DeLorean prototype team blended art, engineering

Nobody knew the DeLorean sports car would become a cultural touchstone — and a famous failure — when Visioneering in Fraser began building the production prototype of the gull-winged, stainless steel two-seater in November 1979.

Compared with the work Visioneering's other studios did for Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, the DMC-12 was small potatoes, but Donald Goldie and the craftsmen working with him put in long hours in the industrial center on Groesbeck Highway in Fraser getting it ready.

"We loved the work. It was never the same thing twice," said Goldie's friend and coworker Dan Stockfish, now 74 and living in West Branch.

Goldie, who passed away on Feb. 16 at 73, was associate director of the project to get the DeLorean prototype ready for its debut at the National Auto Dealers Association convention in February 1980. A pattern maker who created incredibly precise wood pieces that were used as the basis for production parts, Goldie had been at Visioneering since 1964.

In those days, making a prototype was as much art as engineering. Computer-aided design and manufacturing were in their infancy. The only way to know if a design was feasible — Would the doors close? Was there room for the radio behind the dash? — was to carve a wooden model of every piece based on the clay designers' model. The skills required barely exist today. Computer simulations and 3D-printed parts have largely replaced the craftsmanship of Goldie's team.

The legend of John Z.

John Z. DeLorean was a cultural phenomenon in the 1960s and '70s, a Detroit-born maverick who rose to the top of GM, partied with movie stars and attracted media coverage like Tesla's Elon Musk does today.

DeLorean dressed like a playboy, squired beautiful women to Hollywood parties and married models. A pop culture hero, he clashed frequently with GM's hierarchy, despite a series of successes that included developing the Pontiac GTO and leading Chevrolet to record sales. He left GM and founded DeLorean Motor Co. in 1973 to build his gull-winged sports car in then-troubled Northern Ireland.

Goldie's team in Fraser made DeLorean's futuristic dream car a reality. They trimmed wood pieces within thousandths of an inch to produce models for the car's parts and body panels. They layered together strips of Philippine mahogany for the floor panel and carved cherry for the grille and other pieces that required fine detail.

"It blurred the lines between art and science," Goldie's son Scott, himself a scientist with the FDA, told me.

The DeLorean project was unusual, Stockfish said. Visioneering made stainless-steel body panels based on the wood carvings and combined them with a chassis from Lotus and a European V6 to build the first functioning DMC for the presentation at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention.

Goldie was a hands-on supervisor, working closely with his team 14 hours a day on the second shift.

Like DeLorean, the DMC-12 was a publicity magnet, but the car fell far short of expectations.

Thanks to a dead battery, the prototype wouldn't start for the ceremonial unveiling at Visioneering. Goldie shook his head and went home to dinner with his family.

The DMC-12 and the parties DeLorean threw to announce it were hits with auto dealers, but the car's performance, production, and sales all fell short. The company ran into trouble fast.

Trouble from the start

DeLorean searched desperately for additional financing.

In October 1982, less than two years after he had delivered the first DMC-12 to a customer, the FBI arrested DeLorean in a cocaine-smuggling sting.

He was acquitted when his lawyers successfully argued the FBI had entrapped him with visions of drug profits to save his company, but DMC had collapsed into bankruptcy after building about 7,000 cars.

The car's greatest claim to fame would become its time-traveling role in the "Back to the Future" movies. DeLorean died in 2005.

Visioneering is still around. It makes production tooling for the aerospace industry today, still in the shops on Groesbeck Avenue where Goldie's team built the DMC-12 prototype. The company is getting ready to move to a new campus in Auburn Hills.

Donald Goldie's team remained close-knit. He and Virginia introduced several couples who eventually married. Some associates from those days attended his memorial this month.

Contact Mark Phelan: mmphelan@freepress.com or 313-222-6731. Follow him on Twitter @mark_phelan.