Did you know that John Z. DeLorean’s original plans for the iconic DMC-12 included a Citroen Wankel rotary engine, dubbed Comotar (developed by NSU and Citroën)? Of course, that never happened and the DeLorean ended up with an underpowered 130 bhp V6 engine jointly developed by Renault, Peugeot and Volvo. However, some lads decided to hook on DeLorean’s original vision and replace the ill-fated French V6 with a 300Hp strong, 2.0-liter 3-rotor rotary engine from the 1990 Mazda Eunos Cosmo.And that’s not all. Since the stock transmission didn’t seem to be able to handle the power upgrade, they replaced it with a 6-speed manual transmission with Limited Slip Differential from a 1995 Porsche 911 Carrera 2. According to the guys who did the engine-transplant, zero to 60mph (96 km/h) has been measured at 4.5 sec. Quarter mile has not been tested, but they estimated it to be around 13 sec. -Follow the jump for more pictures along with a video of the car
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It's funny how everyone, including some very uninformed or inexperienced journalists will claim the DeLorean was underpowered - without ever having sat in one. All I can say is drive one first.
When they say it was underpowered, they don't mean by today's standards. For a sports car of the early eighties, it was lacking. It was originally supposed to get 200 horsepower, but due to the engine change and catalytic converters, it got 130 horsepower, 65% of what it was intended to get. Hell, "Road & Track" even said it went 0-60 mph in 10.5 seconds. An 82 Corvette got 8.1 seconds. That's 2.4 seconds difference. It wasn't even as fast as a Lotus of the same year, even though it borrowed many parts of the car from them.
Looking at the stats, yes the Delorean was underpowered. Maybe you should drive other cars of the same year before saying it wasn't.
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