All language subtitles for Framing John DeLorean 2019 (Framing John DeLorean 2019) (ENGLISH)

Okay, John, can
you hear me all right?

Yes, sir.

I'll be talking to you over this
intercom when I'm out here.

I'm going to pump
up that cuff now.

Okay.

The test is about to begin.

Is your first name John?

Yes.

During the first 53
years of your life, did you

ever do anything
dishonest, illegal, or immoral?

Yes.

Yes.

Before 1981, did you ever engage in
an improper business practice or put false

information on an
official form or document?

Yes.

Before age 54, did you
ever cheat someone or

take advantage of
anyone in a business deal?

Yes, I would say.

Okay, John, how
was it that time?

A little nervous?

Well, when you get into those general
questions, you start thinking back about

bad used cars you sold people, about maybe
the time you committed a little adultery.

I must say that if you really get...
It causes you to think back a lot.

Well, you go through
your whole life.

John DeLorean is one of the
maverick rogues of his day.

And there are very few
of those guys around.

He was a dreamer who wanted to push things
beyond where other people had taken them.

And in a way, that's a marvelous
and appealing characteristic.

But it's also
extremely dangerous.

John DeLorean was a winner, a
loser, a champion, a relentless fool.

This guy was the quintessential leading
man that Hollywood producers dream of.

And he was real.

I've always wondered why a
feature film has to be a dream.

It hasn't been
made of John's life.

I think it would
be a great movie.

Obviously, I'd had this dream.

I wanted to build this
automobile company.

Everybody said it's inconceivable that
any new automobile company could survive.

I'm always interested in the story of the
quintessential outsider, full of ambition

and hope, and works his way up,
in a sense, to the position he was in.

He had it all, his own auto
empire, a beautiful wife, children.

He was a golden boy.

And, of course, his colossal
fall is almost Shakespearean.

John DeLorean, who gave up a shot at the
presidency of General Motors to build his

own futuristic sports
car, is in jail this morning.

The thing that's remarkable
about DeLorean's story is

that it has all of these
incredibly powerful elements.

It's got a marvelous
celebrity couple.

It's got drugs.

It's got drug dealing.

It's got FBI guys.

It's got this incredible
political backdrop.

It's the sort of story
that, you know, if it

hadn't happened, you
wouldn't dare to make it up.

All of a sudden now, a
number of people have

been back at me wanting
to do a movie of my life.

It had always seemed to
be a story that had been

around Hollywood as early
as probably the early 80s.

Often good ideas, you know,
produce several films at the same time.

With John DeLorean, I think
it was taken to a new level.

Every single one of these movies
had different people from John's life,

different family members,
different underlying

material, which made
it this fascinating...

race to get the movie
made because each one

would have been a
decidedly different story.

Still to this day, not
one's been made yet.

Every so often you hear, oh, somebody's
going to make a movie about DeLorean.

Somebody's going to make
a movie about DeLorean.

Knock on wood, it'll happen
because I think it could be great.

He was this kind of chameleon-like figure
who could appear one thing to one person

and another thing totally
to a different person.

And I think, in a way, that's why so
many scripts have been written about him

because, you know, he
is open to interpretation.

You get the impression that he is either a
beleaguered man who was discredited and

manipulated by big
business in this country or he

was the greatest con man
to ever come down the pike.

We have an opportunity
this morning to visit with him.

Would you welcome
Mr. John DeLorean.

You shoot him for your purposes
over the arc of how many years?

He ages a piece.

Mostly early 70s to early 80s.

So there's a business spread
and he ages during that time.

Sure.

Yeah, that's right.

And I want to see
how his behavior ages.

I need to see clips
that are arranged.

Driving you all this time was this
desperate need to make this car thing go.

My cries are so intense that
nothing in the world would let

me let this business, this car
with my name on it, go down.

That's the corner of his eye.

When you draw a straight line up,
the brow overlaps the corner of the eye.

Well, I think it's going
to come in a little bit.

It's going to come over?

Yeah.

Are they involved with cocaine?

Talk about that.

It's a peculiar thing because,
you know, in my life, I have never,

ever seen cocaine,
touched cocaine, used

cocaine, or been in the
presence of anybody.

All the time I've looked at DeLorean
before, I thought, where is he

manipulating and where are the peaks
behind the curtain of who he really is?

And then when you play the person,
you say to yourself, well, forget about me

looking at DeLorean as
a viewer on a TV show

and saying, what's
behind the curtain with him?

When you start to play him,
you go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

He's not guilty of anything.

He didn't do anything.

In fact, it's the opposite.

He's a hero in his mind.

He's a hero.

And you have to play that.

You have to play
who he thinks he is.

And you present him as who
he thinks he is to the world.

And you let the audience
make up their mind.

And you suddenly thought
you were involved with

the mob and you were
fighting for your life.

Well, I just, it
really went half.

Let me just show my wife.

She just thinks it's funny.

She just thinks it's funny.

She thinks it's a fun thing.

She said, hey, look, I can't
believe this is what they think.

They pay you to do this.

Oh, God.

What are you doing?

You're doing a movie.

We do reenactment footage of
DeLorean's drama, his caper, his escapades,

and shoot them as a movie and cut
reenactment footage into documentary

footage of a movie about DeLorean
and what he did and what he went through.

And the good news is I don't
have to bother with any of that.

They do.

I'm going to just go put the makeup
on and go try to be DeLorean.

For John DeLorean,
growing up in Detroit, every

kid's dream was to go
into the auto industry.

One thing you have to understand about John
DeLorean is he was a brilliant engineer.

And so to start with, he had some really
good instincts and he had great talent.

DeLorean thrived in the car business first
at Packard for a short while at Chrysler.

And somebody sought
him out at General Motors

and offered him his
choice of five divisions.

He took on Pontiac, which was
the old ladies division at the time.

And it was really the place
where he could shine the most.

General Manager, Mr. John C.

DeLorean.

In those days, the late 50s and early 60s
at GM, Pontiac particularly was exciting

to be there because they were
almost ready to be dropped.

And of course, that was the
kind of thing that gave you the

incentive to come up with new
ideas and make them happen.

I started as a very unsophisticated young
engineer and I was given an opportunity to

attain a success in the
business world far beyond

anything I had ever
imagined I was capable of.

You know, this was a special
guy who was going to change the

industry forever and truly
become a legend at the company.

Scene two alpha, take three.

Parker.

The story in the GTO is that we were about
ready to do a brand new line and we had

the 64 Tempest to be in the garage
there with John and a couple of the guys.

Hey, Bill.

John, you heading home?

Yeah, I was about to.

I wanted to stop by and see
how you were coming along.

Well, I think she's about as
good as we're going to get her.

He would encourage everybody
to do something new and different.

I was hoping maybe we'd have
something, I don't know, sexier.

You mean sportier?

Yeah, more high
performance, you know.

Well, our bigger 389 engine
has the exact same dimensions

as the 326 in here, so we
could swap that out, no problem.

Well, how would the car
handle the extra power?

Well, that's the thing.

You have to fit the appropriate
transmission and rear axle.

But we do that, it would
definitely be sexier, John.

Shoot, we could even
run this in NASCAR.

I say we do it.

Really?

Absolutely.

But then what?

You think you
can actually sell it?

You let me worry
about that, Bill.

I was just going to
drive it back and forth

to work, and I had a
marvelous time with it.

And I found that every
time I lent it to somebody

to use for a day or two,
I couldn't get it back.

And I said, well, there may be
a market for something like that.

What the hell is this?

That's a GTO.

It stands for Gran Turismo Amalgamato,
which I think is Italian for fastest hell.

But it'll beat every car on a track or
American street, and it's still a Pontiac.

Hold on a second.

Turn that off.

The 14th floor is never
going to go for putting

such a large engine
in such a small frame.

Well, GM forbade putting a
so-called big block beyond,

I believe, 350 cubic inches
in a medium-sized car.

The guys upstairs approve this?

I don't need their approval.

It's a new product, John.

All new products need
upper management approval.

And John was interesting.

He loved really just figuring out ways
to bend the rules as much as possible.

But it's not a new product.

It's an options package
on the new Tempest,

and one that puts a
real tiger under the hood.

It's manipulative.

It's marketing.

Pontiac is primarily the
division for older buyers.

What are they going
to want with a hot rod?

We're the division for older buyers
because that's how we view ourselves.

We've got to anticipate
what younger buyers

want before they even
know what they want.

And once they realize
it, give them this.

So how many do
you want to produce?

You're the sales manager.

You tell me.

I was thinking about 30,000.

You're out of your damn mind.

John, be reasonable.

I can't imagine us selling
even close to 5,000.

But...

Let's start with that number, and
let's hope that they don't rust on the lot.

At that time, the sales manager
of Pontiac thought it was stupid.

And he refused to schedule more than,
I think, about 4,000 or 5,000 for the year.

It was an outlaw move.

DeLorean snuck it past the GM
watchdogs by a sort of sleight of hand.

It was just an options package.

