New Poster

I purchased this earlier this spring. It's a color print of John DeLorean in March of 1979 with the car known as "Proto 1". Proto 1 is the first usable prototype DeLorean that was built by Bill Collins. Here it was being used for a promotional photo shoot just outside Palm Springs, CA. Later in the evening it was used at a promo event in a hotel lobby.

Proto 1 still exists today and was recently purchased by the DMC franchise in Bonita Springs, FL.

A second prototype car ("Proto 2") was built similar to this one and sent to Colin Chapman at Lotus where he would end up re-engineering the car to its production style we know today. Sadly, this car was destroyed circa 1996 by Lotus after it sat in their backyard lot for ~17 years.

I hung it in my work office today and I'm pleased with the outcome.

Progress Report

I'm still having trouble starting the car. I've replaced the warm-up regulator (WUR) hoping that would resolve the issue but still no change. The only way to get the car running is to manually push down on the air-plate to get the injectors to gas the cylinders. Too much gas and it floods. Too little gas and it stumbles pretty bad. I also replaced the primary pressure regulator (PPR) o-ring, which threads into the fuel distributor for good measure.

I checked the fuel pump components I replaced somewhat recently and noticed I had a kink in one of the elbows of the rubber pickup line. I took out the pickup line and carefully used a 9/16" screen door spring cut in two pieces and filed down to remove any sharp edges. I inserted these pieces into each end where the elbows are and so far so good. I was hoping maybe this was my fuel issue in starting the car but it wasn't.

At this point I'm thinking my problem is with my fuel distributor. I removed the fuel distributor over the weekend and set it on my work bench. I'm not really wanting to soak it entirely in B-12 or similar as I don't want to damage any of the internal rubber seals. I'm going to ponder on this the rest of the week and try to come up with a plan this weekend or early next week.