John delorean biography book
DeLorean: The Rise, Fall and Second Acts of the DeLorean Motor Company
September 1, 2024
The book has a brief biography of Delorean himself - obviously, there has been enough written on his history without needing to rehash it. We do get information about the company - a history of how it came about, publicity photos, concept sketches, and brief information about the people working there. But all too soon that discussion is over and it is back to exhaustive discussions about the car's specs. The author doesn't attempt to analyze much about what was happening at the company other than they didn't sell enough cars so they went bankrupt. I felt like I didn't have a decent picture of what was happening/what happened. The rest of the book is about pop culture references (e.g., Back To The Future), various car clubs, and the interest in a DMC version 2. But even there, the info was brief (e.g., we're told Delorean's daughter is trying to revitalize the brand but nothing more on her efforts there).
The images were ok - advertisement reprints, promotional photos, concept sketches, lots of photos of comparable or inspirational cars like Lotus and Porsche. I don't know that there was anything super interesting or unique in there. I did note that there were times that we were given descriptions of items and that I was wishing for photographs (e.g., of the site in Belfast before construction of the factory) or times when images were just randomly thrown in (e.g,. a photo of Delorean and his wife in the 1980s in a section about the future of the company or rather boring repeated photos of DMC car parts in storage). It felt like there was a lot of lost opportunity there.
Finally, I was frustrated by the presentation of the topics. For example, after the section about the end of the DMC company, there is then a whole chapter about the making of the Back To The Future car and its use in the movie. Then suddenly we're back to the production era when there was a special promotion to make a gold version for AMEX - discussing how the car was manufactured in the plant. That felt far more relevant to the production era than to how the car was used in media or the car clubs springing up.
In all, this felt more like a light and breezy ode to the car by a car guy rather than an informative piece about the company or a fancy coffee table book. I suppose Delorean owners will enjoy having images collected in one book, information about car clubs and places to get parts so it is a good purchase for them. But I was expecting and hoping for either a prettier book or a more informative one. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.
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I am more than a bit conflicted about this book. On the one hand, it has enough text to be informative and the images are fine. But on the other hand, I didn't find the images compelling or unique, the information wasn't sorted well, text/biography information more about the car itself and its affect on pop culture than on the DMC company, and there were odd tonal moments throughout (e.g., strange humor additions/wording that never landed). At the end, I certainly didn't feel like I had a better understanding of the DMC company.The book has a brief biography of Delorean himself - obviously, there has been enough written on his history without needing to rehash it. We do get information about the company - a history of how it came about, publicity photos, concept sketches, and brief information about the people working there. But all too soon that discussion is over and it is back to exhaustive discussions about the car's specs. The author doesn't attempt to analyze much about what was happening at the company other than they didn't sell enough cars so they went bankrupt. I felt like I didn't have a decent picture of what was happening/what happened. The rest of the book is about pop culture references (e.g., Back To The Future), various car clubs, and the interest in a DMC version 2. But even there, the info was brief (e.g., we're told Delorean's daughter is trying to revitalize the brand but nothing more on her efforts there).
The images were ok - advertisement reprints, promotional photos, concept sketches, lots of photos of comparable or inspirational cars like Lotus and Porsche. I don't know that there was anything super interesting or unique in there. I did note that there were times that we were given descriptions of items and that I was wishing for photographs (e.g., of the site in Belfast before construction of the factory) or times when images were just randomly thrown in (e.g,. a photo of Delorean and his wife in the 1980s in a section about the future of the company or rather boring repeated photos of DMC car parts in storage). It felt like there was a lot of lost opportunity there.
Finally, I was frustrated by the presentation of the topics. For example, after the section about the end of the DMC company, there is then a whole chapter about the making of the Back To The Future car and its use in the movie. Then suddenly we're back to the production era when there was a special promotion to make a gold version for AMEX - discussing how the car was manufactured in the plant. That felt far more relevant to the production era than to how the car was used in media or the car clubs springing up.
In all, this felt more like a light and breezy ode to the car by a car guy rather than an informative piece about the company or a fancy coffee table book. I suppose Delorean owners will enjoy having images collected in one book, information about car clubs and places to get parts so it is a good purchase for them. But I was expecting and hoping for either a prettier book or a more informative one. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.
Author craig johnson biography Johnson has written twelve novels featuring Sheriff Walt Longmire: The Cold Dish, Death Without Company, Kindness Goes Unpunished, Another Man's Moccasins, Junkyard Dogs, The Dark Horse (which received starred reviews from Kirkus, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal, and was named one of Publisher's Weekly's best books of the year.