Despite his feeling it wouldn't sell, I
think we sold like 45,000 the first year.

What he figured out before anyone figured
it out was that this exploding youth

movement had interest in
cars as something that would

represent the way they
wanted to look to the world.

It's the perfect moment in which
John was able to marry both his brilliant

engineering as well as his marketing
prowess to create the muscle car.

The muscle car era
really advanced Detroit.

It made money.

It made Pontiac.

It made those three
letters, GTO, legendary.

There's an odd parallel between
the Pontiac GTO and John Z.

DeLorean.

The GTO was a risk taken.

And I think it convinced DeLorean that
taking a risk no one else was willing to

step up to and making it work
at all costs was how you did it.

And after you do
it once, why stop?

What I see about DeLorean...

For me, he took such risks.

And the problem with people who
take risks like that is that when they win,

when they make their
calculated risk, they

become emboldened
and they take more risks.

And then they take risks
outside of their normal sphere.

Between this and the other, it
will generate about four and a half...

Risk taking in the automotive
industry and risk taking with

a bunch of drug dealers in a
hotel are two different things.

But your confidence in
yourself is very, very high.

You don't make mistakes.

You don't see them coming.

Better than gold.

Just say it's better than gold.

This stuff weighs more.

Gold weighs more than this.

Gold weighs more
than this, for God's sake.

Better than gold.

Better than gold.

Gold weighs more
than this, for God's sake.

Hi, John.

Hi, John.

Great question.

Do you have the FBI?

But in the end, when he's arrested and
he tilts his head back and you have a shot,

hopefully, looking
down from the ceiling...

And his head should crane up and look
right up into a thing and look off camera.

And he's thinking,
what are you thinking?

We should cut to
what he's thinking.

He's worried about his family.

He's worried about
losing everything.

And there were like
four or five things.

If he just made a little adjustment here
and made this decision differently there,

all of it would have turned
out completely differently.

DeLorean was clearly a fast
mover at GM in the early 70s.

Whoever makes the most money
at GM is the most important person.

And everything he
touched turned to gold.

So by the time John
reaches the 14th floor, better

known as the executive
level, he's in his mid-40s.

If he just plays his cards right, he's
poised to be the next president of

General Motors, the largest
corporation in the world.

GM was very intentional on
making executives colorless.

And DeLorean was a
highly technicolor person.

He wore open collars.

He wore sideburns.

He spent his
weekend in the garage.

He went to a lot of
events in California.

And you know what
an evil influence that is.

He gets significant plastic surgery on
his face to give himself a stronger jaw.

He starts weightlifting
and losing weight.

He and his first wife separated.

And then he started dating actresses and
models of women that were a lot younger

than him and who a
lot of GM executives and

then their wives thought
were age inappropriate.

I have a reasonably
strong sex drive, which I

happen to think is an
important part of any guy.

He married his second
wife, Kelly Harmon,

blonde bombshell, and
she was 19 at the time.

The General Mueller's PR department
added a couple of years to her age when the

press releases first went
out about the marriage.

She lives there in Detroit
for two or three years,

becomes disillusioned with
the marriage, and leaves him.

And within a year and a
half, he's married to Christina

Farrar, the, at that point,
world's top supermodel.

Then he ended up, of course, in the
fashion magazines and that kind of thing.

And while that enhanced
his image outside of the

company, it created
problems for him with him.

GM can't stand this.

It's pissing them off.

And he goes back to them and says,
hey, what are you guys worried about?

Look at the sales numbers.

Tom, how do you feel about
our retail sales job this past year?

How do I feel?

John, I feel great.

Both at Pontiac and at
Chevrolet, he was making so

much money for the
company and all the executives.

All the executives that he reported
to, who were upset with his lifestyle,

upset with him, couldn't quite figure out
how he was doing so well, but they could

see the numbers and they knew
that showed up in their bonus checks.

And that was the interesting
dilemma for GM with John DeLorean.

This is Boston Harbor,
and those are Volkswagens.

They're coming in.

One of the tragic flaws of GM, and
again, this is something he knew,

is that the company
was all too willing to

do what it was doing
a year and a half ago.

And they were doing it year after
year after year because it was working,

even though they were
ignoring, for instance, the small

car market and let it go
a lot of time to foreigners.

He saw what was coming
from a lot of these imports,

these smaller, more
fuel-efficient, better quality cars.

And he knew the
writing was on the wall.

Obviously, I saw the trends very clearly,
and I wanted to react to them a little bit

perhaps more aggressively than other
members of the industry management.

He had big aspirations.

He wanted to stay at GM.

He wanted to be president.

He wanted to do things, take the company
in directions that they weren't willing to

do because they were so
comfortable being the fat cat at

the time, being the number
one car company in the world.

And that leads to his demise.

There were executives
who resented him.

Probably the most prominent
is a guy named Roger Kyes.

It was just a total
difference of opinion.

I think he considered
me capricious and

superficial, and I considered
him a pompous ass.

Those enemies in the
company slowed down.

I slowly developed kind of a
cabal, as you will, against DeLorean.

In 1972, they tasked John
with putting together a speech

to talk about GM's quality, the
infamous Greenbrier speech.

They pre-read all the
speeches weeks in advance.

They noticed that the speech not
only criticizes the quality of the cars,

but it criticizes a lot
of the executives that

are currently there,
some of his own bosses.

And they censored a lot of the
stuff that he could say in the speech.

But, you know, he wasn't
going to let it just rest at that.

Nothing.

There's something you forgot.

Well, that's the one I'm actually
giving at Greenbrier on Saturday.

This is the speech
I should be giving.

What I should be saying is in here
somewhere, buried like Kyes wants.

You think it's personal, then?

Oh, sure, it's personal.

I wonder how much
longer I can do this dance.

I mean, at this rate, it'll be ten years
of me pushing papers that I didn't write

before I'm named president, and
that's... that's not going to work at all.

Any thoughts on how
you might accelerate that?

As a matter of fact, I've
got a few ideas, yeah.

If this original speech were to be leaked,
there would be some blowback, sure.

But I'd be vindicated.

And in this particular situation,
what he wants is for the public and the

press to sort of shame
GM and push them in the

direction that he wanted
the company to go in.

Good to see you, Roy.

And you, John.

And he felt that by calling these people
out, that this was going to somehow prop

him up and propel him even
faster into the presidency.

His initial speech leaked to the press,
and it was all over the news that John

DeLorean is highly critical
of General Motors' quality.

DeLorean claimed his enemies
had leaked these speeches out.

It became apparent that people close to
DeLorean had leaked these speeches out.

You've got to remember,
this is a person who, was

only rewarded for taking
big risks, dangerous moves.

It didn't work.

No doubt, DeLorean was booted by members
of the board and the corporate directors,

and that forced him out
very abruptly in 1973.

DeLorean is ejected
from the company in what

should have been a
very embarrassing event.

However, he finds a
way, at making it all heroic.

Being part, or being
one-seventh, or one-tenth of

some committee is a very
unappealing thing to me.

Obviously, it was very rewarding
financially, and it would have been easy

to sit there for another 17
years collecting a half a million or

three-quarters of a
million dollars a year,

but that really didn't
appeal to me very much.

A full career would have
been another 15 years.

Well, what's he going to do?

He's going to count beans
with the other executives.

Compared to creating new, cool products
like GTOs, it's completely different.

There's no way DeLorean
would have lasted to age 65.

Wow.

I can't imagine us selling even close
to 5,000, but let's start with that number.

I've got another car,
a stainless steel car.

You're going to
be crazy about it.

Yeah, okay.

Good luck with that, John.

That's what the line should be.

The bad version would
be, next thing you're going to

be telling us, you want to
build a stainless steel car.

In the back of his mind,
this concept car was

always stirring, what
he called an ethical car.

Well, we're doing a
sports racing car here.

It's going to be designed
to have an eternal life.

And so we're using a
non-corrosive material so

that it'll just stay
together forever and ever.

And it's going to be very
beautiful aesthetically.

He wanted to build
a sophisticated,

contemporary-looking
sports car for the masses.

That wasn't the norm.

You know, if you're going to get something
that's that exotic and interesting,

you're going to have to get
a Ferrari or a Lamborghini

where they only make a
few hundred cars a year.

John was trying to make
a mass-produced car.

He set out to compete
with the big boys.

It's difficult, if not impossible,
to start up a car company.

Really, the last one you could
name was Chrysler in the 1920s.

And even Chrysler
went through bankruptcy.

There aren't many people who
do that, who want to risk it all.

When he left Yemen, more
or less, was forced to leave,

that became the driving
force in his motivation.

I'm going to show them.

And so it was part
dream and part revenge.

There it is, what we
always talked about.

What do you think about being
named the head of the entire

product program for the first
mass-produced car since Chrysler?

John, look, obviously,
I'm going to win.

I'm flattered,
but... No buts, Bill.

And I'm not flattering you.

This is what you
and I were built for.

This is real innovation.

Does innovation
include a pension?

Well, who's asking?

My wife.

Well, you tell Nina that the greater
the risk, the greater the reward.

