The DeLorean Owners Club UK Forum

Hey all, thought I'd have a bit of a rant here 'coz I think most of you here would sympathise with my situation more than those around me at the moment.

One of mt radiators leaked the other day, flooding the floor in my living room and ruining the carpet. As such, to pay insurance and fix radiator it's going to be a few hundred quid. Problem arose when the plumber I got in (via recommendation) told me that, basically, in addition to that my whole central heating system needs to be reviewed and all my radiators replaced, or it could happen again. In addition to that bombshell my bathroom is sorta falling to pieces, which means I'm gonna be set back a few thousand quid - effectively emptying my DeLorean fund of which I've been saving for the past 18 months. I've wanted a D since as long as I can remember (since I was around 3-4 years old I think), but this is my first hard attempt at saving for one. I got together £5k so far, and my estimates before all this came us was I'd reach my £16k target by June 2013, just before my 30th birthday. Feel really gutted now.

So, I thought, in the spirit of the situation I'd put it out there - how long have you been saving for, if indeed you are. And if you've already got a DeLorean how long had you been saving for and what did you do before you managed to get enough money?

Hey that's really unfortunate news there Steve. Sorry to hear that.

I, unlike other people i've talked to in the past, was failry sensible (As sensible as you can describe yourself when contemplating buying a D' i guess. lol! :roll: )
I did things in the right order. :? I got myself comfortable, afforded my own house, and then thought, now i need a g/f and a family to fill it, and then thought, nah, i'll buy a DeLorean instead now, and then think about the g/f and the family later. And so it was. lol!

As for saving up, unofficially, i was saving for mine since i was 12. From the first time I saw BTTF on the TV. By unofficially, i mean, the idea was planted. Seeded in my brain, if you will, and from then on, I always had it in my mind to save for one. I can't remember actually, WHEN i officially started saving. I don't think i ever really did, to be honest.
There was always too many other more realistic life expendatures i had to account for first, but i know i was saving for a replacement car to the Civic, and when it came to the point where i was seriously looking at buying a replacement (i had a hankering for a BMW - for that i'm sorry, i just can't help it!?) i then found myself searching for DeLorean's at the same time, not really thinking i'd actually go through with it. It was more like a bit of fun, since i had the "potential" there. :twisted:
I saw a couple of D's available for purchase at the time, but they were either not the spec i was interested in, or just that too bit out of my price range. Over the space of a couple of months though, I found myself looking at the same one, over and over. I liked the look of it, and the sound of the seller's voice in my head with the description of the car, but the fact of the matter was, he was wanting too much for what i could afford, or thought that the car was worth at the time too. THEN, suddenly, he dropped his price. Not by much, but by enough that I found myself ignoring BMW's and concentrating more and more on the possibility of trying to stretch that little more to buy this guy's D'.
In a moment of madness, i was contacting the bloke, asking him questions about the car that he had not already answered in his advert. Before i knew what i was doing, since hearing all good things to my further questioning, i arranged a meeting with the guy, to view the car. It was about 450 miles away! So i was invited to stay the weekend with the guy, talk all things DeLorean, go for a ride in it, and drink some booze. The morning of the day i was travelling back to Scotland, we watched BTTF on DVD, and started talking numbers. I explained I liked the car, but couldn't quite stretch to the figure he was asking. The night before, i had been told that it was M.Gutcowski's old car. This was the same car i had oggled over, time and time again on his http://www.delorean.co.uk website all those years ago, wishing i owned THAT very same car. As you can imagine, my eyes lit wide when i learned of that. This newly appreciated fact, made me want it even more. It was like....a sign or something! :wink:
Eventually we settled on a figure, which to be honest, was still a bit too much for what i could afford, but since i'd managed to wangle 6 months TAX thrown in, and i still had another month to go before handing over payment and collecting, I knew I had another months wage coming to me to cover the excess, i shook the mans hand with my sweating nervous hand, and the rest.......is history. I was 32 at the time, and I had bought LEX.

I think my BMW fund took about 4-5 years to accumulate.

I still have the Civic.

...I've started another BMW fund. :wink:

Hi Steve, Sorry to hear about that. It sounds like a massive kick to the funds but you'll recover it with determination I'm sure.

I had always wanted a D, like many since I saw BTTF. I must have been around 7 or 8 when I actually started putting away little bits of pocket money that were often so little its hilarious to think now. But I always had fiath that It could be done one way or another. I think I was further spurred on by people telling me it was a dream that simply wasn't going to happen.

Everytime I put something away I made a note of it and although the amounts were tiny I felt like I was breaking down the cost bit by bit which kept me going - as the Tesco advert say's - every little helps!

I was really lucky in that I got a Job right after my first proper wrok experience whilst at school and being at home and not paying as much in living costs as older people I was able to start putting bigger chunks of money away. I just put my head down and worked everytime I wasn't at school and later, college. I don't know what it was that made me decide to persue this particular car but one came up which I noticed on the club site on boxing day 2006. I didn't quite have enough but went to see it regardless at the earliest possible dat which was the 13th Jan.

