How Cocaine Killed the Car in 'Back to the Future'

Summary

Podcast Title: What It Was Like
Episode: How Cocaine Killed the Car in 'Back to the Future'
Host: Julian Morgans
Release Date: May 16, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of What It Was Like, host Julian Morgans delves into the fascinating yet tragic story behind the iconic DeLorean time machine from the beloved film Back to the Future. Joined by Kat DeLorean, the daughter of automotive legend John DeLorean, the conversation unpacks the rise and fall of the DeLorean Motor Company (DMC), the personal and familial repercussions of John's legal troubles, and Kat's mission to reclaim and honor her family's legacy through her new venture, DeLorean Next Generation.

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The Rise of John DeLorean and the DeLorean Motor Company

Julian begins by setting the stage, highlighting John DeLorean's illustrious career in the automotive industry. As the youngest division head at General Motors (GM), DeLorean made significant contributions to the creation of legendary muscle cars in the 1960s, including the Pontiac GTO and the Pontiac Firebird. His ambition and innovative spirit led him to establish his own company, DMC, in 1973.

Notable Quote:
Kat DeLorean reflects on her father's achievements:

“He was a hero. Because it's really hard to conceptualize for people today what it means to have achieved what he did back then.”
[05:39]

Struggles and the Downfall of DMC

Despite the DeLorean's iconic design, characterized by its stainless steel body and gull-wing doors, DMC faced numerous challenges. Delays in production, coupled with the economic downturn during the early 1980s recession, severely impacted sales. Additionally, questionable financial practices, including the misappropriation of development funds into offshore accounts, led to the company's eventual bankruptcy in February 1982.

Julian emphasizes the complexity of DMC's failure, noting that numerous factors contributed to the company's demise, from market conditions to internal mismanagement.

John DeLorean's Legal Troubles and Arrest

The conversation takes a dramatic turn as Kat discusses the circumstances surrounding her father's arrest. Contrary to public perception, Kat clarifies that John was not a recreational drug user. Instead, she reveals that he was thrust into the drug trafficking scandal when he became entangled in a government sting operation aimed at making a high-profile example during the War on Drugs.

Notable Quotes:
Julian questions the nature of the cocaine deal:

“Based on you, he wasn't actually trying to save the business at this point. He was actually just trying to save his family's life.”
[24:09]

Kat provides insight into the setup:

“He created fake stock certificates worth nothing. He wrote a letter to his lawyer saying, I'm about to rip off the mob so that I could save everybody's life.”
[20:03]

She further explains that John's attempt to extricate himself from the situation was unsuccessful, leading to his arrest without any actual exchange of drugs or money.

Impact on the DeLorean Family

The fallout from John's arrest was profound, not just professionally but personally for the DeLorean family. Kat describes the emotional toll it took on her father, who struggled with the loss of his reputation and the collapse of his life's work. The legal battles and financial losses led to significant strain within the family, exacerbated by Christina, Kat's mother, whose behavior complicated their household dynamics.

Notable Quote:
Kat discusses the lasting effects of the trauma:

“There is a level of trauma that carried forward through me that comes from just other things. So the fame of all of it as an autistic child, can you imagine what it was like to be subjected to all of that stuff?”
[29:08]

The DeLorean Time Machine in Pop Culture

Despite the company's failure, the DeLorean car achieved iconic status through its role in Back to the Future. Kat reveals how the filmmakers chose the DeLorean for the time machine after initial concepts, such as a refrigerator, were deemed less impactful. This association with the film helped preserve the car's legacy long after DMC's closure.

Notable Quote:
Julian highlights the cultural significance:

“They originally had the time machine as a refrigerator, but then Bob Gale was like, no, let's make it a DeLorean.”
[31:18]

Reclaiming the Family Legacy: DeLorean Next Generation

In the latter part of the episode, Kat shares her ambitious project, DeLorean Next Generation (DNG), a non-profit organization aimed at manufacturing Detroit-built supercars to fund educational opportunities. Inspired by her daughter's health challenges during the pandemic, Kat seeks to create a support system that mirrors the privilege she once had, emphasizing the importance of connections and community over mere financial wealth.

Notable Quotes:
Kat elaborates on her motivation:

“I wanted to create that level of security and support for others in a unique way. I wanted to meet the positive intent of the privilege.”
[43:03]

She also touches on the personal catharsis involved in reclaiming her family's name:

“I want DeLorean to mean dream. I want it to mean everyone's dream, not a person. It shouldn't be about ego.”
[44:37]

Understanding Autism and Vulnerability

A poignant segment of the discussion focuses on how Kat's autism influenced her father's interactions and vulnerabilities. She posits that autistic individuals may be more susceptible to manipulation by those with narcissistic tendencies due to differences in social processing and the inability to engage in small talk that builds trust.