And besides, this finally
puts you in the driver's seat.

Lemonade, boys?

Bill?

Thank you.

Honey?

Thank you.

And you've got
the money for this?

Oh, yeah.

We've got several
sources of initial investment.

You two are quite persuasive.

Lemonade was my idea.

It's delicious.

You talk to your wife.

I probably thought
about it, and my wife

would say we should
probably not have done it.

Having been a GM where money was
never a problem, you know, you were sort of

gambling, and you hoped
the thing was going to work out.

The company really has
its founding in two people.

That's John DeLorean
and Bill Collins.

Collins never reached for glory.

He didn't have so much ego that
he needed his name on the product.

He was always behind the scenes.

He was the guy who made
DeLorean look good many times.

Bill is a super
wonderful gentleman.

He is one of the
world's finest men.

He really is.

He is a good man.

And it was like his dream.

His dream was to do this.

I think from the beginning, John's
major concern always was fundraising.

So my objective was to start
out building the first prototype.

This was definitely Bill's baby.

I mean, if there was an
issue that had anything to do

with the car, Bill Collins was
the guy leading the charge.

That played out basically for
the first three years of the project.

When we finished the first prototype, it
was a huge event, because now we could

say, you know, this isn't
some dream kind of figure here.

This is the real McCoy.

We hadn't solved all the engineering
problems yet, but it was exciting.

It turned out to be a
great car, in my opinion.

To be part of this thing that
might grow into something

that who knows where it
would go, it was electrifying.

This is a presentation of the
DeLorean Motor Company.

Imagine how many of the men who
have headed each of the major automotive

manufacturers have
wanted to create a

product starting with
a clean sheet of paper.

That is what the DeLorean
Motor Company intends to do.

We were basically a
company with no foundation.

And the less you have
to secure an investment,

the more risky you
are to an investor.

And we were pretty risky.

Our asset was John's
background experience, and so

he really had to be what
we initially were selling.

You have to portray him as
being on the top of the mountain,

being adored by the world
as a savior of the auto industry.

And we were the dog
and pony show experts.

We'd do the setup, we'd do the
show, and then at the precise moment,

John DeLorean would come in.

They'd actually see the man,
and it looked like he was levitating.

Most of you have already
seen my lovely wife, Christina.

I know she's likely the real
reason you're all here tonight.

But in all seriousness, I do have
her to thank, along with many others.

In particular, I'd like to recognize the
man I handpicked, essentially stole from

GM, to head up the entire DeLorean
Motor Company product program.

Perhaps the finest automotive
engineer I've ever met in my entire life.

Bill Collins.

I know that we may be the new boy
on the block, but I also know that on this,

the bicentennial of the
American Revolution, we can

start making our version of
the American Dream a reality.

Allow me to introduce the first
incarnation in the evolution of my dream,

our first vehicle codenamed the
DMC-12, the DeLorean Motor Car.

In the early stages, this was
all but the second coming.

It was described in Detroit as significant
as the invention of the Ford Model A.

That this was going
to change everything.

I don't think I've sat in one of these,
probably since my dad had one on the farm.

There's not much of a tie for me to
the car, as much as people would think.

I don't know if
that makes sense.

Being young when this
car was built, you just don't

understand the magnitude
and the gravity of it.

You know, it's flying over
your head at a thousand miles

an hour, and you know,
it's like my dad built this car.

You know, it's
got our name on it.

I mean, when I'm in it, or I see
it, I see my father, I feel my dad.

But between me and this car, I think
it's a love-hate relationship probably.

Half the time I don't
even know what to

think of it, you know,
to be honest with you.

Probably the closest
person I've ever been

close to my whole
fucking life was my father.

He adopted me when I
was, I mean, two weeks old.

As far as like, DeLorean or
DeLorean Motor Company, you

know, it was just dad going
to work, dad's building a car.

Had no clue how famous he was,
had no clue how famous my mother was.

I think we moved to New
York probably, I would

say in 74, because then
my sister was born in 77.

Throughout my life, I understood that
there was this man, John DeLorean,

and with this man, John DeLorean,
came this history of all the things that

are, again, iconically
encompassed by the car.

And then there was my dad.

And I understood that they
were two different people.

When I was little, my dad
was at the peak of everything.

There are pictures of us, and I
used to say it's the royal family.

My mom was always so
perfect and put together,

and my brother always
in his perfect little suit.

Oh, we were so cute.

Seriously, we were just so cute.

My dad was my best friend.

He just, he taught
me everything.

He taught me how to fish.

He taught me how to drive.

He taught me how
to ride a motorcycle.

This is everything he
had been working for.

This was his dream.

I mean, being married to my mom,
having a family, having an apartment on

Fifth Avenue, buying a farm out in
New Jersey, having the car company.

That was probably
the best time of his life.

Can you see this well?

Is this lit well enough for you?

Because, I mean, I'm a firm
believer that that can't be faked.

And now, how happy
she is, I don't know.

And she seems pretty
happy, but she's a kid.

They're always
fairly happy, as a rule.

But look at how happy he is,
himself, the subject of the film.

I don't think that can be faked.

I think he's very happy.

And I have a picture of
my family, and I'm a couple

years older than my wife
than he is from his wife.

So I get this.

I get this.

And the problem is
that he wanted both.

And when you want
both, you can have both.

But that's very tough to do.

Christina, you have been
married for a long time.

You've been married to
this man for seven years.

Tell me about John.

Well, I, unfortunately for
everyone else, all of our

other friends, they do not
know John the way I do.

And if they did... Well,
that may be better.

No, no, let me be more specific.

Because most of the people know
John as a businessman and an executive.

But I know him as a
husband and a loving father.

And he's a totally unselfish,
gentle, giving human being.

I grew up and married
Prince Charming.

Really?

That's exactly how I feel, yes.

All right, John,
describe her to me.

Yeah, of course,
it would take days.

But I never in my wildest
dreams ever believed

that my life could be so
complete and so happy.

And when there's any
kind of a family crisis,

she suddenly becomes
the rock of Gibraltar.

She really is the solid, stable part of,
you know, our relationship, whether it's.

She was very
perky, peppy, upbeat.

And she is that way.

She is that way in a lot of
the footage that I've seen.

But every woman who has it all and who
works and who has children and who is in

love and who has a loving family,
like, you cannot be 100% at everything.

When I was watching footage, it was to
sort of see what was the public Christina

versus what was the personal,
where the cracks were.

I just found out
a few hours ago.

I know nothing.

I caught a plane.

I'm here.

She's so composed.

It's amazing, right?

I mean, I feel like she
was caught in between

what she wanted
things to be like and.

And this is just me speculating,
obviously, but, like, what she wanted

things to be like and
then what the reality was.

Not yet.

We were just rehearsing.

Sit down.

What are you doing?

Sit down, you little...

And obviously, with what happened
in their lives, with John being arrested,

that's a huge... I think that's sort
of, like, the culmination of it all.

And along the way, I'm sure that in their
relationship, there were moments where she

was very much in love, but wondering,
you know, he's incredibly driven and

ambitious, and how does
she fit into that picture?

Eventually the car will get built, but
right now I'm trying to build a brand.

Well, it concerns me where
we're gonna raise the children.

Well, wherever we set up shop, we
won't have to spend much time there.

All that matters is which
government gives us the most money.

Well, it matters to me.

And it matters to the kids.

Don't worry.

It's gonna be
great for all of us.

Trust me.

An island now experiencing rioting
on a scale not seen for many years.

Why pick Belfast, Ireland
to build your motor plant?

Oh, it's very simple.

Nobody anywhere in the world would
come up with the financing we needed.

Now, nobody else would
go to Belfast, because

it's such a terrible,
dangerous place to be.

I read in the newspapers that John
DeLorean had secured the investment he

needed to establish his car project in
Northern Ireland against the background of

the famous Troubles
that was rife at that time.

Prolonged civil unrest between Catholics
and Protestants scares off industrialists,

depriving Northern
Ireland of jobs which it

needs more than any
other area of Britain.

The unemployment was insane.

It was 30, 40%.

And John had something to offer.

Jobs.

The Labour government in Britain at
the time was willing to put in subsidies,

loans, a piece of land.

But here's the catch.

It's got a population that
has never built a car before.

There's no pre-existing structure
to build a car company there.

And you have to
do it in two years.

I mean, are you kidding me?

And all they have at this
point is a hand-built prototype.

So it was a long list
of things to accomplish

to eventually be able
to productionize the car.

It became clear to everyone that they
needed to have help to weed out all the

problems and actually engineer
this car to be mass-produced.

Well, Colin Chapman
comes into the picture.

Probably the finest automobile
engineer I have ever met in my life.

Colin Chapman.

I'll introduce Colin now.

Colin Chapman is the
founder of Lotus Cars.

He was a pioneer
in the racing industry.

He dominated Formula One.

A deal had been struck with Lotus Cars as
a company and Colin Chapman as a named

individual to engineer and develop
DeLorean cars that could enter production.

