in August 1970, DeLorean said, "Vega will be the highest quality product ever built by Chevrolet." By DeLorean's orders, dozens of extra inspectors were assigned to the Vega assembly line, and the first 2,000 cars were road-tested. He stated, "the first cars, from a manufacturing standpoint, were well built." But in 1972, General Motors Assembly Division took over the Chevrolet
Lordstown assembly plant and the adjoining
Fisher Body plant. Their main goal was to cut costs, and more than 800 workers were laid off, many of whom were the additional inspectors. This led to assembly-line vandalism, with workers intentionally slowing the line, leaving off parts and installing others improperly. Incomplete and often non-functioning cars soon filled the factory lot, which then had to be reprocessed and repaired by a team assigned to this task by DeLorean. A one-month
strike followed, and dealers did not receive enough cars for the demand in 1972. DeLorean regrouped for the 1973
model year with Vega sales of 395,792. The one-millionth Vega was built in May 1973. In 1972, DeLorean was appointed to the position of vice president of car and truck production for the entire General Motors line, DeLorean was sharply critical of the direction GM had taken by the start of the 1970s, as well as objecting to the idea of using rebates to sell cars: "There's no forward response at General Motors to what the public wants today. A car should make people's eyes light up when they step into the showroom. Rebates are merely a way of convincing customers to buy bland cars they're not interested in."
DeLorean Motor Company DeLorean left General Motors in 1973 to form his own company, the
DeLorean Motor Company. He raised $200 million to launch the company, including $4 million from his own pocket. A two-seat sports car prototype was shown in the mid-1970s called the DeLorean Safety Vehicle (DSV), with its bodyshell designed by
Italdesign's
Giorgetto Giugiaro. The car entered into production as the
DMC DeLorean. The car's body distinctively has
stainless steel and featured
gull-wing doors. It is powered by the
"Douvrin" V6 engine developed by Peugeot, Renault, and Volvo (known as the PRV). Production delays meant the DeLorean did not reach the consumer market until January 1981 (nearly a decade after the company was founded), and in the interim, the new car market had slumped considerably during the
1980 US economic recession. This was compounded by unexpectedly lukewarm reviews from critics and the public, who generally felt the uniqueness of the DeLorean's styling did not compensate for the higher price and lower horsepower relative to other
GT-influenced
sports cars on the market. While interest in the DeLorean quickly dwindled, competing models with lower price tags and more powerful engines (such as the Chevrolet Corvette) sold in record numbers during 1980–81 in spite of the ongoing recession. By February 1982, more than half of the roughly 7,000 DeLoreans produced remained unsold, DMC was $175 million in debt, and the Dunmurry factory was placed in
receivership. In January 1982, the British government discovered that DeLorean had built just 8,500 cars and that the equivalent of £23 million, almost half the funds received in 1974, had been transferred to a Panamanian account under the name of General Product Development Services, the company intended to subsidize Lotus. But the money never made it to Lotus, which had collaborated in the development of the car; Lotus head
Colin Chapman died at the start of the investigation into the missing money. After going into receivership in February 1982, DMC produced another 2,000 cars until John DeLorean's arrest in late October, at which point liquidation proceedings were undertaken, and the factory was seized by the British government. ==Arrest and trial==