When it comes to the DeLorean DMC12, most of us remember the Giugiaro-styled car through an iconic line by Marty McFly from Back To The Future: "Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Doc. Ah... Are you telling me that you built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?"
The doctor replied: "The way I see it, if you're gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?" and, with the DeLorean we're about to cover today, these one-liners are more than fitting.
Marketed as 1981 to 1983 model year machines for the American market, the Northern Ireland-based DeLorean Motor Company manufactured only 8,583 examples of this rarefied breed. All of them were powered by a 2.9-liter V6 engine jointly developed by Renault, Peugeot and Volvo, but a chap called Nicholas Roedl decided to swap the 130 horsepower lump for a 5.7-liter C5 Corvette LS1 V8 motor.
Nicholas writes on his blog that the 1981 DeLorean DMC12 in his garage was bought roughly 10 years ago. Since then, the LS1 V8 was brought in, along with two cone-style air filters, a new(ish) transmission and exhaust, as well as a more-or-less complete restoration of the brushed stainless steel bodywork.
In his latest YouTube channel update, Nicholas decided to put his LS1 V8-powered DeLorean through its paces on the dyno and the results are in – 425 rear-wheel horsepower! Incredible figure for an LS1 tower-of-power enhanced by high-flow mufflers from Jegs, a Lingenfelter camshaft and performance heads.
Just as Marty McFly said in the 1985 comic science fiction movie: "This is heavy-duty, Doc. This is great. Uh, does it run, like, on regular unleaded gasoline?"
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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