A British man claiming to be the son of the late, disgraced automobile tycoon, John DeLorean is in hot water with a Texas company over a gullwing-door, three-wheel car carrying his family name.
Ty DeLorean, who says he was conceived when his famous dad was in Northern Ireland, where the iconic DMC-12 sports car was manufactured in the early 1980s, builds and sells a Back to the Future-themed three-wheeler from his base in southwest England.
Based on the Reliant Rialto, the successor to the 1970s Robin that was the staple butt of UK standups’ jokes for years, the cars are modified with remote-opening gullwing doors, notchback body styling and a fake flux capacitor.
There’s even an EV version in the pipeline, which would replace the 850 cc four-cylinder engine with an electric motor. Called the DMC 1.21 after the 1.21 gigawatts Doc Brown and Marty needed to make the movie car time travel after they’d run out of plutonium, it’s likely to make slightly less power in reality since a gigawatt is equal to 1 billion watts – a Porsche Taycan Turbo S only makes 560,000 Watts.
Related: DeLorean DMC-12 With Kia Stinger GT Twin-Turbo V6 Engine Swap Delivers 487 HP To The Wheels
Ty’s legal problems stem from the use of the DMC (DeLorean Motor Company) name on both the car and his website (www.dmc21.co.uk). The DMC name is legally owned by a Texas company (www.delorean.com) that sells parts for, and restores, original DMC-12s, and is even planning to take advantage of recent changes to rules governing the production of low volume cars in the U.S. to build a brand new DeLorean.
While exhibiting his $25,000 (£20,000) car at the recent British Motor Show, Ty DeLorean was served with legal papers from the real DMC in Texas over trademark infringement.
In the legal letter, seen by CornwallLive website in the UK, the lawyers state: “Whilst our client notes your claim to be the son of John DeLorean, being the son of John DeLorean does not give you the right to use our client’s UK registered trademarks without its permission, or to pass your business off as being in some way connected to or endorsed by our client’s business.”
But it sounds like Ty DeLorean had no plans to back down. “Now me and the car are at the centre of a billion-dollar legal case which I have full intention of fighting and winning the trademark,” he told Cornwall Live.
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He even claims that the original DeLorean Motor Company might not have gone bust if it had introduced a car like his three-wheeler back in 1981, though judging by the reaction on social media, not everyone is convinced.
John DeLorean died in 2005 and is now best remembered for the gullwing-door flop that bears his name. But as a high flyer at General Motors in the 1960s, he had a hand in key cars like the Pontic GTO.
H/T to Cornwall Live