#5565 Nigel Mills' Right hander AXI 1697

[DeLorean Cars]

Having tracked down some emails between Barrie Wills and Nigel, I thought this deserved its own section.

This is part of an exchange between Nigel and Barrie as a response to Nigel asking for information on his car:

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If your car is the one that I believe it to be, it was built during the
later stages of the receivership after I sought and obtained permission from
Sir Kenneth Cork for us to design, develop and build a couple or more cars
to meet European Type Approvals that could be submitted to the Vehicle
Certification Agency (VCA) after development, and also shown at the
forthcoming Birmingham International Motor Show at the NEC in October 1982.
The fact that Cork agreed to invest in this activity is a real tribute to
his commitment to getting the business up and running again.

We had been working on a European powertrain with Renault since before the
receivership and - without the Californian emission controls which included
a catalytic converter - the cars performed as a typical UK journalist of the
time, who had hardly ventured further than Turin, would expect a sports car
to perform. A BBC World at One team came over to test a RHD car on the plant
test track and the news reporter in question raved about the performance
during the live test within which he drove the car in the company of our
chief engineer Peter Milner. A detective job to establish whether the BBC
still has the recording of this would be an interesting exercise for a club
member with time on his hands!

By the time of the decision to enter liquidation, which came on the eve of
JZD's arrest in LA on 19th October 1982, the cars were signed off as meeting
European Type Approval; the tests were booked but were not yet undertaken.
Your car had been built as the one that would take pride of place on the
circular turntable, which had been used at previous shows in Belfast, London
and Geneva, as the launch of the RHD and European specification cars. The
stand space at the following week's NEC show was cancelled in the wake of
JZD's arrest and an embarrassing gap was all that was left on the floor of
the hall in question.

When it came to liquidation, I gave a guy called Gerry Castle, a flamboyant
character to say the least, who prior to working in the parts and service
operations of DMCL had worked in a similar capacity within Reliant during my
time as a director there, free reign to get the best possible prices for the
RHD cars as he knew the British specialist car dealer network very well
indeed. I recall him coming to me with a proposition to sell the show car to
the Patrick Collection in Birmingham. The price was good and it seemed
appropriate that a car as unique as this one should go into a car museum for
public appreciation. I was horrified when, a few years later I saw the car
at a show with a sign near it claiming it to be Don Lander's personal car!
Why Gerry decided that such a cock and bull story was better than the truth
(Don never even saw the car as he was in the USA trying to hold the dealer
network together whilst I held the fort in Belfast!), I'll never understand.
Gerry died several years ago and took the secret to his grave.

I recall writing to the then owner of the Patrick Collection to explain the
truth. My letter brought no response and the falsehood lived on. Yes, you
have a one off but, as I understand it, the Bill Towns-styled and designed
rear lamp arrangement (the lamps were from a bus parts bin as these were the
only one's the purchasing guys could find that were E-marked and came close
to suiting the car and the space available) and black painted hand-lay
composite moulded lamp and number plate surround have been removed and
replaced by the better looking regular and expensively tooled
Giugiaro-styled US specification lamp clusters. You may realise that to this
day, USA and the Rest of the World have different legal requirements for
rear lamps! It's called trade protectionism when the Japanese do it but the
Yanks have got away with it forever - and not simply with lamps!

Look after your unique car - and tell the truth!

[Admin-bloke]

...........................
A BBC World at One team came over to test a RHD car on the plant
test track and the news reporter in question raved about the performance
during the live test within which he drove the car in the company of our
chief engineer Peter Milner. A detective job to establish whether the BBC
still has the recording of this would be an interesting exercise for a club
member with time on his hands!....................

I don't suppose you have this reporters name by chance?
A friend of mine is a news presenter/ reporter for the BBC so may be able to contact this person or look in any BBC film archive !

He loves old news articles and is an '80s fan.

[DeLorean Cars]

Nigel asked that exact question and got this reply:

------

My guess about the timing of World at One programme is the late
Summer/Autumn of '82. That's as close as I can get. The guy that would have
known for sure and also which hands the cars were would have been my old pal
Peter Milner but, sadly, he died at Christmas 2003.

