We’ve all day-dreamed about time travel. Who wouldn’t want to see the future, or the past? And if the 1985 hit film “Back to the Future” taught us anything, it’s that all you need is a car. A 1981 DeLorean, to be exact. When Mike McElhattan, the owner of DeLorean Midwest (a shop that specializes in restoring DeLoreans), got a phone call about a dusty DeLorean, he wasn’t too interested.
After all, in his shop he had more than 30 DeLoreans he was working on for customers. Then the caller, who lived in New Mexico, told him that his car only had 977 miles on. Just like “Doc” Brown from the movie, he couldn’t help but say “Great Scott!”
But the logistics of traveling from his shop in Illinois was daunting. Until he learned how close the car really was. “Then he said the car is at his uncle’s barn in Dousman, Wisconsin,” McElhattan said, a town just 60 miles north of his shop. With only about 9,000 DeLoreans produced between 1981 and 1982, the car is considered a classic. And to find one, he said, with such few miles on it – very rare.
The 1981 DeLorean. Photo by DeLorean Nation
“When he mentioned the mileage,” McElhattan said, “I was pretty motivated to go take a look at it.” So McElhattan and one of his employees, Kevin Thomas, drove out to Wisconsin – a modern-day version of Doc and Marty McFly. They recorded their trip, posting it on their YouTube channel, DeLorean Nation. Thomas and McElhattan met the 90-year-old owner at his home in Wisconsin. In a barn on the property was the famous vehicle.
To me, what’s cool about it, is it’s completely original down to the original tires that rolled out of the factory in Belfast, Ireland,” McElhattan said
While it doesn’t run on plutonium or have a flux capacitor, it still managed to take McElhattan ‘back in time’. “The car is just as it was in 1981,” he said. “Nothing has been updated or changed, it’s an extremely original example. It was an absolute time capsule.” While it was covered in decades of dust and full of mice, McElhattan was worried.
Mike McElhattan and Kevin Thomas sit in their newly-discovered DeLorean. Photo by DeLorean Nation“It’s very rewarding to take a filthy car like this and really transform it,” he said. “People just want to see it brought back to its full glory.” While the movie helped make the car famous, he said, it’s more than the film that fuels McElhattan’s love for the DeLorean. “It really makes for a unique car,” he said.
If you could pick one car to sum up the 1980s, the DeLorean is the quintessential car.”
McElhattan and his staff are confident they can restore the car to its former glory. He said he would try to keep it as “original as possible.” But it’s what the car symbolizes that brings him the most joy. With the story of the amazing barn find going viral, McElhattan plans to document the car restoration online so other fans of the movie and the car can follow along.
“That’s what old cars are about for everyone, they bring you back to a certain time,” McElhattan said. “It’s so much about connecting with your past.” Watch the guys’ futuristic find below!
Sources: People | NBC Chicago
