AutoFair Goes ‘Back to the Future’ with DeLorean Display for Movie’s 30th Anniversary

CONCORD, N.C. (March 9, 2015) – Switch on the flux capacitor, point your DeLorean DMC-12 toward Charlotte Motor Speedway, and accelerate to 88 miles an hour! The classic time-travel filmBack to the Future turns 30 during the Apr. 9-12 AutoFair with a display honoring its automotive star.

Back to the Future was the top-grossing movie of 1985, taking in $60 million more than second-placeRambo: First Blood. It had a soundtrack featuring a no. 1 Billboard hit by Huey Lewis and the News, a loveable 24-year-old actor named Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, and the sexiest time machine ever—a DeLorean DMC-12 sports car.

Why that car? In the movie, McFly asks Doc Brown why he installed his time-altering flux capacitor in a DeLorean. The inventor answers, “The way I see it, if you’re gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?”

Believe it or not, the story did not originally call for a car at all. In early drafts of the script, McFly’s mode of temporal transport was a refrigerator that moved him through the decades with help from a nuclear explosion, but the writer realized the time machine needed to be mobile and more visual. The studio’s choice of the DMC-12 was an unusual one, considering John Z. DeLorean’s self-named car company had closed its doors just two years before the movie’s debut. The beautiful Giugiaro-designed body, clad in panels of brushed stainless steel and wearing gullwing doors, was not enough to offset the DeLorean’s sluggish V-6 and $25,000 price tag. Fewer than 9,000 left the Northern Ireland assembly plant.

DeLorean would have joined Tucker and Edsel as dusty automotive history footnotes had it not been for its critical role in Back to the Future and the two follow-up movies. After becoming a pop culture icon of the highest order, the DMC-12 enjoyed a resurgence in popularity, and today, several companies do a brisk business restoring DeLoreans to factory condition. A few firms specialize in transforming them into movie replicas, complete with intakes, ducts, lights, readouts, and plutonium reactors. DMC Texas, which has been selling turnkey DeLorean rebuilds since 2007, recently developed an all-electric DMC EV electric car to ensure the stainless steel beauty will continue to be relevant far into the future.

The AutoFair features more than 50 car club displays and more than 10,000 vendor spaces offering an array of automotive parts and memorabilia. More than 1,500 collectible vehicles of all makes and models will be available for sale in the car corral that rings the 1.5-mile superspeedway. In addition, up to 200 cars will be auctioned by Dealer Auctions Inc., and kids can enjoy face-painting, bounce houses, and other games and entertainment in the Play Zone.

Hours for the Apr. 9-12 AutoFair are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday through Saturday, and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday. Ticket prices are $10 per day for adults, and children under 12 are admitted free when accompanied by an adult. Fans who buy three tickets get the fourth day free. Parking for the event is $5. For more information on the four-day event, contact the speedway events department at (704) 455-3205 or visit www.charlottemotorspeedway.com.

To purchase tickets, call the Charlotte Motor Speedway ticket office at 1-800-455-FANS (3267), or visit www.charlottemotorspeedway.com.

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