Notable Quotes:
Kat explains her hypothesis:

“We’re hyper susceptible to narcissists and people who have narcissistic tendencies who overwhelmingly operate in high levels of business.”
[40:27]

Julian reflects on this insight, acknowledging its depth and relevance:

“That really checks out.”
[40:31]

Conclusion: A Path Forward

The episode concludes on an inspiring note as Kat articulates her vision for the future. By leveraging her family's legacy and her own experiences, she aims to foster a community-driven approach to success and support, distancing the DeLorean name from past scandals and refocusing it on collective dreams and aspirations.

Notable Quote:
Kat summarizes her mission:

“If I want to actually achieve his dream, we have to give the dream back to the people. And it has to be about them, not us.”
[44:37]

Julian commends Kat's resilience and forward-thinking approach, underscoring the transformative power of reclaiming one's narrative.

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Key Takeaways

• Legacy and Reputation: The episode underscores the fragile nature of reputation and how external forces can dramatically alter public perception and personal lives.

• Personal Resilience: Kat DeLorean's journey illustrates the strength required to overcome familial and societal challenges, turning adversity into a mission for positive change.

• Autism and Social Vulnerability: The discussion provides valuable insights into how autism can affect interpersonal interactions and susceptibility to manipulation, highlighting the need for greater understanding and support.

• Cultural Impact: The enduring legacy of the DeLorean time machine in Back to the Future serves as a testament to the car's iconic design and its influence on pop culture.

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Further Information

• Follow Kat DeLorean: @katdeorean
• DeLorean Next Generation: Visit DNG to learn more about Kat's non-profit venture.

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Produced by Rachel Tuffery. Mixed by Jimmy Saunders. Artwork by Rich Akers. Special thanks to intern Ellie Dickey. This episode is a Superreal production.

Transcript

[Kat DeLorean]

Listen up. You can get the new iPhone 16e.

[Julian Morgans]

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[Kat DeLorean]

You switch to Boost Mobile.

[Verizon Representative]

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[Kat DeLorean]

Give you this deal. And hey, stop messing with the mic.

[Julian Morgans]

I'm just helping this catch people's attention.

[Verizon Representative]

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[Kat DeLorean]

Exactly. So it doesn't need all that.

[Julian Morgans]

Fine.

[Kat DeLorean]

Head to your nearest Boost mobile store right now.

[Julian Morgans]

Visit your nearest Boost mobile store for full offer details.

[Verizon Representative]

Apple Intelligence requires iOS 18.1 or later.

[Julian Morgans]

Restrictions apply.

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[Kat DeLorean]

I get this question all the time, right? What was it like when Back to the Future came out? This is the only way I can actually help conceptualize it for you. Do you remember what it was like when you learned math? Do you remember what it was like or how you felt? That's Back to the Future for me. It's like so much a part of who I am and what I am and every part of like. Like, I have no idea how rare deloreans are because I see them all the time in my newsfeed and in my text messages and like, they are all over the place. Back to the Future too.

[Julian Morgans]

Hey, I'm Julian Morgans and you're listening to what It Was like, the show that asks people who have lived through big dramatic events what it was like. Back to the Future came out 40 years ago. And while I think there's a lot of things to like about that movie, I think one of the most likable things was the car. You know that stainless steel time machine with Its big gull wing doors and that real classic 1980s silhouette. It's still just instantly recognizable today. But what some people don't realize is that the DeLorean wasn't just a prop. It was a real car made by a very real company. And behind that company was a very real, very complicated man, John DeLorean. John was a hero in the auto industry. He actually helped to create some of the most legendary muscle cars of the 1960s before branching out in 1973 to launch his own company, the DeLorean Motor Company, or the DMC. But while the car became an icon, the business didn't survive. And in a desperate attempt to keep his dream alive to John got caught up in a drug trafficking sting that ultimately saw him arrested trying to buy several bricks of cocaine. The company folded, and John died having lost his millions. Today we're going to look at the rise and fall of DeLorean. I'm joined by Kat DeLorean, John's daughter, who's working to reclaim the family name, and she's actually launching a new venture, DeLorean Next Generation. I think this is a classic rags to riches story, and it's got all these interesting lessons about ambition, ego failure, Hollywood scandal, how to trust people, and maybe, just maybe, rebirth. So let's get into it. Here is my conversation with Cat DeLorean. Hey, Kat. Welcome to the show.

[Kat DeLorean]

Hello. Thank you for having me.

[Julian Morgans]

Thanks for joining me. So I want to start with your childhood with some early memories. Would it be fair to say that you grew up in a fairly blessed kind of environment? You know, you guys had a bit of money.

[Kat DeLorean]

We. I was told once when I was young growing up that my father was one of the 10 richest people in the world when I was young. And that didn't feel real to me. And it also didn't really register what that meant until I got older and was able to really reflect on what that meant. There is a level of holy cow that comes to you when you see the President of the United States standing in front of your childhood home for any reason whatsoever, let alone multiple times giving speeches. There's just something very heavy about that.

