There were only two of them released.
Almost according to the behests of Henry Ford, who argued that a buyer could buy a Ford of any color, provided that it was black, the Delorean sports cars were also extremely monogamous in terms of color. All production DMC–12s sported unpainted stainless steel body panels. Few people know that only once an exception was made to this rule.
In 1980, American Express decided to celebrate the launch of a new gold credit card with a joint venture with car startup John DeLorean. Things were going well for John then. In any case, he had not yet been charged with drug dealing, and the Delorean DMC–12 coupe had not yet had time to disappoint the audience and was considered a very fashionable thing.
The collaboration plan matured quickly. We didn’t think about it for a long time, that’s for sure. We decided to take ready–made coupes and paint them in gold. Rather, do not paint, but naturally apply a layer of 24–carat gold to the stainless steel panels.
No technical bells and whistles and design delights were foreseen – gold is already the best decoration, isn’t it? The promise to build no more than 100 gold “DeLorians” was supposed to add to the project of exclusiveness.
An advertisement for a solid gold sports car appeared in the Amercian Express Christmas gifts catalog. They asked for 85 thousand dollars for the car, of which ten had to be deposited immediately as a deposit. We believe the price ruined the project. An ordinary DMC–12 was considered expensive even with a price tag of 25 thousand, and here there are three sums from above. As a result, out of hundreds of declared gold “DeLoreans“, in fact, only two copies were released.
Indeed, not all that glitters is gold.