‘Even though, in what might now be claimed as classic post-modernism, the idea for this singular car’s gullwing doors was derived from 1954’s equally extraordinary, almost mythical Mercedes-Benz 300 SL.

‘Of course the DeLorean DMC-12 was personified by John DeLorean, the car’s designer and instigator. For many the name John DeLorean remains synonymous with glamorous automobiles.

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‘Before he became entranced with his own DeLorean project, John Zachary DeLorean – the son of Romanian immigrant parents, with a labourer father who was also, by all accounts, a drunk – had been earning $600,000 a year, a phenomenal sum for those days, as head of first Pontiac and then Chevrolet for General Motors.

‘And we have one right now at Beverly Hills Car Club, a low-mileage 1981 DeLorean DMC-12 with only 5,747 miles on the odometer and finished in its iconic color scheme of stainless steel combined with a grey interior. The DeLorean is equipped with a five-speed manual transmission, four-wheel disc brakes, dual exhaust outlets, counterbalanced Gullwing doors, Hella quadruple headlights, side marker lights, front spoiler, louvered rear-window cover, three-spoke steering wheel, Goodyear tires, alloy wheels, and a spare tire fitted in the front trunk.

‘Amenities include air conditioning, a cargo net behind the seats, sun visors, a center console, an ashtray, a glove compartment, dual-side mirrors, power windows, and a dashboard digital clock. In addition to the equipment, this two-passenger sports car comes with workshop manual booklets, and a clean Carfax report. This is an extremely low-mileage DMC-12 in exceptional condition that is mechanically sound.

‘As it ages, the DeLorean car only increases in desirability. At Beverly Hills Car Club each model we buy and sell assumes immediate cult status: in total we have sold 180 DeLoreans, so it is a really hot sales item.

‘And this is due to much more than the car’s appearance, as a time machine, in each of the three Back to the Future films, all of which I loved as a kid.

‘But John DeLorean had understood pop culture, and the glamour of the American West Coast. When the DeLoreans started rolling off the production line, at least 45 per cent were sold in California.

‘To do this, John DeLorean did a deal with the British government, persuading them to give him $100 million to build a factory in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, a city then blighted by endemic unemployment; Belfast at the time was torn apart by the ‘Troubles’, a euphemism for a full-scale civil war between Catholics and Protestants.

‘DeLorean’s factory was built in the no man’s land between areas controlled by these two religious factions, obliging them to work together, a successful effort at integration. It was a very big deal that there were Roman Catholics and Protestants working together: schools were not even integrated in Northern Ireland, where the DeLorean factory was an oasis of peace.

‘The company turned out to be too underfunded to fulfil its ambitions. But its achievements were nonetheless impressive. The DeLorean car that emerged from the Belfast factory had taken only 27 months from its first design to a completed model appearing in dealerships: the time arc for a similar development of a new Porsche model in that age was nine years. To achieve this, however, money was spent as though it was pouring out of an open tap. By 1982 John DeLorean was forced to file for bankruptcy. And all the people working in the DeLorean factory unfortunately lost their jobs.

‘Yet the legend of the DeLorean DMC-12 endures. Around 6,500 were believed still to be on the roads in 2015.

-Alex Manos, Owner