cars news 10: Great Scott! DeLorean Motor Company to Build DMC-12 Replicas by 2017

DMC Texas, the current owner of the rights to the DeLorean Motor Company, announced it will produce new DeLorean DMC-12 vehicles for sale.

The move is possible thanks to the Low Volume Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Act of 2015, which allows replica car manufactures to sell complete turn-key vehicles rather than just rolling chassis or kits.

“It’s fantastic. It is a game-changer for us. We’ve been wanting this to happen,” DeLorean CEO Stephen Wynne told Click2Houston. “That was a green light to go back into production. That was prohibited. It was against the law to do it.”

The law requires the new cars to meet emission standards of the year that the car is built, which means the original Peugeot-Renault-Volvo (PRV) 2.85-liter V-6 will be superseded by a modern powertrain.

James Espey, Vice President of DMC Texas, told Motor Trend that the company hasn’t decided on what engine will be used for production. Although Espey noted that GM’s 6.2-liter LS3 V-8 is already certified for use in low-volume replica cars, the company is in talks with two other potential suppliers. Due to packaging constraints, those engines would be V-6s with 300-400 hp. Only one engine will be offered due to the cost for low-volume manufacturing.

The company says it has enough supplies in stock to build about 300-325 new replica 1982 DeLorean DMC-12 vehicles. Once production begins, Wynne hopes to go from building one vehicle per month to building one new car per week. Once the 300-vehicle run is completed, Espey said they would have enough spare parts to service the new cars as well as the existing cars built in the 1980s. The biggest hurdle to building more cars would be due to existing tooling equipment wearing out.

“There’s no reason to change the appearance of the car. As we go into the program, we’ll decide what areas need to be freshened up,” Wynne told Click2Houston.

Espey told Motor Trend the new cars would be updated with modern creature comforts such as heated and cooled seats, navigation systems in place of the original car’s cassette player, and possibly updated modern exterior lighting as well as 17-18-inch wheels and performance tires.

Where refurbished cars cost between $45,000 and $55,000, the company hopes to sell the new DeLoreans for less than $100,000.

According to the Low Volume Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Act of 2015, which was signed into law last month, “NHTSA and the EPA will have 12 months after enactment to issue any necessary regulations to implement the law.”

DeLorean hopes to begin production of new replica DMC-12 models in the first quarter of 2017. One day, the company hopes the law will be changed to allow low-volume production of modern cars, preferably by the time the production run of replica cars is completed in about five to six years.

Source: DeLorean, Click2Houston