[Julian Morgans]

So just to illustrate the kind of privilege that Kat grew up in, she took me on this tour of her childhood home, just describing it from room to room.

[Kat DeLorean]

So I grew up in the house in Bedminster. It was on 434 acres. It's currently Trump National Golf in Bedminster. And the house was 15,000 square square feet, four floors. The. The very, very bottom floor was a basement that had a finished playroom. My father eventually put a bathroom in when I was a teenager so I could have parties in front. Actually, he put a bathroom down there just so I could have one party.

[Julian Morgans]

That's so nice.

[Kat DeLorean]

It was a. I know. And then you would actually walk upstairs. And now. Now you're in our kitchen. And the kitchen was just huge. I think, think the kitchen is the size of my house now. It's still big. It's a commercial kitchen now. In it was a commercial fridge. Then we had a breakfast nook that we spent a lot of our time in. And then there was the dining room, which had a dining room table for like 400 people. And then there was where my dad spent most of his time, which was the living room. And he had this couch we. Which he was always on next to his phone, which he would have answered if you called next to the fireplace, which was always going, even in the summertime. And then he always had the TV on, so noise was going. But he was always inventing something, sitting in that chair, looking something up. Or he was making notes in his Bible or watching movies and playing gin with me.

[Julian Morgans]

I should point out here that Kat's describing these memories from her very early childhood years as at which point the family still had the bulk of their wealth. And that wealth was mostly built through the 1960s, when John DeLorean was probably the world's most famous car designer. He actually came from pretty humble beginnings. He was the fourth child born to Eastern European migrants growing up in working class Detroit. He got a degree in industrial design and then quickly climbed the corporate ladder at General Motors to eventually become the youngest division head in the company's history. Or when he took over Pontiac. There he oversaw designs on some of the era's most famous muscle cars. I'm talking about the Pontiac gto, the Pontiac Firebird, and the Chevrolet Vega. I mean, I'm not even a car guy, but I know some of these cars, and they were huge sellers. And he personally helped GM rake in millions. And he got a generous cut of that success. And that, I think, is the rise part to this rise and fall story. Did you think of yourself as rich as a child?

[Kat DeLorean]

No. And it was because my dad partially was keeping me real, partially also didn't have what he used to have. So I was living in a house where my friends, who went to a private school that costs more than most people colleges, said to me, I thought I was rich till I went to your house. But at the same time, he made sure we appreciated what we had, I would get one Nintendo game a month. If I wanted more, I could go earn it by working on the farm. Now, I could have as many as I wanted, but I still had to work for it, right? And so I felt real and I saw the Hollywood the rest of my family was growing up in and the world everybody else I knew came from, and they felt rich to me. I always felt like on the outside looking in, somewhat missing all these pieces, but then grew up to appreciate what it meant to have that level of perspective. That was a very long answer. But that's a very important part of who I am and what motivates me.

[Julian Morgans]

Kat was born in 1977. So without aging her, she was a child through some of the more tumultuous years of her dad's life. But here's what was happening for him. So he'd been this star auto designer, right? But something started eating at him and it was the way that as the 1960s ticked over, the annual road toll in America just got higher and higher. So I looked up some stats here. And in the year of 1960, just over 36,000 people died on US roads. But by 1970, that number had ballooned to over 52,000. And the main cause, the main cause that most cars weren't fitted with seatbelts. And the ones that were, it wasn't mandatory to wear them. In fact, car manufacturers resisted seatbelts the way that the tobacco industry resisted health warnings. Companies like General Motors buried their own data on how seat belts saved lives. And instead they had all these lawyers arguing that seatbelts were just financially prohibitive to build into all of their cars. But DeLorean, he refused to play along. He believed that the industry had a moral responsibility to their customers, even if that meant cutting into profits. But this stance didn't sit well with GM's leadership, which was one of the reasons that DeLorean walked away, or some say he was fired. In 1973, he left GM and he told the press this. He said, I want to do things in the social area, I have to do them. And unfortunately, the nature of our business just didn't permit me to do as much as I wanted. A few months later, he announced that he was forming his own company, the DMC. And their first design was a two seat sports car called the DeLorean Safety Vehicle. This was the familiar looking silver thing with the two lift out doors. And it basically looked the same as the one in Back to the Future. And I actually asked Cat how she felt about her dad starting a company, but she doesn't remember. She was 6. But she did say this about him.

[Kat DeLorean]

He was a hero. Because it's really hard to conceptualize for people today what it means to have achieved what he did back then. It's a lot easier for people to start companies at all today. So starting something that was basically going against the largest, most powerful companies in the world because the automotive companies were at the time and trying to compete in that market, and then being able to create a brand and a company that was as successful as it was at all at that time was unheard of. So when people say living the dream, that was a real thing for people. People were very much invested in my father's success because it meant somebody could do it. So when he failed, he took all that hope with him, and it really made people very upset at that.

