The Shea's Gold DeLorean
Joe Angell
Not strictly a repairs-and-maintenance thing, but it’s a DeLorean thing, so this is as good a place as any for it.
Recently I took a road trip with North East Region DeLoearns to our second trip to the Shea farm in central Massachusetts. Bill and Patrick Shea have a collection of movie vehicles memorabilia, with a focus on Back to the Future.
Of note to DeLorean fans, they have Marty’s screen-used pickup truck, the screen-used off-road Time Machine from Back to the Future 3, Doc’s screen-used Packard from the first two movies, and what’s left of the car they hit with a train at the end of the third movie. They also have a replica of Doc’s van, complete with a working ramp to load their replica Time Machine into.
This off-road Time Machine is the one actually used in Back to the Future 3. The pickup truck is the actual one Marty owned in the movies as well.
Cars from other movies include jeeps and SUVs used in the Jurassic Park movies (both replicas and screen-used), a replica ECTO-1 made to promote Ghostbusters: Afterlife with lights, sounds, and proton packs, the screen-used Ferrari from Ferris Bueler’s Day Off that was launched out the back of the glass garage at the end of the movie, a Charger of the style used in Bullit, and a replica of the Mustang from Bullit built specifically to reproduce the chase in San Francisco. They have a lot of non-car stuff.
But none of that is why we were there. This year they added a new car to their collection: the only privately-owned gold-plated DeLorean made by DeLorean Motor Company itself.
Patrick and the gold DeLorean
History
Back in 1980, DeLorean did a promotion with American Express to sell up to 100 cars plated in 24K gold, a custom brown interior, and gold-painted accents. Only three cars worth of parts were made. Unfortunately, one of the doors was scratched, and the DeLorean reclaimed the gold from it and designated the remaining parts as spares. This means that only two gold cars were made by DeLorean itself.
Those two cars are now in museums. When DeLorean went out of business, Consolidated Holdings took ownership of all the remaining parts, including the left-over gold panels. They decided to convert a long-term production test car into the third gold car and assigned it the final DeLorean VIN, 20105.. Since they were missing a plated door panel, they had to get it plated themselves. so that they could assemble a complete car.
More history about the gold DeLoreans can be found at the DeLorean Museum.
The Shea’s Gold DeLorean
The car’s doors and panels are plated in 24K gold at about 9 microns thick. Even the door hinges, the torsion bar, the DMC logo on the front, and the exhaust tips are gold-plated. The fascias and wheels are painted gold to match the body. The interior is a custom brown and is in excellent condition.
Not much is known about the car before it was turned into a gold car. As a long-term production test vehicle, it is assumed to be an early car, but it has many hallmarks of later cars, such as the style of the automatic shifter. However, it’s likely that pristine black parts were installed with the brown interior, which may explain the discrepancy.
The body panels and doors seem to be from the middle of production. The hood has grooves but no badge or gas flap. The door straps are integrated and it the lock cylinders are silver instead of black like on my early car.
The passenger door is a slightly different shade of gold than the rest of the car. This is the one that Consolidated Holdings had plated to complete the set of panels, and it was difficult to get it to exactly match. It’s not something you notice when the doors are up.
Oddly, there’s a license plate mount installed in the front bumper. This is not factory, and most aftermarket holders use existing bolts to avoid having to drill into the bumper. It’s not clear when this was added.
The car only has 662 miles on it, but it hasn’t been driven in over 20 years — even the oil filter is original. Its next stop is to DeLorean Flordia for a complete overhaul, then back up to the farm to join the collection. They’re hoping to find hints about the original car before it went gold during the overhaul.
Tours
The Sheas give tours of their collection, by appointment only. They ask only for a donation to the Michael J Fox Foundation. Besides all the cars, one of the stand-outs of the tour is the clock wall that very closely reproduces the opening sequence of Back to the Future. A lot of car has gone into curating and maintaining their collection, and it shows.