Going back in time – Hourly!

On the coolness scale, the DeLorean’s appearance registered at the high end of the spectrum. By almost any other measure, however, the DeLorean was a failure as an automobile. 

Its sports-car design promised performance that it fell woefully short of delivering. It was underpowered — significantly so. 

It handled like a log truck. 

The interior was cramped.

And the consumer market seemed to want nothing to do with it. By late 1981, DMC had sold only 3,000 of the 7,500 cars it had produced.

The brainchild of General Motors executive John DeLorean — who left GM in 1973 to start the DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) — the DeLorean was manufactured only from 1981 to 1983.

Although never precisely documented, the total number of cars built is believed to be approximately 9,000.

Posthumously, however, something happened to the DeLorean that amounted to a revival of sorts — a resurrection of the dead. With the 1985 release of the movie “Back to the Future,” a star was born.

That could be a reference to actor Michael J. Fox and his magnificent portrayal of Marty McFly. But in this case, it’s a reference to the DeLorean’s role as the time machine built by the mad scientist Dr. Emmett Brown — aka “Doc Brown.”

Minutes into the movie, Doc Brown coaxes a dog named Einstein into a DeLorean outfitted with a litany of contraptions, devices and wires. He then performs his first successful time-travel demonstration by sending Einstein and the car one minute into the future — and back. A fictional component called a flux capacitor was the primary means by which the car achieved its time-travel ability. 

In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, Marty McFly asks incredulously: “Wait a minute, Doc. Are you telling me that you built a time machine... out of A DELOREAN?”

More than 40 years after its release, “Back to the Future” retains a loyal cult following. And so, too, does the iconic DeLorean Time Machine. 

The enduring popularity of the movie — and therefore the car — provided the impetus for a successful Chicago-based business run by Jason Alspaugh called DeLoreanRental.com. Through Alspaugh’s website, you can schedule an appearance by the famous DeLorean Time Machine at your special event.

Alspaugh works with a roster of more than 80 DeLorean Time Machine replica cars across the United States (and even a few in Europe). He believes there are around 200 such replicas in existence.

“The popularity of this car after all these years never ceases to surprise me,” Alspaugh said. “We offer an experience that brings a lot of happiness to a lot of people.”

Steve Squires, 50, is one such satisfied customer. He has rented the use of a DeLorean Time Machine for an annual fundraising event he hosts in Middlebury, Ind., to benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

“We were looking for something to draw the attention of the general public,” Squires recalls. “We came up with the thought of trying to find a DeLorean Time Machine to tie in with our fundraising — with the obvious tie-in to Michael J. Fox.”

Like the “Back to the Future” star, Squires was diagnosed with Parkinson’s while only in his 20s.

“We Googled and found the page DeLoreanRental.com,” Squires said. “We wound up connecting with a DeLorean owner from the Chicago area. He and his wife brought their amazing car to our fundraiser, and it was a tremendous hit. We had a ton of people stop in to see it and have the opportunity to sit in it and get their picture taken. Since then, we have had him come to town for a few of our other events, and each event has been a great success. We really appreciate what they have done to help us out.”

Rates for renting a DeLorean Time Machine through DeLoreanRental.com vary extensively based on variables such as how much travel is involved, but customers can expect to pay at least $350 an hour — with a two-hour minimum — plus mileage and expenses. Typically, the dollar-figure cost tends to wind up in four digits, even if the event starts and finishes on the same day.

Of course, DeLorean owners have made significant investments in their automobiles. According to Old Cars Price Guide, values are $60,000 for a vehicle in concours condition (No. 1), $27,000 for driver condition (No. 3); and $12,000 for fair condition (No. 4).

The car’s connection to the “Back to the Future” franchise no doubt has helped bump up those figures. The movie’s initial box-office success prompted two sequels, which came out in 1989 and 1990.

“I was 10 when the (first) movie came out,” said Scott Mulhollen, a DeLorean Time Machine owner in Columbus, Ohio. “And I loved it. Here was this 5-foot-nothing kid who was a bit of a nerd, but he was the hero. He went around breaking the rules and driving a cool car. Who wouldn’t want to be him?”

In May 2018, Mulhollen bought a stock DeLorean from its original owner and immediately shipped the car to a “mod-builder” who had worked with Universal Studios. After seven months, the car was shipped back to Mulhollen as a “Back to the Future” time machine.

Last year, Mulhollen averaged two gigs per month with the car, he said, including a Las Vegas engagement that took him away from home for 10 days. The majority of his appearances with the car come through Alspaugh, whom Mulhollen considers both his broker and friend.

One person who appreciates the staying power of “Back to the Future” and the iconic role of the DeLorean in the movie is, of course, Michael J. Fox himself.

In his 2025 book “Future Boy,” Fox calls the film “a magical movie, more magical than if it had been sprinkled with stardust.”

Even Fox, however, pulls no punches when it comes to the DeLorean’s flaws as a vehicle. People assume, he writes, that getting to drive the DeLorean as he did in the movie must have been exhilarating.

“I thought so too, at first, but soon I grew to hate driving the DeLorean,” he writes in the book. “First of all, let’s face it — it’s a (crap) car, with cheap appointments — and that’s before our special effects crew added their two cents (or several million dollars, all in). Those jerry-rigged accoutrements — the flux capacitor and various time clocks and flourishes — tend to be rather rough-edged, metallic, and sharp.”

Driving the car took a physical toll, Fox writes.

“After that first night in the driver’s seat, and for the remainder of the movie, my hands are crisscrossed with lacerations, my knuckles bruised, and my elbows contused from slamming into the space-edged console,” Fox recalls.

Perhaps, then, the DeLorean fell short when judged strictly on the basis of substance.

But style?

That’s something entirely different.

On that basis, the DeLorean continues yet today to enjoy star power from its stint on the big screen that few other automobiles will ever achieve.

And in a country as devoted to pop culture as America, there’s always a market for the mix of celebrity and nostalgia evoked by the DeLorean Time Machine.

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