Great Scott! Check out this DeLorean with less than 1,000 miles
What a barn find.
We here at Gear Head have seen a lot of cool DeLorean's in our lives, but we have never seen or even heard of one with less than 1,000 miles on it.
The "Back to the Future" movie has been a family favorite since the release of the first film appearance in 1985, so much so that the car used for the time machine can resell for up to six figures or more.
Finding one on the other hand can be like winning the lottery or finding a needle in the haystack. However, two lucky men got their break and won the lottery in a big way as they found one with its original parts and only 977 miles on the odometer in Wisconsin barn. Great Scott!
Michael McElhattan, who owns DeLorean Midwest, an auto restoration company in Illinois and his social media partner Kevin Thomas are the lucky lotto winners in this story. The DeLorean that was featured in the "Back to the Future" films was a DeLorean DMC-12, which was manufactured from 1981-1983 and made its appearance on the movie in 1985. There were only 9,000 DeLorean models created between 1981-1983. The producers and directors of the film nailed it when they choose one of them to be the car featured in the movie. The car had gullwing doors and a shiny stainless-steel body, which made its spaceship-like design the perfect fit for the movies.
The DeLorean is known for a few slight mechanical problems, such as an underpowered engine that made the car painfully slow, keeping up with the stainless-steel panels were a pain as they needed to be polished quite a bit along with other mechanical flaws. However, the car still has a lot of followers and car enthusiast who would still purchase or own one today regardless of its issues.
McElhatten has a YouTube channel called DeLorean NATION where he posts videos with his business partner and friend, Thomas. In one of their videos McElhatten mentioned that in his 17-years of working on DeLorean's, he has never heard of one like the one they found.
"It's always cool to see another one come out of the woodwork that's been lost to the community," McElhattan said.
A total of only 9,000 DeLoreans were built before the DeLorean factory closed due to bankruptcy in 1982 making it a truly iconic car if all the orginal parts were left alone. McElhattan mentioned in an interview that the parts on the DeLorean have not been changed and that they are all still original, even down to the original tires.
"It's literally like a time machine in that way, traveling back to 1981 when it was manufactured," McElhattan said.
McElhattan and Thomas both believe that the car was left sitting in the barn for about 20 years. When the team found the DeLorean, it was sinking into the ground and aging it was starting to show on the body.
McElhattan and Thomas from DeLorean NATION bought the car with plans to have it restored so they can return it back to the roads in the future with a "Back to the Future appearance."
As mentioned above, we here at Gear Head have seen a few DeLorean's before in the past, like this one that was featured at the Gem State Comic-Con in 2023. Post the DeLorean's you have seen in a comment below.
