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DeLorean: Back from the Future

Series 1

Episode 1

Duration: 58 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC One Northern IrelandLatest broadcast: on BBC Two Northern Ireland HD

Available for years

John Z DeLorean’s extraordinary and doomed attempt to build the sports car of the future in 1980s Northern Ireland is the stuff of legend. A buccaneering American entrepreneur, DeLorean had film star looks, a famous fashion model as a wife and an enormous ego that drove him to rival the giants of the US car industry.

Millions of pounds of British taxpayers' money later, an unprecedented social experiment where Catholics and Protestants worked side by side in relative harmony in West Belfast ended in a trail of corporate waste, greed and fraud and incredibly, in an FBI cocaine-trafficking sting.

Using rare and unseen footage filmed by Oscar-winning directors DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, and through colourful news archive documenting his life and career, this is the first in-depth psychological profile of DeLorean, a man who rose from the ghettos of Detroit to build his American dream, in war-torn Belfast. A dream that quickly went up in smoke.

For the first time in 40 years, ex-wife and fashion model, Cristina Ferrare, delivers a moving account of her time with the auto maker. John's son Zachary bares all in a rare and emotional insight about his father. Journalists Gail Sheehy, Ivan Fallon and Hillel Levin deliver fresh revelations as they investigate DeLorean’s colourful past and dramatic fall from grace.
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