Humble, Texas-In a nondescript warehouse in east Texas , mechanic and entrepreneur Stephen Wynne is bringing a rare sports care back to life.  If he succeeds, he almost certainly has Michael J. Fox to thank.  A quarter century after DeLorean Motor Co. began making its glitzy, $25,000 two-seater, an operation that collapsed after two years, Wynne’s small automotive outfit plans to bring the vehicle back to unlimited production at a 40,000 square-foot factory in this Huston suburb.  The creation of renowned automotive engineer John DeLorean, DMC eventually made fewer than 9,000 cars, distinctive for their gull-wing doors, stainless-steel exterior and rear-engine design.  An estimated 6,500 remain on the road.

     Despite DMC’s flop, the car has preserved, gaining notoriety largely as the time machine Fox drove in the blockbuster 1985 movie, “Back to the Future,” and its two sequels.  The trilogy’s enduring popularity on cable TV has exposed countless viewers, and potential customers to a souped-up version of the DeLorean.  “There isn’t a day somewhere in the world that “Back to the Future” isn’t playing as a rerun, said Wynne, president of the new, privately held DeLorean Motor Co.  Wynne formed the company in 1995, when the bulk of his business was working on original DeLoreans at a Huston garage.  Still, he needed a name, and because there was nothing legally preventing him from using the original, he decided to give it a shot.

     He even called John DeLorean, who wished him luck.  A dozen years later, Wynne hopes to parlay the car’s celebrity, along with the world’s biggest stash of DeLorean parts and engines into a niche production business that begins hand-making two DeLoreans a month sometime next year.  They’ve just started taking orders.  The humble operation will take an existing DeLorean, strip it to the frame and rebuild it for a base price of $42,500.  Wynne’s staff can rebuild one every couple of months.  The company handles routine maintenance, such as oil changes and tune-ups, and ships between 20 and 50 parts orders a day to mechanics and individual owners worldwide.

    But because the original models are roughly 25 years old, finding suitable candidates to refurbish has become increasingly difficult.  So Wynne figured: Why not use the thousands of parts and hundreds of engines sitting in this warehouse and build the cars from scratch?

Courtesy of the Associated Press.