DeLorean is back, just in time for the electric revolution happening in the automotive world. The company arrives in the 2020s with a new concept model ahead of a planned EV lineup.
The company’s first model, the Alpha5, is scheduled to adorn the so-called ‘Concept Car Lawn’ at this year’s Pebble Beach show. It seems that the concept was originally to be unveiled as DeLorean EVolved, actually, but the marketing approached changed over the course of a month this spring.
The revival of a brand so legendary should imbue its new presence with the mystique of its past; that mystique is turnkey cachet because it is readily available authenticity. DeLorean Motors Reimagined, as the company has been called since it emerged in the 1990s as a parts and support outfit dedicated to the legend, has a delicately poised relationship with the mythology of the brand — its storied years of stainless steel and iconic 1980s cinema, and even an FBI entrapment case. The company website content indicates a corporate orientation that both distances the new company from the old and seeks to call upon its associations.
Regardless, the new DeLorean should be a shoe-in startup. The 12’s home-grown exoticism is voiced in the Alpha5’s design language, and the gullwing doors and strip light atmospherics are just the right kind of homage. Overall, however, this is a new DeLorean for a new age, and it looks it. It comes with 300 miles of range, the company says, by way of a 100-kWh battery, and although horsepower and torque are not yet a matter of public knowledge, DeLorean Reimagined gives a 0-60 time of 2.99 seconds and a top speed of 155 mph —well over the 88 mph required for time travel.
Inside the Alpha5 a meditative simplicity is favored. The four-seat layout looks easily configurable to a mobile lounge when AI chauffeurs take to the roads in the not-so-distant future, while the flat-bottomed wheel appeals to the contemporary performance-oriented driver.
The new DeLorean will be formally announced in June. If you’re in Monterey on August 18, stop by Pebble Beach and take a look at the Alpha5.
