Entries For New DeLorean Challenge!

Thank you all for your interest in this challenge. Admittedly there is no prize for this, but the challenge is real, and so are the entries received. We have selected the top ones and given them each a separate gallery so you can see the thought process and all the art work in all their glory. Where available we will include the adjoining text motivation.

Please feel free to send in your vote to info@cardesigntv.com for the one that best captures the New DeLorean Challenge in your opinion. We have been lucky enough to be joined by Kat DeLorean, daughter of John Z. DeLorean, and she too will make her preferences known. We will the crown the best proposal here!

Again, thank you all!

Tony Hunter

I feel that the original car was a wonderful product with a character all of it’s own, and as it still stands out on the road today (if you’re lucky enough to spot one) it doesn’t really need to be completely redesigned. Like the Porsche 911 it has become an icon, and simply requires a little updating and fettling to eliminate any flaws whilst keeping the details and surfaces contemporary and mainting that visual personality that turns our heads…time after time…!

(I will however point out my flux capacitor CHMSL, we can’t separate the DeLorean from “Back To The Future” any more than we can separate the Aston DB5 from the Bond franchise, and if I’d got around to sketching the interior I’d have installed a similarly designed interior light…the Devil that we fall in love with is in those details…!)

Kelly Holder

The Future DeLorean Autonomous Flying Car

• The vehicle had to have automotive emotion (a front and rear) for direction of travel
• A hint of a sports car – inspired by the emotion of speed
• An electric commuter
• It’s simple aerodynamic shape allows for smoother and more confortable trip back to the future
• Variable spaces for the interior so people can lounge back, work or relax
• Key timeless features inherited from the past – Lighting Strip all around, Gull Wing Doors

DeLorean Future Hydrogen Electric Car

• The future hydrogen electric car with fluidity in the form the complement the design
• A speedtail all glass shape is cocooned by the exterior for a safer trip
• Key timeless features inherited from the past – Lighting Strip all around, Gull Wing Doors, Rear Feature/Previously Vent

Hirash Razaghi

David Malcolm Beasly

I was trying to find a really advanced language, but a simple one that was both recognisable and brutally advanced at the same time. Can the 80s vibe be timeless? As an 80s kid, I’d like to think so, but it was only 40s years ago. So what do I really remember in terms of design? The shapes and forms were simple, rounded off volumes from the even simpler hard edged 70s aesthetics that came before. As if the 80s were that little bit more softer, more acceptable, more refined. Slowly harnessing the computer and projecting a new age of power, optimism and posibility.

So using a rounded square to the point of product design meets architecture obsessiveness gave me a unique look and still very 80s, timeless and scifi all at the same time. 

I kept the feel of the volumes of the original, but reinterpreted them with a slight rear deck into a very limo sedan like appearance. The last car to be developed was going to be a 4 eater. I wanted to hour that and pick up when John left off, appropriate for the near future. Sedans will always give a sense of luxury especially when the proportions exaggerate them as such. The design here is as long as a Rolls Royce Phantom, but almost as low as a Lamborghini. Obviously it needs the iconic bodyside, and obviously it needs lipped wheel arches and this is where the 80s soft square comes in to create very strong architecural arch volumes suggesting power and technology: The motors and airless Michelin wheels fill out the arch to the maximum, with the blended forms of the arch stretched back onto the wedge body in a very product like fashion but keeping a very dynamic stance. Front and rear graphics are almost non existant but stull recognisable with the face that you have the mass of the trapizoidal mask as layers of tech both aero and lighting / sensors. The glass front and rear stretch all the way fore and aft in  very product like “shuttle craft” way hinting at the volumes underneath. Finally little nods to DeLorean film references like the antenna mast looking like a Mr Fusion and the rear lower diffuser referencing the BTTF movie car vents finish it off. 

I know it’s quite extreme, I know it’s very different to the more expected and contemporary offerings from other designers, but that’s the point. If there was one car brand now, that could litterally own the 80s in all it’s optimism, power, and aesthetic glory, it’s DeLorean.

The character and mood however are all very modern but with a hint of again this idealised American class and elegance that transcends time. Like Cary Grant in a white t shirt, tailored jeans and sneakers. Or Pharrell in a Tom Ford suit. It could be now, it never goes out of style. And it’s that style I’m trying to get as the soul for the project. effortlessness, timeless elegance, simplicity BUT contrasted with the absolute heights of luxury, bold yet understated statements. It would have to be glamourous, but not in your face. There’s a respect too of the old and previous mixed with the new. Mid century modern furniture still resonates wth us for god reason. The shapes and forms still appeal in their product simplicity but perfect proportions. 

I see this car, the 24L as a personal escape. You live in the city, you have the means to have one and you want your space and time. So it arrives early morning, you’re packed and ready and it drives you to your retreat by a lake in the mountains whilst you sleep on the ear chaise lounge. As you wake up, you look out of the single large portal window, like being in an aircraft out into the scenery and the world beyond. Once you arrive the entire left side of the car opens as a gull wing and you step out to your personal escape. Perhaps on the way back you decide to drive and sit up front in the captains chair, driving by giving input into the centre control block: the car’s sensors and LiDARS do the actual job of controlling the details, much like you guiding the reins when riding the horse. 

After all this, I showed a few select people I trust for design, and they all were very positive but said the same thing: “It’s maybe a bit too much for people. Distil it down into a mid way, like a coupe and see f the theme still works.” This resulted in the Gold American Express coupe version, the 12C a more manual and standard car compared to the more scifi 24L. I feel like the core elements are still there, the volume and theme still work very well, so I’m very happy with the result.

There’s still a lit to do, the model isn’t perfect and I need to finish the interior. But when I do, I intend to do movie animations and such, maybe a website detailing he process and thoughts, and ultimately I am planning to write a book on the design of the original DeLorean. I did own one, VIN 2677, but with Covid and a few other life altering events, I had to sell it to a good home. I have no regrets, but Delorean has meant so much to my childhood, I’m just happy I had the chance to own one and have the talent to design what I think could be a great homage to the wonderful story.

Foresee Car Design

To establish a new brand, and in this case it is a new brand, it is necessary to either have a really wealthy partner company or to ensure that return on investment starts really early. The amount of effort and money involved with starting a company properly is tremendous and impossible if only a limited amount of money is available. $100,000 seems like a lot, $1 million is even more, but it is peanuts in what is needed to develop a car, let alone to start production.

That is why an initial vehicle would need to be a “Halo” vehicle, and image maker to be produced in a very limited amount at an extremely high price, featuring the core values that the brand wants to convery. They will almost be individually built to order of the specific client, so they are totally unique and worth the money. It can never be a simple restyle of the old DeLorean and sold at a similar price. That did not work then and certainly does not work now.

Only when this is done and taken off, having proven the business case for the company’s existence, can they think of moving slowly down market to markets that are a bit less expensive, all careful to not dilute the brand image. DeLorean has a very clear image not only based on the initial product but especially also influenced by the movie versions of it. This will never be the movie car flying into the future, so it has to be based in reality.

We’re proposing to initially develop that high end halo vehicle clearly as a zero emissions high end sports car, with a mid engine proportion silhouette, but, since it is electric, the interior can be used to seat 2 plus 2 at least,.

The next car in line would be a luxury sedan and once that has proven it’s value we would go for a spacious flexible layout for long distance travel of a whole family.