I knew the car wasnt in amazing condition but I wanted a project to keep at so jobs were strangly a plus for me. After saving for so long to suddenly stop and have that gold ticked off would have been good but I always liked the idea of working on it to make it mine. Anyway, I went across to see the car as early as possible to avoid the several other interested parties that were coming later the same day. I was very impressed with the car and after a little contemplation in my head I decided to go for it. After drafting out an agreement, handing over cash and key's I was able to take the car home. Problem was I had work at 11 that day so I went straight there and wasn't able to have a proper look around it till that evening. Needless to say it was the longest day at work ever!

At the time I was 18 and the DeLorean was my first car that was mine 100% (I had been driving my parents for about a year prior). However I still had to pay the extra cash I'd got from my Grandad back which I aimed to do asap. After 6 months more graft it was mine and I felt very very happy with it! It is without a doubt one of the best achievements of my life so far.

The only advice I'd give is don't let other things take your money that really don't warrant it. Many of the kid's my age spent their hard earned on drinking and constant nights out. Don't get me wrong I don't mind that once in a while but it's easy to get carried away with that lifestyle and before you know it it has become a fairly regular chunk of outgoing cash that you have nothing to show for.

Hope you get back on it ASAP! Good Luck!

Hi Steve, Sorry to hear about that. It sounds like a massive kick to the funds but you'll recover it with determination I'm sure.

I had always wanted a D, like many since I saw BTTF. I must have been around 7 or 8 when I actually started putting away little bits of pocket money that were often so little its hilarious to think now. But I always had fiath that It could be done one way or another. I think I was further spurred on by people telling me it was a dream that simply wasn't going to happen.

Everytime I put something away I made a note of it and although the amounts were tiny I felt like I was breaking down the cost bit by bit which kept me going - as the Tesco advert say's - every little helps!

I was really lucky in that I got a Job right after my first proper wrok experience whilst at school and being at home and not paying as much in living costs as older people I was able to start putting bigger chunks of money away. I just put my head down and worked everytime I wasn't at school and later, college. I don't know what it was that made me decide to persue this particular car but one came up which I noticed on the club site on boxing day 2006. I didn't quite have enough but went to see it regardless at the earliest possible dat which was the 13th Jan.

I knew the car wasnt in amazing condition but I wanted a project to keep at so jobs were strangly a plus for me. After saving for so long to suddenly stop and have that gold ticked off would have been good but I always liked the idea of working on it to make it mine. Anyway, I went across to see the car as early as possible to avoid the several other interested parties that were coming later the same day. I was very impressed with the car and after a little contemplation in my head I decided to go for it. After drafting out an agreement, handing over cash and key's I was able to take the car home. Problem was I had work at 11 that day so I went straight there and wasn't able to have a proper look around it till that evening. Needless to say it was the longest day at work ever!

At the time I was 18 and the DeLorean was my first car that was mine 100% (I had been driving my parents for about a year prior). However I still had to pay the extra cash I'd got from my Grandad back which I aimed to do asap. After 6 months more graft it was mine and I felt very very happy with it! It is without a doubt one of the best achievements of my life so far.

The only advice I'd give is don't let other things take your money that really don't warrant it. Many of the kid's my age spent their hard earned on drinking and constant nights out. Don't get me wrong I don't mind that once in a while but it's easy to get carried away with that lifestyle and before you know it it has become a fairly regular chunk of outgoing cash that you have nothing to show for.

Hope you get back on it ASAP! Good Luck!

Sorry to hear about this Steve, hope you get your house sorted soon.

Chris

Cheers guys, your replies were good to read! I don't know exactly how much the whole radiator/bathroom replacement job is going to cost me yet, nor whether I'll go through with it. if the radiators don't get done then there's a chance of more damage to the house, so I think I'll have to get it covered. The bathroom though I think I can live with (albeit meagerly) as it is . It just feels like it's taking forever to save up for my D and sometimes I'm just, like, "arrghhh! i cant wait!!!" lol

But I'll keep saving and hopefully, if I can get a bonus or two from work, i'll be able to get back on track. Cheers for the comments though guys, and hopefully I'll be able to come see your cars and buy you all a beer at the next big DeLorean event
Steve

Get a second opinion on those "other jobs". My mum's house still has half its original radiators from the 1960s when the house was built. We put in a new bathroom a couple of years back and I did a lot of it myself - it was a learning curve but we saved a packet and got stuff in there that the original plumber said wouldn't fit!

stunned_monkey Wrote:Get a second opinion on those "other jobs". My mum's house still has half its original radiators from the 1960s when the house was built. We put in a new bathroom a couple of years back and I did a lot of it myself - it was a learning curve but we saved a packet and got stuff in there that the original plumber said wouldn't fit!

+1 on this. Plumbers aren't priests and have been known to exaggerate slightly.

Find out exactly why the first radiator leaked. If it's at the joints/fittings, there is no reason why you can't drain the system in the summertime and fix them yourself. If it cracked, then your gues is as good as his as to when other may, or may not fail.

I've done quite a bit of DIY in the UK and US, and there is nothing too difficult about a bathroom, particularly if it is just fixtures/fittings, which is pesumably all the plumber could see.