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by James Bartlett
A Pop Culture Icon Made in Northern Ireland
"Christmas Eve 1982 was an unhappy time for many people, both in Belfast and beyond, because it was the day a unique car rolled off the Dumurry, County Antrim (a suburb of south-west Belfast) factory line for the last time. Production had lasted barely two years and only around 9,000 vehicles had been completed, so it was impossible to imagine that in just a few years it would become the most famous car in the world.
Nonetheless, as a result of the success of the 1985 film Back to the Future, the DeLorean DMC-12 car that had been made in Belfast posthumously has become the coolest car in the universe: more readily recognised than Ferraris, Bugattis, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Herbie, James Bond’s Aston Martin and maybe even the Mini, it has stayed atop the pop culture mountain ever since."
This article examines what happened after the DeLorean factory in Co. Antrim closed and the car took on a life of its own over the following decades.