[DML] Prototypes, legend and lore

["James" <james@xxxx>]

I've extensively researched the history of prototypes and know a fair 
amount about them as well as the pre-production cars. Here goes...the 
first prototype with the Citroen 4 cylinder engine is in a private 
collection in Nevada. It is the subject of a feature article in an 
upcoming issue of "deloreans". The owner is proud of the car, but 
very protective. I don't expect we will see the car publicly 
displayed in the near future. But I'm working on him. :-)

The second prototype was sent off to Lotus for "evaluation". This car 
never returned to the states and I went to Lotus last year (at their 
invitation on another matter) and spoke to several people about it. 
Everyone was in agreement that it was destroyed in the late 1990's. 
Photos of that era show it seemingly abandoned and in VERY poor 
condition.

Dozens of prototypes were built at built at Lotus (cars with 
fiberglass bodies) and destroyed or disassembled according to sources 
at Lotus. I believe all the pre-production cars were built at 
Dunmurry (in the late months of 1980 as production loomed). They were 
numbered, a prefixed with a "D". One would imagine they started 
at "D01", but no documentation has surfaced to prove that. There is 
documentation (dated 12/31/81) of the existence of cars numbered D19, 
D20, D21, and D28. These are referred to on different documents 
as "pilot builds" or "engineering mules". Two or three of these pre-
production cars have survived - the one on the DMC-News web site 
which I believe is D28 (current whereabouts unknown) and Sascha 
Skucek's car (sorry if I spelled your name wrong). I think we 
determined that Sascha's car is D20. Based on the dates of that 
document, I am inclined to think that only those four pre-production 
cars came to the states, the rest having stayed in Dunmurry. 

Between late Jan 1981 and April 1981, several hundred (the actual 
number is unknown at this time) of what's come to be called 
the "black cars" were built. Exactly what became of these cars is 
unknown as well.

Regular production started at VIN #500, though the first 60 were not 
intended for retail sale, and a document exists saying that there was 
to be no warranty coverage on those cars. SSI says production started 
in April, but several cars exist with build dates of March. 

The earliest documented retail sale VIN is 635, the first known 
public sale was June 17, 1981 in Beverly Hills, CA (VIN 910). I doubt 
any cars were sold retail prior to that date, as cars didn't arrive 
in the US until early June of 1981. We all know there are lower VIN's 
in private hands now, though most (if not all) can be established as 
having previously been company cars originally, and were only sold 
later as company finances deteriorated and they were forced to sell 
those cars. Those cars were sold through a company called "Chestnut 
Fleet Leasing" and these cars are sometimes referred to as 
the "Chestnut Fleet" cars.

James Espey
DMC (Texas)
http://www.delorean.com