Well, the idea of working with
Lotus would sound like a good idea.

We would all get together
and we'd become a joint

organization and go
finish the production job.

It was a great design work.

Well, when we first
got to Lotus, I mean,

right out of the chute,
it was kind of awkward.

Here, Bill and I and some others
had spent years getting us to this point.

And then now it was like Bill Collins and
Bob Mannion and whoever else was involved,

they can kind of, like,
just, you know, watch us.

And that, of course, isn't
what I was going to do and it

certainly wasn't going to
be what Bill was going to do.

This is Bill.

John in.

Bill, how the hell are you?

Look, John, I got the
contract you sent over.

And I have to say,
it raises some...

You've got a lot in here about
Lotus, John, but nothing about me.

Well, you don't have
to worry about that, Bill.

It's just a lot of paperwork.

You know what you're doing.

I understand that, John,
but I thought this was

supposed to be a
collaboration on the redesign.

But Chapman's
nowhere to be found.

Well, they're doing a
lot of R&D, aren't they?

That's the other thing.

This company in here, this...

I've never even heard of it.

You don't need to
worry about that, Bill.

It's not going to
affect you at all, OK?

I don't see how that's possible.

They've got a hefty line
item in here on engineering,

but that's what we're
supposed to be doing.

It just seems like you're paying
twice for the same thing, John.

Well, it must be some
kind of a tax shelter, Bill.

I don't know.

I'm not a CPA.

I'm sorry.

John, what am I doing here?

Why am I even here?

I like Bill.

I think he'd done
a tremendous job.

The moment I found him reading
the contract, it was quite clear that what

he'd already decided in his own
mind was true, that he was out of a job.

Colin Chapman was not going to have anybody
looking over Colin Chapman's shoulder.

To do business like this, don't
you have to be pretty ruthless?

I don't think you
have to be ruthless.

I think you have to be prepared to
make some unpalatable decisions.

Because frequently you're
faced with making a decision

between two evils, and
you're going to hurt somebody.

John DeLorean himself, he knew.

He'd arranged with Chapman
that this is the way it's going to be.

But nobody had told the
guys from the US team.

It becomes painfully clear that Bill
and his engineering team are out of a job.

And not only that,
there's something very

fishy going on with
the finances of this deal.

Colin Chapman was going
to be willing to do something

that Bill would never have
been comfortable with.

And for John, I think that was an
important aspect to this partnership.

And it was the type of
thing that was so important to

him at the time that he
was willing to sacrifice Bill.

Dear John, after much deliberation on
my part, I feel it is obvious to both of us

that my participation in your venture
is no longer the same as intended.

Under the current circumstances, I
feel the only alternative for me is to

tender my resignation in all
my present positions at this time.

I wish you and the rest of
the team the best of luck.

All these years later,
it still looks great.

And it would be nice
to have a brown interior.

Well, it had been a long, long time
that we'd been working on the project.

And I felt that I was being
totally undercut by John.

And he really owed me a hell of a lot
more than to treat me the way he did.

And it just seemed
like the time to move on.

Do you remember having the conversation
with John where you said, I'm resigning?

No, I don't remember.

I just...

I think he was
happy to see me go.

Did he really?

Yeah.

He didn't try to
stop you at all?

No.

We're all males, but
there's something to be

said about being the
guy that's sort of the...

got it.

Bore the baby, as it
were, with the DMC-12.

Before we started filming, we knew
nothing about John DeLorean, really.

We basically came to the
project because a British

television station wanted
to do something on Ireland.

And I was thinking, oh boy, we
could do a wonderful piece on Yates.

They said, no, no, we want
it to be about automobiles

because everybody in
England just loves automobiles.

Like most of our films, you
know, the idea was to kind

of watch somebody who
wants to fulfill a life dream.

And, you know,
that's who John was.

John Zachary DeLorean
certainly doesn't smile much.

The reason is simple.

The most important project in
his life is yet to be accomplished.

He was very guarded because
he had so many things, I

guess, on his mind to
get figured out all the time.

We've had some kind of
criticism right from day one.

First, we were never going to
get the program together, then

we'd never get the financing,
then we'd never build a plant.

I don't think the motor car manufacturing
industries, whether it be America,

UK, mainland, actually ever
thought that it could be done.

Now the critics are forecasting our
failure two or three years from now.

So I think as long as you can
always keep your failure two

or three years in the future,
you're probably going to do OK.

I think DeLorean's
problem was at that time,

he needed cars and he
needed cars in a hurry.

You've got to pick the three or
four big markets and go after them.

We can't wait 14
months to start selling.

It was a constant panic of racing the
clock and it was damn the torpedoes and

full speed ahead.

It was such a process
of building the car and

seeing what was working
and what wasn't working.

We've had problems on
the upper control arm around

the ball joint, but we also
had a torsion rod failure.

141,000 cycles.

Everybody knew that there
were going to be problems.

The view you took was,
well, yeah, we expected this.

Fine, let's get on and fix it.

It was crazy, absolutely crazy.

But it was exciting.

You were an operator
on the floor seeing a lovely

stainless steel car going
together the way it should go.

That was very rewarding.

You felt part of a family
when you went in there.

There was absolutely no trouble,
no Protestant-Catholic divide.

One of the proudest
achievements, I think, of

DeLorean is it was a
form of social experiment.

You had, for the first
time in Northern Ireland,

Catholics and Protestants
working alongside each other.

This social experiment
was beginning to work.

You can have a mixed
workforce and be successful.

In two years and 11 months, we had
built a factory, we had designed the car,

the cars were built,
and that was the best

time I have ever had
working in any company.

When the first six cars came rolling
out, the news crews were all there.

John was the biggest hero
in Northern Ireland that day.

It's incredible that he got 3,500
cars into the United States on a boat.

We actually sailed on the damn boat,
too, because I just was so excited to see

that happen because I knew he
showed them that he could do it.

Buyers are reported to
be queuing up in the United

States for the company's
futuristic, gull-winged DMC-12.

DA and Chris, you
watch their movie and the

perception you get at the
end is, this is a success.

Everything was hunky-dory
and it was great, you know.

We'd succeeded in October 81.

DeLorean is four or five
little moves away from victory.

He's on the doorstep
of that victory.

You know, in the music
of it, it's like Bolero.

You know, John just says...

We don't migrate from that.

He's played a pretty
high-stakes game and he

really, really stays
calm and very contained.

And the drama is in him being contained
while everything collapsed around him.

Things started to go sour very
quickly around the fall of 1981.

There were a series of
monumental cock-ups.

So everything's
going really smoothly.

Well, I wouldn't say smoothly.

I don't want to give the
appearance that, you

know, everything's
just absolutely perfect.

When those cars
first came off the boat,

they were just a product
warranty nightmare.

The door won't close.

The gaps are all wrong.

The window wiper won't work.

The door mechanism won't work.

You know, that
happened to me once.

Stuck in the car, couldn't
open the door, you know.

We reviewed the car.

It cost more than a Corvette.

It didn't handle that great.

It was kind of slow.

It was not the car he promised.

This fuel-efficient,
high-performance car.

It started to go south when this happened
in the teeth of a diminishing economy.

Now the dream
seems to be fading.

Sales are way
down in the industry.

There's a lot of competition in the United
States, perhaps for economic reasons,

perhaps because of some
dissatisfaction with the car.

In a scenario where there's a few thousand
cars coming to the U.S., there's these

quality control issues, the lesson that
should have been learned from this is,

let's slow production
down a little bit more.

Let's figure out a way to
work out all these issues.

Unfortunately, that's the opposite
of what John decided to do.

He pulled the trigger on
basically doubling production.

And what happened?

These cars were backing up like
plague rats, you know, on the docks.

And it was just the
wrong, wrong move.

So the question has to
be, well, why did he do this?

It was a typical John move because he
saw a little angle in the contract where if

you upped the amount of people that
were working there and increased jobs,

then the government was supposed
to be giving him an infusion of cash.

And so he thought he was going to
take advantage of this little clause.

Anyone who deals with the government
knows that that's a risk in itself.

What if the politics change?

What if the
administration changes?

Well, Margaret
Thatcher happened.

We'd had a change
of government by now.

The Conservatives were in power.

Margaret Thatcher, the
arch-privateer, was Prime Minister.

Between Margaret Thatcher
as Prime Minister and us, there

was a Secretary of State for
Northern Ireland, James Pryor.

Well, I suppose my
role was different.

My role at DeLorean was
to keep him under control.

The Labour government had
started off the DeLorean business.

The Conservative
government took a tougher line

towards subsidies for
Northern Ireland for DeLorean.

DeLorean wanted another
$76 million from the British.

If not, he said, there
would be layoffs.

I don't care about the British
taxpayers' money or my own money.

I think the most important thing
is we have some people there.

This is a very, very
important part of their life, and

nothing in the world should
be permitted to interfere with it.

John overestimated the fact that we had
created jobs and that it was the jobs that

would secure even more
money to keep us alive.

That was not the way
Margaret Thatcher saw it.

