Nightmare

JOHN DELOREAN USED TO TELL people that someday Holly wood would make a movie of his life. It was to be classic American Dream tale of a poor kid who makes good. Thinking about De-Lorean's story, you had to admit that all the ingredients were there for an upbeat flick. A hardened father works on an automobile assembly line in Detroit. His son loves cars but wants more than his dad ever had, So with almost frantic determination, the kid makes his way up through the ranks of his father's company, becoming a major executive sports car design, and strikes it rich.

Hollywood may still put DELOREAN had financed a scheme to peddle 220 pounds of cocaine, worth an estimated $24 million. Apparently the substantial profits were to be used to bail out DELOREAN's Belfast-based company which was in desperate need of financing. But just hours before the arrest, the British government, which had poured $160 million into the sports car venture, announced that it would permanently close the assembly plant in Northern Ireland, So DELOREAN's crazed, last ditch effort to save his firm would not have succeeded, even had he not been caught.

It is tempting to offer armchair psychologist explanations of DELOREAN's fall. You might conclude, after a careful scrutiny of his life, that DeLorean was bound to run into trouble because he could never be satisfied with what he had. There was, it seems, this constant need to push harder, go higher, that finally extended him beyond his limits. It could have simply been a case of pride. A few years ago. DeLorean wrote a much publicized book entitled On a Clear Day, You Can See General Motors that viciously but accurately detailed the shortcomings of America's automobile industry. There was no way DeLorean could fail and then subject himself to the contempt of Detroit's bosses.

But probably the most accurate answer to the DeLorean dilemma is that the man got himself too deeply involved in a financial tangle that only desperate measures could hope to resolve. DeLorean set up an intricate network of corporations worldwide, often using capital invested in one to benefit another, He owned property in several states, had a safe deposit box in a Caribbean bank and routed at least $18 million through an unregistered corporation based in Switzerland. Several key business associates concerned with DeLorean's handling of business affairs quit.

The British government, the Bank of America, and Scotland Yard were all suspicious that DeLorean was bending, if not breaking, the law. But they were never able to pin him down. It seems likely the entrepreneur was afraid that if he allowed his company to fold, the ensuing financial investigation would reveal too much.

Like Jean Harris, who killed the inventor of the Scarsdale Diet, and Claus Von Bulow, the man accused of fatally injecting his heiress wife with insulin, DeLorean has taken a long fall. As one former associate said, "When you like on the 43rd floor on Park Avenue, you have nowhere to go but down; and he did, with a bang." But DeLorean had talent and contributed much to automobile world; it is sad to lose his services. For all intents and purposes, though, this American Dream has come to an end.

There will be no sequel.