[Julian Morgans]

That's right. He failed. John DeLorean had always been the auto industry's golden boy, but the DeLorean Motor Company was a flop for a bunch of reasons. I won't go into all of them because, honestly, you could write a book about it. People have. But suffice to say, there were all the usual delays in launch, which meant that by the time the first car started rolling off the assembly line, the new car market was in a slump, thanks to the 1980 recession. Then, on top of that, reviews for the DeLorean were pretty underwhelming. So sales stalled, and by early 1982, the company was deep in debt. And then, just to make everything worse, investigators uncovered that millions of dollars in development funds had vanished into offshore accounts. Now, this seems to have a lot to do with their manufacturing partners at Lotus. In fact, the finance guy at Lotus ended up serving prison time. But anyway, the DMC was placed into receivership in February of 1982, which might explain why John was desperate for any financial lifeline, even a lifeline in the form of a cocaine deal. Was your dad as a recreational drug user?

[Kat DeLorean]

No. No. And I've learned later, as I learned about my autism, he was absolutely autistic. And the way I can prove it to you is he had a private chef and ate the same meal every day, which included boxed pasta and bottled classico sauce, because it was always the same.

[Julian Morgans]

It was the same. Okay.

[Kat DeLorean]

And he had to wear comfortable clothes. And he was very. He did not like to be out of his mind. So I can't say. Say, okay, I'm lying. Just a little unintentionally. I do know that he smoked pot with people, but I. Today's day and age, I don't. I don't lump that in with that whole thing. Because you were asking about the cocaine, so.

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's. I mean, it's really interesting that you say this because his aesthetic, you know, when he was working on Pontiac and stuff, like, these are. These are sort of cocaine inspired cars in lots of ways. So you're saying, like, he's very straight. You know, he liked. Like he was autistic, but yet he was able to channel this kind of aesthetic really, really well.

[Kat DeLorean]

It was a character. It's the same character I put on. Hello, I'm Kat. This isn't actually me, but it is kind of me. And it's how we mask. It's how autistic people actually get through the day anyway. But for him, it was very much this character he put on. And my husband and I talk a lot about it, about how he turned into this person who was so out of character for him. He didn't like parties or flashiness or being the center of attention. Why was that his thing? You are influenced by the people around you. And this is incredibly true for autistic people. And he had a person around him whose entire Persona was about Hollywood and. And looks and flashiness. And as somebody who was an awkward kid who never was experiencing all of this glamour got him all. He's very exciting now. People like me now I have beautiful girlfriends, now I have all of this stuff I didn't have before. And then you can kind of get lost in it because you already were inauthentic, right? You then get carried away with wherever this character takes you. And so we talked about the people who had been surrounding him at time. And the number one thing people always tell me is the biggest mistake my father always made was surrounding himself with the wrong people.

[Julian Morgans]

So just to set up a bit of the background here. So in the. In the early 1980s, DMC was struggling, right? They'd launched this car. It was kind of an ailing startup. And my understanding is that someone offered your dad a bit of a cocaine deal, like a lifeboat. Like, hey, I know you guys are stuck for cash. Why don't you get in on this deal? Can you. That's my understanding of it. Can you put a bit of meat on that?

[Kat DeLorean]

What I have learned since I have gone back and read some of the articles and based on information given to me by Christina, she sat there and she said, I dated Morgan Hetrick. For those who don't know Morgan Hetrick, was the drug dealer that my father was arrested with. The one.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay. And he was a friend of your father's?

[Kat DeLorean]

No, my father didn't know him. He was Christina's ex boyfriend.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay, just to straighten out a few details here. Christina Ferrari is a model. She's an actress, and she's a talk show host. And she's Kat's birth mother. And her and John Delorean were married between 1973 and 1985. And one of the reasons that the marriage fell apart, according to Kat, is that Christina had a series of affairs. In one case, she was cheating on John with a guy, an airline pilot named Morgan Hetrick.

[Kat DeLorean]

An official US Government document that specifically talks about Morgan Hetrick getting busted in. In a. In a sting, which if you find the newspaper articles tied to that, it's this grandma cocaine bust where they busted these old ladies smuggling cocaine into the country through Morgan Hetrick's network. Well, he was afraid he was now going to go to jail. And. And it says in this document that he went to the FBI, he went to the government and said, I will bring you John Delorean. This man, per our government, said, I will bring him to you.

[Julian Morgans]

So why would the US Government want to set up John Delorean?

[Kat DeLorean]

He told he wanted. Because he was a big famous big fish. So. And they had the big war on drugs. If they could bust a big famous person in the war on drugs, wouldn't it look good for them?

[Julian Morgans]

Okay. Because it's kind of like, oh, why John Delorean? You know, he's like a sort of entrepreneurial American hero. Why. Why take this guy down?

