THINGS happen when you own a DeLorean, the sports car turned ultimate time machine in the “Back to the Future” films.

The car was larger than life. Its creator, John Z. DeLorean, was a self-promoting swinger in tailored suits who dated models and Hollywood starlets. He was caught in an F.B.I. sting with 55 pounds of cocaine, which the authorities said he planned to sell to prevent the collapse of his company. Though he was acquitted, the trial further cemented his name and his car as irresistible emblems of pop culture.

“Having a DeLorean is like 5 percent being a rock star,” said Lauren J. Reilly, a bubbly 31-year-old producer at the Deutsch advertising agency who owns a 1981 DeLorean DMC-12  the only model DeLorean built (and for just two years).

It was an unseasonably warm winter Sunday when Ms. Reilly drove her DeLorean in a several-block radius around Midtown Manhattan, where she lives and keeps her car. Tourists were out in full force, convening at every street corner with directionless awe. In front of Radio City Music Hall, a tall man in a black raincoat stared at the DeLorean, eyes squinting, as he strode up the block. In Times Square, a cluster of red-faced teenagers pointed, bursting into a fit of giggles.