She genuinely took
the view that we couldn't

go on pouring a lot
of money after bad.

In the end, we had to say no.

The result?

We ran out of cash.

Therefore, we were
heading for insolvency.

And that's at the point when
things got very serious indeed.

We have a group right
now that has got the ability to

come up with for sure $30
million and upwards of there.

During this whole process, John's
back was really up against the wall.

He had to figure out a way to pay some of
the money back to the British government

as well as present to
them a feasible way to

keep the company open
and make it profitable.

Or else they were threatening to come in,
seize the factory, liquidate the assets,

and everyone was
going to be out of a job.

Today, DeLorean said he is
looking for outside financing.

All I want to do is keep the
factory open so the people can work.

Nothing else.

You last said that you'd
keep the factory open.

It was your last breath.

Do you still stand by that?

I'm still trying.

During the months of
sort of August, September,

we've had periodic
contact with John DeLorean.

He, on a regular basis, was
coming up with potential funders.

It's been a lot of time
and effort, but I think we're

now just starting out on a
very successful relationship.

It just took a while
to put it together.

The workers and the people closest to
him at DMC were being told, hey, listen,

everything's going to be fine.

I definitely have the
sources coming through.

And we were still at
the stage where we were

hoping and hoping
that it would go all right.

In terms of having, you
know, the first 10 million,

it sounds like that's
got to be Tuesday, right?

I would say I should be able
to get that going very quick.

The impression we got at
that time was that John had

pretty well got the money
by the 17th of October, 1982.

Hello?

What?

What are you talking about?

We were in the city,
in the apartment at 834.

Phone rings.

Mom, who was that?

And one phone call.

My life changed forever.

John DeLorean was arrested yesterday after
he met with undercover drug agents who

DeLorean apparently thought were going
to help him make a huge profit in a cocaine

deal, involving more
than 100 kilos of cocaine.

DeLorean's wife, Christina
Ferrari, an actress and

model, arrived in Los
Angeles early this morning.

I just found out
a few hours ago.

I know nothing.

I caught a plane.

I'm here.

Everybody was in total shock.

Never in our wildest dreams did we
think anything like this would occur.

John DeLorean may be
the perfect proof of the old

saying, the bigger they
come, the harder they fall.

And we might add, the more
people want to hear about it.

It was just disbelief.

And then the news just progressively
got worse and worse and worse.

He was expressing an interest in financing
some type of operation that would produce

quickly large sums of money
on return from the investment.

I was shocked out of my socks
to see him there in this position.

I'd never seen him in anything except
being pretty much on top of the world.

The sensational case involves more
than 200 pounds of cocaine, an elaborate

undercover investigation, the end of
the DeLorean car, and much, much more.

It's been said, it's a cliché now, that
the dream had turned into a nightmare.

Could you imagine how we felt seeing
John DeLorean, our angel, if you like?

There he was.

Going away.

And everybody was downtrodden because
we felt sure that he had done so much,

he'd come through again.

But this time,
unfortunately, he didn't.

Well, you're walking out of
the plant for the last time today.

How do you feel about it?

Pretty upset.

What are your chances
of getting another job now?

Not very good at all.

I had to go into the plant that
morning, call the people together.

They'd all heard the
same thing, of course.

And it really wasn't.

It was the end.

I was going round with
the auctioneer and he

was putting tags on
every piece of equipment.

And that was my last day.

The expectation of everybody working their
hearts out over there to get these cars

built to a good standard and
they felt it was going to be their life.

And it all fell apart and
it was incredibly sad.

I met up with people now and then
that either they worked there or their dad

worked there or their
granddad worked there.

And they got the same questions.

What was it really like?

It was the best job we ever had.

And it was the worst day of
their lives when it finally closed.

After entering a plea of not guilty
to all nine drug charges against him,

John DeLorean came out of the federal
courthouse in Los Angeles with his wife,

model Christina Farrar,
and the four lawyers

who are now putting
together his defense.

DeLorean said nothing today,
but he is reported to have

told his lawyers he was
desperate to save his company.

DeLorean's lawyers are preparing to
argue the government entrapped DeLorean.

It was the case of the
century for that year.

Because every year has a case
of the century, trial of the century.

So we were the trial
of the century for 1984.

The sidewalks in front of
the courthouse will be jammed

with reporters and camera
crews from all over the world.

Unless you were there
and you lived it, you

don't know how captivating
it was for the nation.

A young entrepreneur started hanging
around the courthouse steps today,

hawking buttons
that say, John Z.

DeLorean cocaine trafficking
trial, Los Angeles, 84.

Our public views these
as, if it's a bad guy, get

him, and if it's not a bad
guy, get the government.

It's all really kind of
entertainment to the public.

John DeLorean had some
bad news, the automobile

association named
him dealer of the year.

A businessman down on his luck
tries to make money in a dope deal.

I mean, that's the John
DeLorean that I knew.

The case was of
overwhelming strength.

Here's the cocaine, and here's your
target, and he's holding up a glass of

champagne, toasting,
and says that this is bad.

Better than, what was it?

Better than something,
uh... Better than gold?

Gold is more than that.

Everybody believed that
the events were showing

John DeLorean in the
middle of a drug deal.

One of the things I asked the
jurors very early on was, would

it surprise you if I told you
you weren't seeing a drug deal?

And just hang on and watch
the whole movie, and at the

end, you're gonna see it
isn't what it appeared to be.

A real thriller.

Of course, which
it turned out to be.

The case starts with a
guy named James Hoffman.

He was the informant.

He was somebody who
had been a major narcotics

trafficker who had the
bad luck of being caught.

And he decided to cooperate.

Velestra.

Mr. Velestra, it's Tim
Hoffman, your favorite C.I.

Uh-huh.

You're not gonna believe
who I had a call with.

John DeLorean.

When I got the call from the
C.I., it was a neighbor of his.

We were neighbors
out here in California.

I was across from his
ranch in Palma Valley.

He says to me, the C.I., that,
John, you need some money.

And the imprints of
drugs was right there.

You've seen the kind of dire
straits his company's in right now.

He needs cash bad.

And he doesn't care
where it comes from.

You know, he's gonna be there.

He'll be back in Palma
Valley at his ranch next week.

He wants to meet me.

We've already set it up.

Seriously, Jim?

You kidding me?

My hands are gone.

This is happening.

I said, well, see
what he's got to say.

Go ahead.

See what he has to say.

Have I ever done you
guys wrong before?

I'll be in touch.

So at this point, it's 1982.

Reagan's just announced
the war on drugs.

We're all together in a
comprehensive attack

on drug trafficking
and organized crime.

In this time period, a confidential
informant like James Hoffman can actually

make a living by introducing
the DEA to high-level criminals.

John.

John, great to see you.

You too, Jim.

Been a while.

And in this case, it's the
perfect storm for John DeLorean.

When Jim first approached John, it
seemed like a very far-fetched idea

that he'd actually be
able to help John out.

These investors...

But Jim was throwing out some
numbers that seemed very alluring to John.

10, 20, 50 million.

I thought your investors might like to see
these brochures that we have made up that

really can show you how we're
all set to... Yeah, there's no need.

They're not exactly the kind of
guys that get hung up on paperwork.

They're Colombian.

They in the coffee business?

You might say that.

They met, and the first
conversation was not recorded.

So we don't really
know what was said.

And it was when Hoffman
then met with DeLorean.

At that point, Hoffman
comes back to Valestra

and says, yeah, he
wants to talk dope.

I said, really?

I mean, well, if he said that, we
better let him say it again somewhere.

Which we did.

Yeah, how you doing?

Well, great.

How you doing?

Interrupting your lunch?

And then September 4th, the
meeting at the LaFont Plaza takes place.

That's a one-on-one
meeting with the C.I.

and John.

There aren't many people
that can pick up the phone and

get $30 million in three or
four days without all I have.

I can't think of
any to be honest.

That video is
pretty explicit stuff.

The C.I.

writes it all out.

And the scenarios are
right there on the paper.

So we can take 34 kilos of

40...

During this period of time, John now
is supposed to come up with the 1.8 mil.

That was where it was left.

So you'd have to put
some skin in the game.

Government attorneys in the John DeLorean
trial today introduced a videotape that is

perhaps the most damaging
evidence against the auto executive.

The tape was played as part of the
testimony of James Hoffman, a paid

undercover informer who is the
government's key witness against DeLorean.

Defense attorneys described
the meeting in Washington, D.C.

between John DeLorean and the
undercover informant as a clever lure.

And as for DeLorean's participation in
that discussion, the defense team says

there's no harm in listening to
someone else talk about a drug deal.

For three months during
the trial, we moved to my

grandmother's grandfather's
house in Brentwood.

You know, I play it all
out in my head all the time.

Something will come up
and I'll start thinking about

stuff and it'll spark a
memory or trigger something.

Guys, no matter what happens,
hey, we're gonna be fine.

Everything's gonna be fine.

My father was looking
at hardcore time.

And to my parents'
credit, they did what they

could to make it as best
a situation as they could.