[Kat DeLorean]

Yeah, because Christina was friends with Reagan.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay, look, I know this story is now slowly turning into a conspiracy theory, but. But who knows? Like a lot of families, the deloreans have a lot of skeletons in a lot of closets. Plus they had a lot of money. And Kat really insists that her dad was offered a cocaine deal just so that the Reagan administration, at the height of Nancy Reagan's just say no anti drug campaign could take down a big famous fish. And as she says, it was all thanks to John's wife's boyfriend, Morgan Hedrick, who was working as a narc for the infamous Drug Enforcement Administration. So can you tell me about, like, how did the bust go down?

[Kat DeLorean]

So that I actually don't know as much except for what I've read in the. His. My dad's book and kind of the articles according to my father and the stories that he has told. He found out before the meeting what they were trying to do and refused to go. And then he got a phone call saying, if you don't show up, we'll kill your daughter and send you her head and a grocery back. And so he, he, and this is a part of the story that was again lost to time when Hae showed up. He figured all this out, so he created fake stock certificates worth nothing. He wrote a letter to his lawyer saying, I'm about to rip off the mob so that I could save everybody's life. If they kill me, they won't kill everybody else. Please make sure my family's okay. Basically, whatever he says in his letter.

[Julian Morgans]

But he said he was in deep, you know, at this point where he's like trying to rip off the mob to save you.

[Kat DeLorean]

Yes.

[Julian Morgans]

Like that's way out of his depth.

[Kat DeLorean]

Yes. This is like, I mean, it's so wild. And so what happened was the reason why he was acquitted overall has less to do with the entrapment and more to do with the fact that he committed no crime by bringing worthless paper to the table. He wasn't buying cocaine. He was not. He. In order. The. The statute actually revolves around providing something of value for the drugs. He provided nothing of value. He brought nothing of value. So he committed no crime. So he was acquitted because he committed no crime. But also that the government really screwed up their, their falsification of documents and all this other stuff. There's a lot that was crazy about the case, but essentially that's kind of how it went down.

[Julian Morgans]

Hey, we're just going to stop here for a quick ad break, but stick around. We'll be right back with more what it was like.

[Kat DeLorean]

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[Julian Morgans]

Okay, so, so the public perception of what was happening was he was trying to save his business by buying cocaine, by getting into the cocaine trafficking racket. But according to you, he wasn't actually trying to save the business at this point. He was actually just trying to save his family's life.

[Kat DeLorean]

I mean, he originally started the deal because he was trying to save his company, but when he figured out what was going on, he tried to back out. And they said, if you, if you don't show up, we'll kill your family.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay. And he was arrested at the, at the deal. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

[Kat DeLorean]

I, I don't know. So I've only seen the tape a couple times, but he was essentially in the room with all of them and they opened up the, the suitcase and he, the words he said were, it's better than gold in this really nervous laughter. And everybody was like, who would say that? And I would if I knew that the people in the room had threatened to Kill my kids? Like, do you even. How do you know what you would say if you were in a room full of murderers with a cocaine? He didn't even know the cocaine was gonna be there, so he was completely caught off guard. He just knew that they were trying to set him up. So, like, what would you say? Come on, be real.

[Julian Morgans]

I'd have said that. I would have absolutely said that. I would've said more. I'd have been like, who wants a scoop of this delicious cocaine? Let's get into it, boys. Okay. All right. So just so I'm clear in my head, he shows up at this hotel. I'm guessing it's like hotel lobby, and. And takes this brick of cocaine and hands over what they all think is money.

[Kat DeLorean]

But no, no, no, no. He was in the room, and they met in the room. I don't know how they got in the room all together, but the whole meeting started in the actual room at the Sheraton Hotel. And they're sitting and talking, and then they open up the. His suitcase of cocaine and show it to him. And then he's like, oh. And they're like, what do you think of that? And he's like, oh, it's better than gold. And he laughs. And then they arrest him. There wasn't actually an exchange of stuff.

[Julian Morgans]

There's no exchange.

[Kat DeLorean]

I think he had his suitcase with him, but you don't see that in the tape. You just see them opening up their thing and you don't see his part of the whole deal.

[Julian Morgans]

Got it. Okay. Do you remember being told that your dad had been arrested?

[Kat DeLorean]

No. My brother was having his 10th birthday. My, my, my. Cristina was getting dinner ready and he was doing his homework, and the phone call came, I guess, when we were in our Palma Valley house, and he was there when it happened. So he. He remembers it so pervasive and profusely that basically, like, halted a lot of his emotional development at that point, which he had to kind of get over. I don't. I'd say that in the wrong way. It. It sort of really impacted him, so that he got stuck in that moment is what I mean, and then had to spend a lot of time working for it.

[Julian Morgans]

I don't mean he was a bit traumatized.

