The American manufacturer DeLorean is back with a large electric coupe called Alpha5 which promises high-end services. Apart from its butterfly doors, it takes little from the famous DMC-12. The time is therefore not for nostalgia but for the overhaul of the brand.
A movie Top Gun has just been released, and DeLorean presents its new car. We are well in 2022, but the hour is with the resurrection of certain icons of the years 1980. The manufacturer of the famous DMC-12 of Back to the future resurrects with Alpha5, a large 100% electric coupé. Far from a continuation or an update of the DMC-12, the Alpha5 is resolutely modern. But, like its predecessor, it was designed with the Italdesign style studio.
A model awaited for four decades
The DeLorean Alpha5 adopts a “fastback” profile with a flag that stretches to the stern. The car is 5 m long, 2.04 m wide, 1.37 m high and 2.30 m wheelbase. At the front, between a bonnet hollowed out to evacuate the air and a very perforated shield, two thin strips of LEDs provide lighting. Extractors are placed behind the front wheels.
Like its illustrious ancestor, the Alpha5 has large butterfly doors. The louvered rear window is another nod to the past. Below, the lights are divided into three horizontal LED strips whose upper segments are linked; a fashion of the 1980s that is back in force.
A diffuser split by a V-shaped fog lamp visually sits the car. In order to draw it, the designers relied on unfinished work carried out by the late John DeLorean between 1981 and 1985 to give descent to the DMC-12. The aborted model carried the code names DMC-24, DMC200 and Project 831/1. Today the company is run by Joost de Vries, formerly of Volvo, Tesla and Karma.
The very refined cabin of the Alpha5 is part of the current trend with almost non-existent buttons and two screens grouping together almost all the controls and information: one faces the driver, the other is located on a console. center with a floating appearance. The details of the equipment have not yet been communicated.
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sports performance
The technical specifications of the Alpha5 also remain to be known, but the manufacturer has already delivered some performance estimates based on the American EPA certification cycle. The firm thus announces the presence of a battery of more than 100 kWh allowing to travel more than 480 km on a charge, thanks in particular to an aerodynamic drag coefficient of 0.23. Zero to 60 mph (96 km/h) takes 2.99 seconds, and the coupe can top out at 250 km/h. DeLorean also gives the Alpha5’s time to go from 0 to 88 mph (142 km/h), the speed at which the DMC-12 can jump through time in Back to the future. An exercise which the new model performs in 4.35 s.
The DeLorean Alpha5 will be presented in more detail on August 21 at the 2022 Pebble Beach Concours d’Élégance in California. She won’t be alone, since the manufacturer plans to unveil three concept cars there.
