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  1. Five cars that seemed like a good idea at the time
  2. Renault Avantime, Too far ahead of its time
  3. Mercedes-Benz R-Class, R you joking?
  4. Volkswagen Phaeton, Stranded flagship
  5. Jaguar X-Type, X-Factor? It's a no from us.
  6. DeLorean DMC-12, Time travail

DeLorean DMC-12, Time travail

Despite its immortality as Doc Brown's time machine, in reality the DeLorean was a disgrace to gull-wing doored cars everywhere and was mired in controversy until the day its Northern Irish factory was ordered to close its doors by the British Government in 1982.

John DeLorean was something of an executive maverick during his time working through the ranks at General Motors in the '60s and '70s, but he still earned a reputation for turning out profitable cars. So when he set up the DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) and took tax money from the British Government to build a car factory, most thought the resulting DMC-12 would be something to behold. All the ingredients were there: gull-wing doors, a Giugiaro designed body and a chassis developed by DeLorean's mate Colin Chapman, Lotus's eminent founder.

However, just 9,000 cars and a videotape showing DeLorean accepting drug trafficking money later, and it was game over. DeLorean successfully defended the charges against him and avoided prison, arguing he was stung by an entrapment operation, but the £10m of Government money that was channelled into a Swiss bank account led to the imprisonment of Lotus accountant Fred Bushell. The judge's assertion that Chapman would have gone down for at least ten years too, had he not died of a heart attack earlier, tends not to get talked about much around Hethel these days either. The car sucked, by the way, despite its flux capacitor.

Mark Nichol