Word: delorean
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...Clear Day You Can See General Motors (Wright Enterprises; $12.95) was written by J. Patrick Wright, former Detroit bureau chief of Business Week. But by all accounts it is drawn from the words of John Z. (for Zachary) DeLorean, a 17-year GM veteran who abruptly quit a $650,000-a-year job as group executive for cars and trucks in 1973. DeLorean, now 54, had a good shot at the GM presidency. But apparently his fast life, long hair and penchant for marrying young women (thrice) and divorcing them (twice) did not fit the GM mold...
...Wright agreed to co-author the book shortly after DeLorean left. Wright interviewed the executive at length, got DeLorean's personal papers and says that "anything of a substantive or controversial nature is either on tape or appears in John's handwritten notes. It's airtight." But DeLorean backed out of the project; he has started an auto plant in Northern Ireland and may want GM's help in securing parts and dealers. After years of frustration, Wright took out a $50,000 second mortgage on his house and published the book himself. The work...
General Motors executives tend to be solid, conservative men who spend decades laboring in patient obscurity. Alongside them, John Zachary DeLorean, 48, stood out like a Corvette Stingray in a showroom full of G.M.C. trucks. Flamboyant, irreverent and unpredictable, DeLorean wore long hair before that was fashionable-it still is not at G.M.-dated Hollywood wows like Ursula Andress, and was twice divorced. Still, he rose steadily to head all G.M. car and truck production, and was rumored to be G.M.'s next president. But last week DeLorean abruptly resigned his $300,000-a-year post to become unsalaried...
...DeLorean had been in that job only since last October. The son of a Detroit welder, he came to G.M. in 1956 from Packard, after that company folded, and quickly made a name as a crack engineer. He is credited by G.M. with such innovations as the overhead camshaft engine and the concealed windshield wiper. As head of Chevrolet, he set industry sales records in 1971 and 1972. But after ascending last fall to the group vice presidency in charge of all car and truck production, DeLorean became visibly unhappy. As had been his wont, he showed up late...
...DeLorean will not lack for things to keep him busy. He owns part of the San Diego Chargers football and New York Yankees baseball teams, and will remain on the G.M. payroll as a consultant and become a Cadillac dealer in Florida. That will enable him to collect accrued bonus payments, but also may bar him from working for a competing automaker-to the industry's loss. DeLorean has been heard to mutter that the auto business is something less than all important, and Detroit can use men with that heretical perspective...