A Sort of Homecoming

Before we begin, please accept my apologies if/when I break a tremendous number of written/unwritten rules of blogging. This is my first recreational blog. That said, let's begin at the beginning. The very beginning . . .

When I was just a kid, maybe 13 (I'm now 46), my best friend at the time, Darin Duersch (RIP, my dear friend), and I were crazy about cars. This was the early 80s, and our idea of fun was going to the school library and browsing the car mags. (It was a small town.) Road & Track and Car & Driver were staples of our Jr. High School education. We'd pore through them, comparing notes about every single exotic that we came across. Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Porsches, Lotuses, and the like. I vividly remember the day we discovered that the Lamborghini Countach could break the then-maximum U.S. speed limit of 55 mph--in first gear! We relished that little morsel of information for days. We'd steal appropriate many most of the pictures from the library's mags, stash them in our Pee Chee folders the rest of the day, and hang the pics on our bedroom walls later in the afternoon. (I should probably make a decent-sized donation to the Mount Logan Middle School library in both our names. Seriously.)

Another vivid memory is discovering the DeLorean. Here was what was essentially an American exotic.Of course, built in Ireland. I thought it was awesome. Darin wasn't convinced. Although, he did like the gullwing doors. He had a real soft spot for gullwing doors, mind you. But Darin was quick to point out that some "family cars" of the time could run circles around the DeLorean. Including one of Darin's favorites, the Corvette station wagon. Still, I thought the DeLorean was cool. I loved the style. I loved the logo. And it didn't hurt that the only other product DeLorean ever made--the Thiokol-derived Imp snowcat--was made right there in Logan, Utah. Yes, believe it or not, for a couple of years, there was a DMC manufacturing facility in Logan, Utah. Later it became LMC (Logan Machine Company.)

An altogether different kind of DeLorean.

We once ran across a picture of a DeLorean (the DMC-12 not the snowcat) that had been painted in a translucent red. That was kinda cool. I thought at the time. But then again, we were just kids.

Then, the DeLorean was immortalized in the Back to the Future movies. I thought to myself, "I have to have one of those someday."

A very expensive replica of the movie vehicle--with the wrong tires. Oh boy. But I like the pic.

Along the way, from then to now, I've had a ton of cars. But they've always been mostly utilitarian. Something to get my family and I from point A to B--and haul some things along with us. Mostly Japanese. But also a Saab, a Mercedes, and (currently) an Audi have sneaked in there over the years. I've never really owned a car that was "just for fun." A few months ago (early 2013), the bug bit. Hard.

I wanted a car that was just for wrenching on and for tooling around in for pleasure. I wanted something unusual. Something that would turn heads. That's just the kind of person I am. Then I remembered my affinity for the DeLorean. Classifieds, here I come.

Within minutes, I found a well-loved quite neglected example of the brand on a local online classifieds board. The poor thing. It'd been sitting on a cattle ranch out in the middle of the Nevada desert for the better part of a decade--just dry-rotting.  Here are the pics that accompanied the ad:

As you can see, there's not much to see from the blurry pics. Leap of faith anyone? After negotiating the sum of $6,000 for the car--essentially blind--I made the trip. (He originally wanted a fantastical (IMHO) price of $10,000 for it.) Now, I won't say that the seller lived out into the middle of nowhere. But you could definitely see "nowhere" from his back porch. The guy didn't even have an address. That's gotta tell you something. Here's a pic I snapped on the road there:

On the way there. Yes, those are the infamous Salt Flats.

Pics on scene:

There's that angle.

We got back incredibly late. And my buddy Glenn, who did the driving, and I were pooped. Here is the car at home the next day. You just gotta love the 2x2 door props.

I need to weed my driveway.

We planted this grass from seed and are letting it grow long before its first cutting.

This is the angle that always got me. Wide.

The pickup to the left is the one that did the heavy hauling back from Nevada.

Can you say "sun rot"?

Someone actually thought to themselves, "That's a good window caulking job." Oh boy.

The trunk and engine compartments were in decent-enough shape--or so I thought. More on that later. (That shiny spot on the air cleaner is where I quickly put some ATF to see how the engine plastic might "clean up."

It's got a Craig! (Much funnier if you say that aloud in a boisterous Jeremy Clarkson voice.)

So the reason I guess I call this post "A Sort of Homecoming"--other than the obvious U2 ripoff--is that there's now another DMC in Utah. And it's not a snowcat!

Stay tuned for updates. Same bat time. Same bat channel.