JOHN Z, THE DELOREAN AND ME BOOK

The global auto industry's greatest ever 'near miss'!

John Z, The DeLorean and Me is an insider’s view of the longest serving employee, director of purchasing and supplies, and last chief executive of DeLorean Motor Cars Limited (DMCL) in Dunmurry, Belfast, Northern Ireland - Barrie Wills.

John Z, the DeLorean and Me is a near history of the DeLorean project with much of the hard work, effort and inspiration contributed by so many written about for the first time. Artfully illustrated with hundreds of photographs, many for the first time, showing why so many employees considered the project the best of their working lives.

The book heralds the record 28 months in which the car was engineered, developed and built, whilst a state of the art factory was designed, built, equipped and staffed in West Belfast at the height of The Troubles and recognizes the pioneering of advanced technology in Europe and the introduction into the UK of simultaneous engineering - now the global norm. The reader is introduced to the good humor and camaraderie within the project's different nationalities and between its workforce, drawn evenly from the Loyalist and Republican factions.

For the first time, details of the receivership and what the receiver, Sir Kenneth Cork, called the first sensible business plan he had seen are disclosed. They highlight what might have been had a re-styled Triumph TR8 (re-branded as Healey 3500) been built alongside the DeLorean re-branded as the Healey Gullwing. Painfully so, it also describes how the bad listener in Margaret Thatcher thwarted that British rescue through her habitual micro management.

All in all, John Z, the DeLorean and Me explains how the inspirational but maverick John Z DeLorean destroyed the very project he created, leaving the people of Northern Ireland behind as the real losers.

392 pages, 583 color and black and white photos

ISBN 978-0985657-8-8-8