We all remember the famous DeLorean from the Back to the Future movie series. It’s an iconic pop culture vehicle, right up there alongside Ecto-1 from the Ghostbusters movies or the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo.
Millions of people have admired the DeLorean on-screen in the classic Robert Zemeckis film trilogy, but how cool would it be to own one for yourself?
Well, one British dad was determined to make that dream a reality!
37-year-old James Napier is a lifelong movie fan with a real fondness for Back to the Future.
In the film, Doc Brown, played by Christopher Lloyd, turns an old DMC DeLorean car into a time machine, traveling back and forth into the past and future with Marty McFly, played by Michael J. Fox.
The kooky time machine has always been one of the most important images of the franchise and the official car is on display at an LA museum, but Napier wanted to make one of his own.
He had to spend a whole lot of cash getting his hands on a DeLorean and then modding it up.
The car he bought had already been slightly converted into a Back to the Future homage, but the previous owner had done a pretty poor job, so James more or less had to start from scratch.
It was quite run down. It needed a lot of work. Somebody had tried to make it into a Back to the Future car—but it was really quite bad! The car was an absolute mess… I probably spent around 1,200 hours working on the car and it was quite expensive to do.
‘Expensive’ is definitely the right word here! James spent over £50,000 buying the car and then another £30,000 in modding it, for a grand total of over £80,000 ($105,000).
But, in spite of the huge expense, James, who works as a website designer, says the whole thing was definitely worth it. He added that he feels like the coolest dad in town when he picks up his three kids, Paige, 16, Devon, 13, and Daisy, 8, from school.
I take it out on weekends and I drop my kids off at school or football sometimes. They like it and their friends find it quite amusing! You see other people’s jaws drop when we drive past. The family adores it—although my wife Emma probably doesn’t want to know how much it has cost me in total to restore!
The car is fitted out with smoke machines that activate when the doors open, neon lights, and even some other props that were actually used during the filming of Back to the Future.
James estimates he spent around 1,200 hours working on the car altogether, but the results are simply out of this world. It must feel amazing to drive around in such an iconic piece of movie history, and little Daisy summed it up best when she said her dad had to be a “little crazy” to build something like that. Check out the video below to see the DeLorean in action.
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