Word: loreans
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Lorean's troubled dream...
During his successful four-year campaign to persuade the British government to cough up $156 million in loans and grants, maverick Automaker John Zachary De Lorean confidently predicted that American customers in 1982 would buy 20,000 of the sporty stainless-steel autos manufactured by De Lorean Motor Co. (price tag: $25,000). De Lorean, however, had not reckoned on the continued disastrous slump in U.S. auto sales. Since last June, only half of the 7,000 De Loreans shipped to the U.S. from the company's manufacturing site in Belfast, Northern Ireland, have been sold. As a result...
British-born Gibson took her accusation to Nicholas Winterton, a Conservative Member of Parliament and a critic of government aid for De Lorean's project...
...Lorean promptly rejected the charges as "completely asinine." Said he: "The government has two people on our board to monitor our finances. Every cent we have ever had has been monitored by British internal revenue." Indeed, the Thatcher government went out of its way to downplay the affair. Britain's Solicitor-General Sir Ian Percival said that only "routine" inquiries were being made and stated flatly: "Neither the Prime Minister nor anyone else has ordered an investigation of the company's affairs or anything remotely like...
Undeterred by that chilly response, Gibson gave the London Daily Mirror a memo purportedly written by a De Lorean executive. It was silent on the subject of a multimillion-dollar investment shortfall, but described a lesser lapse. The memo said the company had purchased gold faucets and other items worth $19,000 at Harrods, the expensive London department store, for the Ulster home of one of its executives. The firm reportedly "fuzzed" these expenses in bookkeeping records. De Lorean dismissed the latest charges and added: "We plan to file substantial libel actions against all the De Lorean people involved...