DeLorean Motors Reimagined, the Texas-based not-DeLorean-but-also-not-not-DeLorean company that promised a future for the DMC-12 in a 2022 Super Bowl ad, would like to remind you that it’s totally building a new car that’s absolutely real and 100 percent exists. In fact, it’s building it so much that the company will show off its full concept early — August 18, three days before the car was meant to launch at Pebble Beach.
A press release issued today, through PR Newswire because the DMR website’s Media page is just an email address, showed off a photo of the upcoming EV concept alongside its new debut date. The “three-quarter shot,” which is neither a photograph nor a three-quarter angle of the car, raises even more questions about this concept’s Whole Deal. Here’s the full, uncropped photo:
Starting from the bottom, the drawing appears to be mimicking the Acura Integra with an embossed logo on the rear of the car. Notably, that logo isn’t the same version found on DeLorean’s website — it’s the version Italdesign used when announcing its involvement in the project. The middle bar of DeLorean’s second E borrows Italdesign’s Italian flag motif, possibly implying this render was made at that shop rather than coming directly from DeLorean Motors Reimagined.
Moving up the tail of the car, its panel gaps pose some odd questions. The car’s center shows a single, small panel that’s separate from the rest of the body, likely intended to be an active rear wing. Normal, fine, all good there. The other gap running down the tail is much stranger: It seems to be a hatchback, but one where the hatch runs all the way to the diffuser. In other words, this concept seems to have no rear bumper of any kind. Maybe where they’re going, they don’t need them.
The biggest oddity, however, comes at the top of the car. Looking back to the image from DeLorean’s Super Bowl ad, the angle of the doors to the roof looks like a sharp crease — similar to the original DMC-12. On the new concept, however, they’re curved like a Nissan Z. Did the version shown at the Super Bowl have anything to do with the concept? Will the concept have anything to do with reality?
DeLorean Motors Reimagined, in its quantum superposition of being and not being DeLorean, has a considerable amount of work to do before convincing buyers it can bring a real product to market. Until then, take its concepts with a grain of salt — or a whole mouthful.