How the fuck do you tell
your kid that shit ain't okay?

He just asked me if we're
both coming back from court or...

I am not going away for this.

The jury will see how
asinine this whole thing is and

how they've set up an
innocent man for God's sakes.

Now, what do you
think about this tie?

It's fine.

You sure the brown works?

I mean, I had a blue one on
when I stamped this picture,

but you can't tell because
it's in black or white.

Either way.

I don't want it to read black.

I mean, I don't want to
send the wrong message.

To who, the judge?

Oh, to everyone.

Next time they stamp my picture,
it could be a magazine cover.

John, either one works fine.

Because it'll be in
color if it's in black.

Hey!

You have to talk
to the children.

Catherine, come and give
Mommy a hug, sweetie.

She seems pretty upset.

And, Zack, I know
you're worried, but I need

you pulling for your
old man to win this thing.

All right?

I just want to go
back to New Jersey.

So do I.

And we will as soon
as this thing is over.

All right?

Zack, look at me.

Your dad's in New Jersey.

He's a winner, right?

For me, it's a double-edged
sword that I walk all the time.

The evidence is there
that they set him up.

But common sense and reality tells me
that he's not a fucking idiot, that he must

have known something
was fucked up at some time.

I'm going to wear
the blue tie, okay?

So it's like, you know, how the fuck could
you put our family in jeopardy like that?

Twenty-one days into the John DeLorean
cocaine trial, defense attorney Howard

Weitzman says there's no
question that John DeLorean

can be seen and heard on
tape talking about narcotics.

But he says the question is,
how far can the government

go in dangling a lure in
front of a desperate man?

When I look back at this case,
Hoffman had said, if you give me,

you know, a million and a half,
two million dollars, three million

dollars, I can get you 10,
15, 20 million dollars back.

John didn't have the money.

And logic would tell you that
that's the end of the investigation.

Are you sure about this?

I'm sure he can't
put any cash in.

At this point, I don't think DeLorean
can scrounge 20 Gs, let alone two million.

Listen, I've been
pouring through all these

tapes, and I just don't
think we have them yet.

He's got it in collateral.

Okay, but if collateral's all we get,
then it's got to equal at least that much.

Listen to me.

We've got to get it on tape.

This is my first rodeo, Jerry.

I know how it works.

I'm just saying, until now, he's been real
careful about how he parses all his words,

so...

Look, it's different
than a phone call now.

He's about to walk
into a real bank.

He knows Eureka's legit, so he
won't for one second think that I'm not.

Still, the more drug references
you can slip in, the better.

We got this, Jerry.

Throughout the entire thing, they
had to continue changing the script.

It wasn't going to be,
here's the two million dollars,

here's the drug money
back, boom, you're arrested.

So then it turned into James
Hoffman, the C.I., convincing him, hey,

I know this crooked banker.

Hey, John.

Hi, Jim.

Great to see you.

You too.

Have you been here
in this area before?

I've been in San Jose.

The Dorian case was just one of other
cases that I was involved in from the

standpoint of being an undercover
operator working at a bank.

So the bank provided the
perfect undercover front.

Finally, shall we say, got
together after all this time?

Yeah, after so many
conversations, right?

Can I get you a cup of coffee?

At this point of the
story, John's not

going to put any actual
money into the game.

He can potentially
put up collateral.

Ben Tisa is the one that's supposed to now
set up an alternative situation for John.

Let me give you a
background on what I intended.

The background of the
individual I had in mind and how

I think it may help you
and this other transaction.

We had a particular suspect.

His name was Hetrick, who was a
pilot who flew cocaine in from Colombia.

This particular individual has
been very successful in his business.

So the idea came in,
well, maybe the dope

dealer would invest in
John DeLorean's company.

John DeLorean being told that the money
was going to come from sale of cocaine.

Just so that the cars on the
table know exactly what's going on.

It was very successful
in bringing in the cocaine.

Would it be possible to allow
this gentleman to have, say, a...

some stock options?

Here's what I have.

Oh, sure.

I don't think we could do that
in our public company, but I...

I see no reason why I couldn't
do it from my private company.

Great.

That's great.

That works.

In John's mind, once
again, the genius at

bending the rules,
finding the little loophole.

Hey, I'll take this money,
even if it comes from drug

folks, but it's coming
through a legitimate bank.

Hello.

John DeLorean.

Morgan Hetrick.

Hi, Morgan.

How are you?

How are you doing?

Nice to meet you.

How are you?

Enter Morgan Hetrick.

He was somebody that
was flying in hundreds and

hundreds of pounds of
cocaine from South America.

So the government felt that at that point,
that was the best opportunity to bring

both John and Hetrick
down, is to merge the cases.

The government told Hetrick
that John had put in $2 million,

and that he wanted to do
this drug deal with Hetrick.

Because he's already given me.

I've mentioned that to him.

I've had the 1.8.

I'm sitting on it.

And it's cash in hand.

I have it.

And he was given an opportunity to
stay in the deal without putting money in.

And he took it.

You can't go wrong with something
you make a lot of money with.

So in terms of the drug case, you've
got hours of phone conversations, hours of

videotape showing John with these
drug dealers and crooked bankers.

Is the feed secure?

You sure he's not going to be able
to hear anything through this wall?

John still hasn't given
the government anything.

So they have to introduce
this new character.

This sort of mob
drug dealer guy.

Showtime.

Who's really going to crank
the pressure up on John.

Nice to meet you.

Oh, it's my pleasure.

When I meet him at
the hotel room, I would

be the one that would
be handling the drugs.

All Jim had to do
was put it together.

Get a finder's fee, whatever.

And me and my network would be
going out to quadruple our investment.

We're ready to
consummate the interview.

I'm asking for what?

What are you putting up?

There's no more money from you.

There's no free lunch either.

Yeah, there's no free lunch.

At this point in the story, each
participant in this deal is trying to

outsmart and outmaneuver the
other person for their own gain.

John wants to get money
to save his company.

You've got Jim Hoffman, who's
leeching off of the government.

He begins to enjoy this
lifestyle of working with the feds.

And then the feds,
they're trying to have that

big, big case for Reagan
to tout his war on drugs.

So everyone is hungry for that
one thing that they want out of this.

When you analyze a case
like this, you realize, wait.

The informant kind of created this
with the government working with him.

And it didn't work.

So they went to a savings
and loan, legitimate bank.

Got them to let him use the premises,
you know, like a set in the movie.

Phase three, they put John
together with Morgan Hetrick.

A legitimate, by legitimate
I mean a real smuggler.

Then they bring in the DEA.

And John Ballester
becomes kind of a mafioso.

And what they finally came up with, so John
would get his 10, 15, 20 million dollars.

Is they got him to put up...

Stock certificates.

John, with his lawyers, corporate
lawyer, gives them worthless

DeLorean stock in a defunct
company that had no assets.

Worthless papers.

And the con was
reversed in John's mind.

So he's putting up zero.

Mr. Hetrick, the smuggler,
goes and gets the cocaine.

And then they call DeLorean.

You still on the east coast?

I'm on the east coast and I
can do anything you want.

It might be conducive to you being
close by when this thing goes down.

And they say to him,
come to Los Angeles.

We have 10 million
dollars for you.

Come get your money.

Maybe we'll pop a
bottle of champagne.

That would be wonderful.

Sit back and relax.

And DeLorean, who can only think about,
I gotta get the money to the company,

comes to LA.

And the government picked
him up, took him to a hotel room,

opened a bottle of champagne,
toasted to their success.

And one of the agents said,
John, here's the fruits of our efforts.

So John, what
we're talking about...

And went to the closet, brought out
the suitcase of cocaine and opened it up.

Between this and the other
half, it's gonna generate

about four and a half, not
less than four and a half mil.

This is better than gold.

Gold weighs more than
that for God's sakes.

That's when DeLorean
said, this is like gold.

Gold is better than gold.

Classic line on that tape.

Hi John.

Jerry West.

I'm with the FBI.

And then he was arrested.

So he wasn't gonna
take the drugs.

He didn't get the
ten million dollars.

And he never was
supposed to take the drugs.

He was only supposed
to get the money.

So why would they bring the
drugs out and show them to him?

And the answer is pretty simple.

Well, if you're dealing with
twelve lay people in a jury box,

you're gonna make them
think this was all part of the deal.

John DeLorean says
it's all in God's hands.

That was his reaction today when six men
and six women began deliberating his case.

The jurors, who appeared
relaxed when they arrived for court

today, began their deliberations
shortly before 10 a.m.

Los Angeles time.

Outside court, John
DeLorean's attorney, Howard

Weitzman, expressed the
mood on the defense side.

This is a very difficult time when a case
goes to the jury because you never really

know what they're thinking
or what they're interested in.

These are very hard cases, and
it requires a unanimous verdict.

If he got convicted, he would have
received a pretty stiff prison sentence,

for sure.

And the government was
very confident in their case.

Throughout the case, the DeLorean defense
is hammered away at the tactics used by

federal agents in their undercover
investigation of John DeLorean.

