DeLorean Alpha5 is a 4-Seat Gullwing EV for the Future
This story is part of Plugged In, CNET’s hub for all things EV and the future of electrified mobility. From vehicle reviews to helpful hints and the latest industry news, we’ve got you covered.
The DeLorean Motor Company may have never left our collective consciousness, but as an automaker, it’s been gone a very long time — since 1982. And now, the brand just might be on the way back with gullwing doors aloft and an all-electric powertrain beneath its shapely skin.
The new car seen here almost certainly won’t be built in Northern Ireland like the Marty-McFly-spec original.
Instead, this ambitious new project is the brainchild of a company based in Humble, Texas, best known for building and selling refurbished vintage DeLorean DMC-12 sports cars. Having acquired the remainder of the original company’s parts inventory and later the brand’s name, trademarks and logos, this Houston-adjacent company has been promising to build electrified DeLoreans since at least 2011, and this Alpha5 looks to be the result. Unlike the original two-seat DeLorean DMC-12 sports car, this is a four-seat model with double-length gullwing doors.
The slippery look is the handiwork of Italdesign, a famous Italian firm known for leading the 1970s wedge-design movement with cars like the BMW M1, Maserati Bora, Volkswagen Scirocco and, perhaps not surprisingly, the DMC-12. Interestingly enough, the original DeLorean Motor Company had plans to expand into larger, four-to-five-seat automobiles. Project 831/1 or the DMC200, as it was known, was developed for several years, but no model ultimately ever came to market.
The reborn DeLorean’s new Alpha5 looks to be substantially larger than its legendary sports-car antecedent. Drawings on the company’s website suggest the car is nearly 197 inches long — just shy of a Tesla Model S. Performance-wise, for now, all DMC is saying is that the new Alpha5 will hit 60 mph in 2.99 seconds or 88 mph in 4.35 seconds — a delightfully silly acknowledgement of the DeLorean brand’s inexorable tie to the Back to the Future movie franchise.
The company is targeting a driving range of 300-plus miles out of a battery pack that’s at least 100-kWh in capacity, and top speed is pegged at 155 mph. The new model is pledged to receive its public unveiling during California’s posh Monterey Car Week, appearing on the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance Award ramp on Aug.
18 and on the Concept Lawn beginning Aug.
21. For now, the company says it “will advise all newsletter-registered subscribers in late summer 2022 on how to join this journey to ownership,” but it isn’t sharing pricing targets.
It’s also not immediately clear when the DMC Alpha5 is expected to become available, where it will be built or who is funding this project.
Hopefully the company will offer more specifics when the car is revealed.
Yep, there are four seats inside.
Curiously, we don’t see a Flux Capacitor.
DeLorean Motor Company
Now playing: Watch this: You can still buy a brand new DeLorean, straight from…
6:31