[Kat DeLorean]

Yeah. I don't mean he remained a 10 year old. That was the wrong way that that came out. And so he very vividly is in that moment, but I wasn't there. And I was also really, really young of this went down. So there is. This is. This is a really hard way to describe it and I apologize because I'm autistic. So I'm going to be very matter of fact about it. Christina is a very violent, malignant narcissist of a person and so her abuse was severe. When other people were around, I had a safe place to go. When he was arrested, I was subjected to her non self stop abuse which caused large portions of that section of my life to be locked away in my brain where in my PTSD safe space is essentially what's happened. So a lot of what was happening during the trial because I was cut off from somebody who could actually take care of me. I was taken away from my governess, I was taken away from anybody who could actually take care of me. And I was only subjected to her abuse every single day. Everybody has their own experience in life and like I don't blame or fault Christina for who she is. She had her own stuff go on that made her miss pieces or whatever was going on with her. And in order to turn out that way, I don't want to know what happened. So. So there is empathy and compassion that I have for whatever caused somebody to be that way. So that actually caused just an entire chunk of my childhood to be missing. Anything that doesn't have to do with me directly spending time at my father's house.

[Julian Morgans]

Oh God, I'm sorry. That sucks. Do you remember realizing that things were in a bit of decline in your world? Like there seemed to be less money, your dad seemed to be less happy.

[Kat DeLorean]

Things weren't going well, Things were just never going well. Right. So it's, it's, it's really hard to, to explain this, but reflecting back on it, there is a level of trauma that carried forward through me that comes from just other things. So the fame of all of it as an autistic child, can you imagine what it was like to be subjected to all of that stuff? Sights and sounds and smells and uncomfortable clothes and bright lights and just all of that constantly. That in and of itself was traumatic. Now I do remember what it was like going from being able to live on my farm and have this escape from the world that was safe and my own and beautiful. So, so when that was gone, I suddenly realized how not rich I was and I didn't have a trust fund or anything. Like we lost everything.

[Julian Morgans]

There was, however, one bright moment left for John's business and that came in the form of a little movie called Back to the Future. And while this didn't save the literal family farm, I think it's a happy moment that's really stayed with Katie her whole life. Could you tell me how the car ended up in that movie, given that your dad had just got off this drug charge?

[Kat DeLorean]

Yeah. Yeah. So. So that's going. Yeah. Going back to the fact that he was acquitted. So he. Because he was acquitted, and it was proven that he was set up by the government. He was a pop culture hero at the time. And so he was all over the news. And they originally had the time machine as a refrigerator, but then Bob Gale was like, no, let's make it a DeLorean. And Bob Gale was the. He was one of the ones who wrote the movie.

[Julian Morgans]

Okay. He was a screenwriter.

[Kat DeLorean]

Yeah. And so they actually. They decided to make it out of a DeLorean because my dad was all over the news. And again, they wouldn't have put a DeLorean in a kid's movie if my dad was a drug dealer. This is not the way reputational risk works in Hollywood in.

[Julian Morgans]

Definitely not. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm wondering when that happened. Like, were you the coolest kid in high school?

[Kat DeLorean]

So people all. I get this question all the time, Right. What was it like when Back to the Future came out? So Back to the Future came out. I was still. I was still very young. But I can't ever answer this question, and this is why. This is the only way I can actually help conceptualize it for you. Do you remember what it was like when you learned math?

[Julian Morgans]

Yes. I hated it.

[Kat DeLorean]

Oh, no. But do you actually remember, like, the. Like. Like, the experience other than hating having to go through it? Do you remember the first time you were exposed to math? Do you remember what it was like or how you felt? Because math is just so ubiquitous in your life. It's such a part of your life. You can't really figure out the first time it was part of your life. That's Back to the Future for me. It's, like, so much a part of who I am and what I am and every part of. Like, I have no idea how rare deloreans are because I see them all the time in my news feed and in my text messages and, like, they are all over the place. Back to the Future, too. So I can't separate myself from the movie enough to tell you what it was like when it came out. It is so, so much a part of just me and my history. I have no. I had no recollection of my life before the movie or what it's like to not have it be part of my life. So I can't even tell you how attached to it I am because it's just part of my life. It's just. It's such a weird thing.

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah, yeah. No, that makes. That makes perfect sense. I mean, have you seen the movie recently?

[Kat DeLorean]

I have. I've actually not. Super. Super recently. I hadn't actually seen part three until, I think, my 23rd birthday. I think it was my 23rd birthday. I refused to watch it because they crashed the car, the train. What? My friend bought me the trilogy for my birthday and made me watch it. So. But I like the first movie. What's a shame for me, that I think for me with the movie, because it's so much a part of not just my life and. And then the trauma in my life, but the good. Then the good stuff is I can never enjoy it for what it is. And it is such a magical movie. It is such a. Such a. Such a fun and incredible experience that I can never have.

[Julian Morgans]

Oh, that's interesting. So do you almost watch it with this sort of melancholy sense of like, here's how much fun my childhood should have been?

