[1] It produced just one model, from early 1981 to late 1982—the stainless steel DeLorean sports car featuring gull-wing doors.

In October 1982, John DeLorean was videotaped in a sting operation agreeing to bankroll drug trafficking, but was acquitted at the subsequent trial on the basis of entrapment.

DeLorean also sought lucrative incentives from governments and economic organizations to pay for manufacturing facilities by looking to build his first factory in an area of particularly high unemployment.

It was designed and managed by Gerald Mooney, of Brodie & Hawthorn Architects of Belfast, and constructed in 16 months by Farrans, McLaughlin & Harvey.

Officially known as DMCL (DeLorean Motor Cars, Ltd.), the facility was located in The Cutts in Dunmurry, a suburb on the south-western edge of Belfast.

Unit production was scheduled to begin in 1979, but engineering delays and budget overruns caused the assembly lines to start only in early 1981.

The lack of demand, cost overruns, and unfavorable exchange rates began to take their toll on DMC's cash flow in late 1981.

What followed is a matter of debate between the British Government, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), DeLorean, his investors, and the US court system.

The key element of evidence for the prosecution was a videotape showing DeLorean discussing the drugs deal with undercover FBI agents Benedict (Ben) Tisa and West, although DeLorean's attorney Howard Weitzman successfully demonstrated to the court that he was coerced into participation in the deal by the agents who initially approached him as legitimate investors.

The British Government attempted to revive some usable remnants of the manufacturing facility without success, and the Dunmurry factory was closed.

DeLorean himself retired in New Jersey, and the dream with which he had mesmerized Britain's Labour government, of industry rising out of the ashes of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, was shattered.

Folk tales in Ireland attribute the failure of DeLorean to the fact that the company had destructed a sacred fairy fort to build its factory.

[9] The DeLorean assembly plant was eventually occupied by the French automotive supplier Montupet, which began to manufacture cast aluminum cylinder heads for automobile engines at the Dunmurry facility in 1989.

Although the early vehicles had impressive waiting lists of prospective buyers, the MSRP of $25,000 (equivalent to approximately $70,000 in 2019) was prohibitive for most of the market—especially for what many considered an under-powered and impractical plaything.

The stainless steel body panels were attractive and impervious to corrosion, but the sheen surface tended to show fingerprints and meant the car could not be easily painted; every DeLorean looked identical.