Weitzman asked for acquittal, saying the
government is, in a sense, on trial here.

We did not believe there was an
entrapment defense in this case.

That was a throwaway defense.

After the long trial,
DeLorean's lawyer said

he'll be stunned whichever
way the jury votes.

John DeLorean
put it more simply.

John, how do you feel?

The hands of the Lord.

In the matter of
the United States v.

John Z.

DeLorean, the jury
finds the defendant...

not guilty on all eight counts.

Praise the Lord.

Come on, boys.

Back up.

Back up.

We got a guest.

Yeah!

What's up, buddy?

Oh, fucker.

There's water everywhere.

Sit.

You guys gonna chill?

Sit.

Uh...

Well, yeah, this is my, uh...

This is where I live.

You know, so...

It's just, it's a shitty
little apartment.

You know, the
paint's fucking peeling.

And if you find my housekeeper, tell
her she's fired, because she doesn't

do a good job of cleaning
the fucking place, but...

So it's kind of,
you know, like, uh...

You guys, I don't know if you've seen
the apartment or any of that stuff, but.

Some people know who I am and who
my family is, and then they come over,

they're like, what the fuck?

You know, and even today,
I'll see the car going down the

street, and I'm just like,
it's just fucking weird, man.

For me, there's a lot behind
the meaning of that car.

Not just my family name on it, but
what that fucking car did to our family.

Are you surprised
that, um, a feature film

hasn't been made about
your dad and his life?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's got all
the good shit in it.

It's got cocaine.

It's got fucking hot chicks.

It's got sports cars.

It's got fucking, you know, war-torn,
you know, bombed-out buildings overseas.

It's got fucking Margaret Thatcher,
Ronald Reagan, the war on drugs.

You got FBI agents.

You got, you know, fucking
hardcore drug dealers.

But...

my fear with Hollywood...

is they're gonna end it with him coming
out of the courthouse with Christina.

Woo-hoo, fucking acquittal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fucking credits.

You know?

While that coming-out-of-the-courthouse,
you know, ticker-tape parade shit is real,

look at what it cost him.

The sting operation
fell through.

You were acquitted.

Um, your wife Christina stood
by you throughout the entire

trial, and then, not but
several weeks later, left you.

Several days later.

Ah.

You claim to have been
shocked that your wife Christina

announced her intentions to
divorce you shortly after the trial.

She appeared on this program,
spoke of you in the most wifely of terms.

Here's what she said.

You can't make a
judgment right now.

It's not fair.

It's not fair for John, and it's not fair
for you either, because if you were in a

situation like this or any one of
your loved ones, you will find yourself

defending them as ardently
as I'm doing with John.

That must make you feel, at
the very least, mixed with that.

It makes you cry, does it?

Yeah, it's pretty painful.

At the time, if I was my mom, the carpet
just got pulled out from underneath me.

She's 31 years old, man.

She's still got another 8, 9, 10, 12
years of being top dog, and that whole

fucking career pulled
out from underneath you.

Your whole career
has fallen apart.

I was at the top of my
modeling profession.

I've been doing it for 20 years.

The last 15 years, I've been at the
very top of it, commanding top money,

and this is July, and since January,
I've had one booking, and I've made $105.

No one will have anything
to do with me or my name.

Not at all.

I try not to ask my mom about my dad,
not because I think that she doesn't have

any good memories, more because, again,
I don't want to draw up any painful ones.

It was terrible and tragic,
what she had to go through,

so she had to do something
different with her life.

She had to leave
all that behind.

Shortly after all of that,
she had her show, AMLA.

She defined who she was.

She rebuilt her life, and she
rebuilt it in a fantastic way.

And credit to her.

I get it.

I understand it.

That, you know, you're
trying to keep a roof and

keep a normal, stable
household for your kids.

Guess what?

It's fucking gone.

Stability and sanity left the fucking
house two years ago when he got arrested.

I had to do an art project for school,
and we had to do appropriation.

So I appropriated this painting.

And on this side, there's
photographs of everything perfect.

And as it goes on, I
started to put in the articles

from this perfect life
to this destroyed life.

And on the bumper, it says,
destroy my childhood for DMC.

All right, Matt, you good?

Uh, yes.

You got any last looks on that?

Uh, yes.

We're ready to go.

That's fine.

Let's go.

Let's shoot it.

I'd love to figure out what's
the actual turning point?

When does DeLorean get
to a point where he could

have turned back and
maybe avoided everything?

And whether he went on to complete the
car project or not, he would have lived to

fight another battle, you know,
or try another iteration of all that,

and probably succeeded
because he's a very clever guy.

What's that moment where
you sit there and go, too late?

Is it the cocaine deal itself?

Is it before that?

Is it a series of things?

Is it a period of time where
he's doing a few things?

When does John put all the
chips on the table and he loses?

I saw the drug
trial as a sideshow.

To me, much more substantial was how
DeLorean was handling the money that he

had gotten to build the
car in Northern Ireland.

Every piece of paper
tells a story of what

people were doing and
how they were doing it.

Well, this transaction
happened before this

transaction, and that
led to this transaction.

I was brought in to analyze the affairs of
DeLorean Motor Company and go deep into

its affairs, its activities,
and its transactions.

We didn't really understand it at
first, but it turned out to be the critical

moment in untangling the
affairs of John DeLorean.

And as it became clear, you start to
see yet again another side of John.

When the company was developing,
in those heady days of excitement and

energy around the company, around John,
investors all wanted to get a piece of it.

You know, in trying to raise all the
capital, John was really selling himself.

He was selling his image.

You know, the
slogan, live the dream.

That's what people were supposedly buying
into when they invested in his company.

And John, sensing that interest
and wanting to raise money if it was

available, was able to raise $17.5
million for the development of the vehicle.

But as it turns out, the British government
had also put up enough money by

then that their funds
were actually being used

to pay for the
development of the vehicle.

And therefore, this money wasn't
needed so much at that point.

And John, seeing this pot
of money, couldn't resist.

Federal investigators
and bankruptcy lawyers say

they have uncovered
another secret DeLorean deal.

This one arranged
at a hotel in Geneva,

Switzerland, long before
the alleged drug deal.

A deal had been struck in Switzerland
with Colin Chapman, the chairman of Lotus,

and the mysterious
organization called GPD Services.

And what's interesting becomes very
clear that Bill Collins was onto something

several years earlier when he was
analyzing the DeLorean-Lotus agreement.

When I looked at the numbers that they put
together, I said to John, what's the deal?

GPD?

I've never even heard of it.

It just seems like you're paying
twice for the same thing, John.

Obviously, looking back on it now, there
were things going on behind the scene.

John and Chapman were trying to figure
out the game they were playing with GPD and

trying to get various
arrangements put together.

In the scene we shot yesterday,
he hangs up with Collins.

And everybody who's good,
they've all got to go, you

know, because their goodness
becomes useless to John.

You know, they just
don't do me any good.

But apart from denying
that he had any of the GPD

money, John DeLorean is
reluctant to discuss GPD.

Can you give an answer now to those
allegations about the missing $70 million?

So now, we fast forward
into the investigation

and we start peeling
back the layers.

GPD.

GPD is supposedly this
middleman company to

deliver certain other
engineering services.

In truth, it had no
other engineers.

It had no facilities to deliver
these engineering services.

GPD was a mailbox.

GPD is a phony, a shell company.

Nothing more than
a post office box in a

neighborhood branch of
the Geneva Post Office.

Post Office Box 33.

It turns out, John made a deal with Colin
Chapman at Lotus Cars that he would send

this $17.5 million from investors into
GPD, and then Colin took the money from

there, funneled it into European
bank accounts, split it with John.

John then maneuvered that money back
to his own accounts in the United States,

therefore converting the investor
money into his own money.

I think there's a real
fascinating allegory here.

You did sell your
soul, John DeLorean.

You sold it for the greater glory of John
DeLorean who was going to whip General

Motors and all these
multibillion-dollar

multinational companies
with your own dream car.

And in that vision, not only did you
jeopardize the well-being of your family,

you've risked yourself for a jail term,
got off because the government blew it.

Now we have other indictments
which indicate that it's possible that your

fatigue and your egomania
forced you to use money for your

own purpose rather than the
original intent of the investors.

That's what seems to be
most apparent to anybody who

gives a cursory review of
the evidence in this case.

Well, as I said early on, I think that we
will prove conclusively that every single

cent was legitimately
and honestly come by

and that all these
charges are totally false.

So as these questions are being brought
up and John is preparing to have to answer

these questions, he
needed to show some sort

of proof that made
the deal not look shady.

And that proof was actually a loan letter
from GPD Services and a paper trail that

GPD Services was a loan
to him and that he still had

several years before he
had to pay back that loan.

He puts together these documents that only
he and one other person would be privy to

and that being Colin
Chapman from Lotus.

Well, several years earlier,
Colin Chapman dropped dead.

Of a heart attack.

And the only other person in, you
know, this little transaction was John.