[Admin-bloke]

Nigel asked that exact question and got this reply:

------

My guess about the timing of World at One programme is the late
Summer/Autumn of '82. That's as close as I can get. The guy that would have
known for sure and also which hands the cars were would have been my old pal
Peter Milner but, sadly, he died at Christmas 2003.

That's a shame. I will see if my news presenter mate can dig out any old film from that BBC programme.
Not promising anything though.

[A Van]

Could it be that 3 rhd were brought back to the factory from Wooler Hodec and completed?

[DeLorean Cars]

No. Most if not all the Wooler-Hodec cars were early pre-production "black" carrs that were recycled as right hand prototypes and weren't meant for sale. Dave H's WIA 8096 is an exception which was a comissioned conversion.

5565 was a production car converted before it was complete - so there's no hole in the floor in the passenger footwell, no holes on the left for the handbrake mounts etc.

**all of the above is to the best of my knowledge!!!***

Edit: And according to Barrie Wills' account, Nigel's wasn't comissioned until the company was in receivership. Wooler Hodec cars were done much earlier and if I remember correctly Wooler Hodec was another casualty of DMC going belly-up.

[bozzzydmc]

Chris Parnham is of course the authority on this stuff, but the 3 cars converted at Dunmurry are the AXI cars and were done by a few of the senior workforce who remained when the factory had been closed by the receivers. It is for this reason that a large part of the original workforce have no idea that they even exist.

This is all very interesting

I wonder how the lower windcreen grille came about, do you know of any another car with this proper 'handed' grille on ?

So there is no evidence that this car was ever a LHD car ? ... Like on all other Wooler Hodec Cars ?

Another point ... so these were built after the company was wound up by the recievers .. I wonder how they managed to get access to the factory, parts etc and build these to sell on again ?

[DeLorean Cars]

I wonder how the lower windcreen grille came about, do you know of any another car with this proper 'handed' grille on ?

It's not, it's hand-made with super-glue, probably from another grill being cut up and it's very fragile (ask me how I know )

So there is no evidence that this car was ever a LHD car ? ... Like on all other Wooler Hodec Cars ?

Not that I can recall. It has some idiosyncrasies that show it's not a production right hander either, like the extra coil of AC hose in the engine bay because in RHD form it's too long. All this stuff would have meant specific parts being made for right hand cars but they made do with left hand components for the prototype.

Another point ... so these were built after the company was wound up by the recievers ..

No - these were built when the company was under the control of the receivers. Kenneth Cork was trying to find a way to keep the company going, and ignoring the european market was seen as one of JZD's big booboos.

The company was only "wound up" after JZD was arrested for building a snowman.

[A Van]

Interesting comment on the lights from Barrie Wills, which mentions purchasing...Nick S being the purchasing manager surely would have known about RHD being built in the factory?

[Almccann]

This is of interest to me as I heard directly from Barrie Wills at the NEC about the RHD production.

The year my car was on the club stand was also the year that the Explodaview poster came out. Barrie was proofing it (he changed the date that the company was formed) and after a few minutes of Delorean related banter, the topic of "RHD's" came up.

Barrie claimed that once the liquidators came onboard, making any decisions on production was getting harder and harder, EVERYTHING had to go to a higher power and they usually vetoed it.

A vacant factory was found close to the docks in Belfast, a number of LHD's which where at the docks waiting to be shipped where taken and moved to this factory. A small team of workers where tasked with "borrowing" parts and tools from the Dunmurray factory to the factory in Belfast. They worked in secrecy and produced the "factory" RHD's you see today.

To sum-up, according to Barrie Wills, there was *NO* RHD's built in Dunmurray, any RHD car built by DMCL was done so in a abandoned factory in Belfast.

Why Barrie has now changed this story I have no idea but the original conversation was witnessed by around 6 people, I remember it as if it was yesterday because Barrie remembered them building my former car (pilot 25) and could even tell me why it had a 2 tone interior (one of the workers ripped one of the black leather seats with a screwdriver in his back pocket and they had no black seats left so a set of grey had to go into it, hence it has grey seats and a black dashboard.