Word: pontiacs
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...could this be happening? With obsessive drive, a brilliant mastery of automotive engineering and management techniques, and a maverick's allure, De Lorean, barely out of his 30s, had risen to rule the Pontiac and Chevrolet divisions of giant General Motors. He had charmed his way into the glitzier show-biz celebrity circles, dating the likes of Candice Bergen, Nancy Sinatra and Ursula Andress before selecting his third wife, Actress-Model Cristina Ferrare, 32 (he is 57). Impatient with the corporate world's slow decision making, he had quit GM to race down a faster track. He had persuaded Britain...
...switched companies to design transmissions for the Packard Motor Car Co. Shortly he was in charge of all research and development for Packard. He picked up a second night-school master's, this one in business from the University of Michigan, and moved to GM as the director of Pontiac's new "advanced engineering" department...
...fall. Thomas Murphy, who was GM vice chairman when De Lorean left the company, feels "very sorry for his family, in particular. I'm just glad that I wasn't faced with this kind of temptation." William Collins has known De Lorean since 1958, when they worked together at Pontiac, and until 1979 was vice president of DMC. "I think his fantastic ego just drove him to do almost anything," Collins says. Journalist Wright blames De Lorean's blinding ambition: "He wanted that company to work. He wanted that car to be successful. He wanted to show the people here...
...Lorean was not the only one. At least 345 car dealers chipped in a total of $8.6 million to buy stock in his company. The dealers, mostly for GM, who had known De Lorean from his days at Pontiac, were impressed by his record and wowed by the pitch he began delivering to them in 1977. Other believers were Tonight Show Host Johnny Carson, who kicked in $500,000, and Entertainer Sammy Davis Jr., who invested...
...that this was any fault of John De Lorean's. To the contrary. It was De Lorean who seized the invalid Pontiac division of General Motors and pumped it back to life. It was De Lorean (so goes the tale) who showed the corporate stuffed shirts the writing on the wall. Where was the fuel-efficient, practical, obsolescence-proof carriage for the common man? asked our ageless pioneer. No one looked up from the boardroom table. The point is that for all his boogying and Ursula Andressing, De Lorean actually understood what...