So while I was busy studying the records
and looking at financial transactions,

the lawyers were busy
talking to Christina Farrar.

Christina testified under oath that she
saw John working in a large closet with

latex gloves on, signing
documents, backdating

them, and then aging the
documents under a sun lamp.

So when the documents would
be forensically examined later on,

his fingerprints wouldn't be on
it, his skin oil wouldn't be on it,

and of course the paper would
have aged under the sun lamp.

And she testified that
she saw him do that.

So John was very busy creating a
set of documents in the dark of night,

but his wife was watching him.

After reviewing the records, there came
a time when the trial started to recover

this money that John had
taken from the company.

And I started to really
get a good look at John

as a person and the true
nature of his character.

So he walks in court one day, and then
he looks at me and he says, I was on the

radio this morning, I was talking
about you and your testimony.

He goes, but I'm not
sure I got your name right.

He said, is there one
ancient shithead or two?

And I said, wow.

But by then, I also
realized we had him.

In other words, he was acting
out because we knew we had him.

Between us having the financial evidence
and Christina willing to testify that John

had been forging documents and aging
documents, John needed to settle that

case, actually cough up
the money that had been

stolen from the investors
in the DeLorean partnership.

Would you deny, therefore, that
you had any of that $17 million?

Excuse me a minute.

I'll have you a drink.

John DeLorean was not
prepared to answer any

further questions about
the missing $17.6 million.

The drug trial, John really could
grasp onto that idea of I was the victim.

You know?

I got sucked into a situation of
overzealous people, overzealous government

that was trying to take me down
as a legitimate business owner.

In the case of the money trials, it's
very hard to take the approach that

he was the victim because
all of it was his own doing.

You start to see, you know, this real true
character, this underlying nature of John,

not the public persona that he had
worked so hard to cultivate for years.

He had built this giant
bubble of an image, making

him believe he could kind
of get away with anything.

This was not the little guy
fighting the Goliath like GM.

This instead was someone in his business
dealings who acted like the Goliath and

trampled on other people's dreams and
really hurt some individuals very badly.

I'm not a psychiatrist,
but I think that he was okay

in the beginning and I think
he just got carried away.

I think that he could have saved
it if he'd had the right attitude.

But I think he thought
it was more important

to make a buck
than to be successful.

That is part of the real tragedy
in going back to the what ifs.

You know, what if John and Colin Hatton
embezzled that money and he had still had

$17.5 million at the time when he needed
desperately cash to keep the company open.

By stealing that money,
John really painted himself into

a corner and he had to find
the money somewhere else.

And to think if he could have
only held on for a few more years.

Doc!

Marty!

You made it!

Yeah!

Welcome to my latest experiment.

This is a big one, the one
I've been waiting for all my life.

Ah, well, it's a
DeLorean, right?

Share with me, Marty.

All your questions
will be answered.

Roll tape.

When Bob Zemeckis
and I first wrote Back to the

Future, the time machine
was a refrigerator.

And... Bob Zemeckis, the
director, said, wouldn't it be

simpler if Doc actually built
the time machine into a car?

And then he says, and what
if the car was a DeLorean?

You know, it wasn't my idea, but I
know a damn good idea when I hear one.

This was a damn good idea.

So I said, yeah, that's great.

When this baby hits 88 miles per
hour, you're gonna see some serious shit.

We... I think did a great job in
making the DeLorean glamorous

and endearing it to generations
of movie fans and car fans.

88 miles per hour!

If only we'd stayed alive and we'd
continued for another two years.

You can't buy that
publicity now, can you?

Back to the Future makes the
car and the man truly immortal.

100 years from now,
people will watch that movie.

And the last running DeLorean may have
consumed its last drop of fuel and eaten

its last piston, but
that movie will carry on.

After the movie came out, about two or
three weeks later, we got one of the best

fan letters we ever got, and
it was from John DeLorean.

He said that he'd just seen
the movie, he thought it was

brilliant, and he said, thank
you for keeping my dream alive.

You know, back in a time when I
was led to believe films about him were

percolating, you know,

I get a phone call,
and it was DeLorean.

And I have to imagine
he was probably out of the

house, the big house
and living in this apartment.

You know, the scene that
they were gonna shoot today.

Yeah, I was on the phone
with him, and he was

like, Alex, this is
John DeLorean calling.

He's very old.

He sounded older.

He said, I understand they're making this
motion picture about me, and I would be

very flattered if you were
to portray me in the movie.

I thought, wow.

I mean, to have the guy
who's the real guy pick you.

And...

And then it went away.

And I never heard
from him again.

But...

I mean, to me,
DeLorean is a lot of things.

Every day you... I
think about, who is he?

I have a different answer.

You know, today, my attitude about
DeLorean, you watch historical footage and

you get kind of inflamed
because you see that

he did a lot of bad
things to some people.

And he hurt a lot of people.

And he stole from people.

And at the same time, I feel
like he was somebody who...

He just...

Like a lot of great American stories, he
just perverted some dream that he had.

You remember the DMC, don't you?

Yeah?

How could you forget it?

Right?

It was one of a kind.

It really was one of a kind.

As full as John's life
was those first 60 years,

the last 20 years are
actually more simple.

This is one of John's Bibles, which
he actually gave to his nephew, Mark.

He became a
born-again Christian.

It was a very
important part of his life.

He dated several women throughout the years
and then ended up remarrying late in life.

And then in 2000, had to declare
bankruptcy in which he lost his Bedminster

estate and lived the last five years of
his life in a one-bedroom apartment.

His whole fucking life, his whole
dream, everything that he worked for,

from the time they broke ground
till the time of the arrest, gone.

Was it a blow to your pride, to
you trying to shake your life again?

Well, I felt terrible
about it for a long time.

I felt terrible for my
children, who've had a...

This has been an extremely
difficult thing for them.

But, you know, life is life.

It goes on.

Your father is shamed
and goes to jail.

Your family loses
all their money.

Your parents get divorced.

Everything in your
world changes.

And for the next 15 years of your life,
you get chased by, is your father in jail,

and cocaine jokes, and all of these
things that just followed along with it.

My entire life, I
had to live it down.

It was... It followed
me for a very long time.

It followed me around until I started to
get involved into the DeLorean community.

People used to invite my dad to
all these car shows all the time.

And I asked him, I
said, Dad, Dad, let's go.

You have to experience this.

Knowing how much he was still loved would
definitely make a difference in his life.

It was an amazing experience.

It was... It was everything I
hoped it would be, and then some.

I just met John C.

DeLorean for the third time.

You can document that.

The man is unbelievable.

He really did get to bask
in his glory a little bit again.

Do you consider the whole
DeLorean dream to have been a failure?

Oh, I think that I showed a lot of people
that whether, you know, you survive or

not, the key is, it's like
Shakespeare said, it's better

to have loved and lost
than not to have loved at all.

I gave it the best shot I had.

I tried as hard as I could.

And I think that
I did really well.

I did reasonably well.

I think DeLorean
was very much alone.

Part of the fallout from
compartmentalizing his life the way he did

is that he really didn't have anybody
who knew him through and through.

This is not a man who's
looking at his family life

or his friends to qualify
his reason for living.

It's, what have I accomplished?

What have I done?

What am I doing next?

That in his mind, this is what really
reflects on him as a human being.

When we come around here,
what I'd like to do is repeat this

action and just put this down
here and then look up at the car.

And I want to say something
very specific to him about the car.

No film can tell the definitive
story of anybody's life.

Anyone's life is just too
vast and complex for one film.

But a film could certainly create
the legend of John DeLorean.

And we print the legend.

The legend is what we love.

That's what we should have.

Let's just hypothetically say that
when he went into the hotel that night,

he knew he was walking out
with a suitcase full of cocaine.

I can't necessarily blame him.

How far would you be willing to go to save
something you worked your whole life for,

your life's dream?

What would you do to see
that succeed no matter what?

He always kept trying.

He never gave up the dream.

He never quit believing that there
was a potential for him to recover.

That he was going to
invent the next great thing.

That he was going to be
able to reclaim his former glory.

He was John DeLorean.

And he was John DeLorean
until the day he died.

I think he was still trying to
make fucking deals on that DMC2.

When he got the heart attack.

And I think that would be a
good way to end the movie.

You could have him on the phone eating
some breakfast with an open notebook thing

that you would show investors with
all the nice little pictures and stuff.

Talking on the phone and then it just
fades to black because then that last

image would just be him
working to get that deal done.

And he just fucking...

God pulled the
plug on his ass, man.

You're out of here, buddy.

You know?

Then, you know, it just goes black and
then John DeLorean died in Morristown,

New Jersey at fucking
80 years old on this date.

You know?

Never to have fulfilled another car
company, built another car company.

And, you know, I'd
be okay with that.

That's good.

That's a pop.

Scene 28 alpha, take two.

Great, thank you.

Action.

I mean, if we can't get the money
to distribute this movie, would we sell

cocaine to try to get
this movie distributed?

Sure.

We don't want to lose either.

I'm counting on you, Shannon.