[Kat DeLorean]

No, because I'm too pragmatic for that. I more can't appreciate it for what it should be to me. I can't separate Back to the Future from my person. I can't. It's probably kind of like Christopher Lloyd and Leah Thompson and anybody else who is so associated with the movie when you watch it. How can you have the same feeling and experience you have with it when it is so much a part of who you are? You need to have a level of separation from a thing in order to appreciate it in that way.

[Julian Morgans]

Sadly, the appearance of the DeLorean in back to the Future seems to be one of the last wins in John's career. From there, he spent the next few decades embroiled in various legal disputes and slowly hemorrhaging whatever money he had left. And as Cat tells it, the final blow came in 2002 when a woman named Sally showed up on the scene.

[Kat DeLorean]

Dad and Sally met at church. Sally had a book on how to meet rich men, and to meet them at church, the housekeeper found a dossier of wealthy men in the area in Sally's closet. And Sally had moved into my dad's house. When my dad went out of town, she went to her apartment and brought trash bags full of stuff and moved into the house when he was out of town and then never left. And then she actually, she. What I ended up learning when I started to go back and Talk to people back in 2018, 19, was that we all thought we were the only ones she was fighting with. So we couldn't talk to my dad. Nobody was talking to my dad. My dad died alone. He wasn't able to talk to anybody. The day he died, he had the best conversation he had with every single one of us. We all got to talk to him because she was gone.

[Julian Morgans]

So Sally had managed successfully to separate you from him.

[Kat DeLorean]

Yes. Every. All of us. None of us were allowed anywhere near him. And so while I forgive Christina for whatever happened to her, there's no forgiving Sally for being a gold digger who stole everything. And what she took from us, let me be clear, Were my father's journals and his jacket and his Bible and things that belonged to me because they were personal to me. Then the furniture disappears, and it was signed for by Sally. So go figure. I have no idea what happened. I had everything in my life stolen from me, and I just want to see it, right? Like, whatever. So Sally, yeah, she ends up showing up to be his nurse. She's supposed to be taking care of him. She's a heart nurse. But she fed him. He was eating perfectly healthy when I met him, and she fed him bacon for breakfast and pork chops for dinner and stake. And after his quintuple bypass surgery.

[Julian Morgans]

Oh, really? She was trying to knock him off.

[Kat DeLorean]

I don't know, but he died of a stroke, so.

[Julian Morgans]

That doesn't sound good. Did you get anything from the estate?

[Kat DeLorean]

I. I got a bill from a lawyer. That's what I got. That's what I got. I got a bill from a lawyer, and I got thrown out of my father's funeral.

[Julian Morgans]

Hey, look, I know this account is now running into some pretty murky, unfact, checkable territory, and I don't know about you, but I think when I hear someone getting really mad about a contested will or an evil family member, I think, yeah, you know, people are awful, but who knows really what the objective truth is here? But then Kat said something that I thought was really interesting. I pointed out to her that her story seems full of these nasty matriarchs. And she agreed. And then she gave me this theory about her dad.

[Kat DeLorean]

If you know anything about autistic people, that's kind of what happens.

[Julian Morgans]

Why are autistic people so vulnerable to parasites?

[Kat DeLorean]

Because. And this is my hypothesis one, we have a lack of an ability to kind of go down that road. So let me explain it this way. I learned about this. This really helped conceptualize everything for me. Information Processing for an autistic versus an allistic or non autistic brain happens this way for an autistic person. For an allistic person, they process information with feelings, social, social norms, then information. For autistic people, it's information, social norms, feelings. Now what does that mean? Why does, what does that mean? It means that as an allistic person, I'm going to begin a conversation with you and have some small talk before I accept anything that you have to say to me of importance as valid. Why? As we engage in this small talk, I'm going to pick up on small, like non verbal communication that you have. I'm going to get the nonverbal communication from what you're saying in. And when I get a good feeling from you, I'm then going to say, okay, what you have to say is valid and you're not going to lie to me. So you require the feedback of the social interaction. An autistic person says, do we have anything in common that we can talk about? Yes. Okay, let's talk about it. And then now I like you. And now we have feelings. So, and, and why this happens is because small talk doesn't allow us to pick up on those social cues. We're going to miss them. There is no value in it for us. So we can't gather a good feeling about you in order to determine whether or not we should accept information from you as valid. This makes it a lot easier for us to pick out people who are inauthentic. So somebody who's pretending to be somebody else, but it makes you hyper, hyper susceptible to narcissists and people who have narcissistic tendencies who overwhelmingly operate in high levels of business.

[Julian Morgans]

That is so interesting and so instructive. That really checks out.

[Kat DeLorean]

That's my hypothesis on why they are able to be taken more advantage of because all of those other things are, are true, right?

[Julian Morgans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes sense. Also, I'm reflecting on before we started this call, you and I did a bit of small talk and we talked about your podcast, which is definitely something we've got in common. We've both heard it.

