Thirty members of the SAH Leland Chapter gathered on a chilly day in January at the Ypsilanti Automotive Heritage Museum to see a fascinating presentation by Barry Levine about the life and career of John Z. DeLorean. The museum has a DeLorean DMC-12 on display among the dozens of vehicles in its collection, which added a dose of realism to the event.
Attendees shared coffee, cookies, and conversation as people gathered. Leland Chapter president Peter Hollinshead encouraged everyone to become SAH members if they weren’t already, and introduced Barry Levine, a prolific writer on automotive history topics.
The presentation covered DeLorean’s early years at Chrysler and Packard, his meteoric rise through the product planning and executive ranks at Pontiac and Chevrolet, his work on the Pontiac GTO and other cars, as well as the DMC project and its aftermath. Levine also addressed DeLorean’s personal life and legal troubles, which intersected with and affected his work and legacy. The knowledgeable audience asked a number of great questions afterward, and contributed their own tidbits of information.
Levine’s recent article on John DeLorean was published in the March-April 2023 issue of Michigan History, the publication of the Historical Society of Michigan. Subscriptions and back issues are available here: https://www.hsmichigan.org/read/michigan-history
The event supported the Ypsilanti Automotive Heritage Museum through attendees paying its normal admission fee. Many of the Museum’s featured stories have Ypsilanti connections, such as Chevrolet Corvair, Tucker, Hudson, Kaiser-Frazer, and the General Motors Hydra-matic. The museum also hosts the National Hudson Motor Car Company Museum. Its star car is the 1952 Hudson Hornet race car #92 once owned and driven by NASCAR champion Herb Thomas. Thomas drove Hudson Hornets to his second National Championship in 1953 and a total of 43 NASCAR races. His Hudson Hornet race cars provided the inspiration for the character Doc Hudson in the 2006 Pixar film CARS.