[Kat DeLorean]

Yeah.

[Julian Morgans]

And, and I mean, I don't want to blow my own horn, but I think this conversation's going pretty well. So I guess you trusted me because I was talking about your podcast.

[Kat DeLorean]

I actually, I actually trusted you because you were being authentic with me. And what that means is that when we're done here, I've said a lot of things that I trusted you with and you could legitimately Take this whole thing, cut it up and make me sound really bad because I've said some very personal things, so I would hate to do it.

[Julian Morgans]

That's like a real asshole move. I have no desire to do that.

[Kat DeLorean]

I hope so. But I'm. But, but do you see? I trusted you. Not because we, we actually. So when it comes to the information processing, it's. It's funny because what that means is that I just will have a conversation with you. And so this might help people who deal with autistic people in your audience. When somebody who's autistic doesn't talk to you and they come up to you and they want to know if you have something in common, they don't find something in common, so they don't talk to you. It's not that they don't like you. They have nothing to say. We can't pretend, we can't fake. We can't faint. Like the whole. I'm going to. We will get interested in something you like as well that we're not interested in because we are interested in you and we want to support you. We can't fake being interested in something it's not. I mean, some autistic people. I can't speak for all word spectrum, but it's very difficult to feign that interest to play those social norms. We can't pepper in unspoken messages. There's no ulterior messages to what we have to say.

[Julian Morgans]

I think this is interesting because it does seem that John DeLorean had a pretty spectacular run of bad luck. But I also think that bad luck is sometimes. It's a product of misreading people. But Kat is now trying to rewrite the story. She's trying to reclaim the family name with her own company called DeLorean Next Generation. And it's actually a non profit organization that's going to sell Detroit built supercars to fund education opportunities. And according to Kat, the inspiration behind this venture came to her when her daughter had a health crisis.

[Kat DeLorean]

During the pandemic, I had a moment. I have a daughter who was born with half a heart. And we now were facing a situation where if she got sick, I need to get her into a hospital and it's very hard to get her in a hospital. I had effectively cut off the rest of my privilege. And I had lived much of my life thinking I had done so much on my own and feeling like I was like at least somewhat normal. I started as an intern, I had a normal career. And then all of a sudden I realized that before that, I could have called anybody and said, get me in a back door and save my kid's life. And when I couldn't, I felt fear and reality for the first time in my life.

[Julian Morgans]

Wow.

[Kat DeLorean]

That's what drove my need to do what we're doing now, which is a desire to create the support that I felt. The privilege didn't come from the money. It came from the connections, from the ability to always get another job, to always find another place to live, to always be able to get back on my feet no matter what. So I wanted to create that level of security and support for others in a unique way. I wanted to meet the positive intent of the privilege. And so that's what kind of drove the beginning of what we're doing now.

[Julian Morgans]

Is reclaiming the family name bringing you some sort of closure? Is it atoning for the injustices that you've lived through?

[Kat DeLorean]

No, it's an opportunity to use something that was given to me that helps inspire people to do a lot of good. My father taught me one thing above all else. Money can buy happiness if you know how to use it the right way. I want Delorean to mean dream. I want it to mean everyone's dream, not a person. It shouldn't be about ego. Ego is what cost my dad everything. He blamed himself until the day he died. We talked about how he got taken advantage of. He told me he blamed his loss of sight on the name on the back of the car. He feels that his ego caused him to feel like if he allowed the failure, it would cause fail him. It would mean he failed. He didn't separate himself from the name on the car, and he blamed his ego for devastating the people he was trying to help every day of his life. So if I want to actually achieve his dream, we have to give the dream back to the people. And it has to be about them, not us.

[Julian Morgans]

That is. Well, it's beautiful, and it's also a fantastic place to end, because I feel like we've gone through this amazing journey, and we've landed at this place where you're gonna carry the best parts of your father's life legacy forward. It's about offering people, you know, the common man hope and a shot. And I've loved this. Thanks so much.

[Kat DeLorean]

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. I can't wait to see and talk to you again.

[Julian Morgans]

If you're interested in learning more about Kat, you can follow her on Instagram at Cat Delorean. That's just one word. And you can check out her non profit car manufacturing startup at DNG D. We're going to put all of this in the show notes too. And one last thing from me, if you're a subscriber, please go and check out this week's bonus episode. And if you're not a subscriber, why not? This week we've got a bonus app all about the Button man, who according to urban legend is this hermit who lives outside Melbourne deep in the bush and he may or may not be a serial killer. And I interviewed someone who had a pretty spooky encounter with the Button man and I think it's a pretty fun, eerie story. Today's episode was produced by Rachel Tuffery. It was mixed by Jimmy Saunders who also did our theme music. Our new artwork is by Rich Akers. Ellie Dickey is our intern and this whole thing has been a super real production.

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