Several cars were donor cars for this project. A 1970 Eldorado, a 1985 Eldorado, and a 1988 Prelude. All were crash victims.

I was pretty tight-lipped to the sellers of these cars about what was going to be done with them, generally leaving it at "I think you'd be surprised." I like to think they would be.

Here's the 1970 Eldorado. I really liked this car. At 4600 pounds, it was a tank, though it was surprisingly agile when I stepped on the gas pedal, on account of its massive engine. I wouldn't mind having one in good shape just to drive around someday. The engine and transmission from this car went into the back of the Delorean. The engine is a V8 with 8.2 liters of displacement (hee hee). The transmission is a Turbohydramatic 425, which is basically a TH400, folded in half.

The front end was easy to remove. Plenty of room.

Hacksaws are great, aren't they? Almost everything that needed to be cut was done with a hacksaw. I figured it wouldn't hurt to sneak a little exercise into the job.

This is all that I wanted out of the 1970 Eldorado, the engine, transmission, axles, and suspension. It turned out that the suspension was not compatible with the external dimensions of the Delorean. As wide as the Delorean is, the 1970 Eldorado suspension still was too wide. This was what prompted me to hunt for a similar car with a narrower track. A mid-eighties Toronado/Riviera/Eldorado seemed a plausible contender.

This 1985 Eldorado seemed like it would work well as a go-between for the 1970 Cadillac engine and the rear of the Delorean. The 1985 Eldorado was just enough narrower in track that its suspension could fit in the back of the Delorean. Several other things actually worked out by sheer luck. The 1985 engine compartment was just big enough to hold the 1970 engine. The suspension, when combined with a correctly offset wheel actually fit in the Delorean like it was made for it. An enormous hassle saver was the lucky fact that the rear brake calipers from the 1985 Eldorado could be installed in the front steering knuckles. This immediately solved the problem of how to implement the emergency brake, a problem I had been actively burying my head in the sand about up to this point. I love it when problems solve themselves.

Here's the part of the 1985 Eldorado that wasn't needed. It's kind of a shame, the interior was in good shape.

Here's the part that was needed. Engine cradle, suspension parts, and driveaxles. Also used were the emergency brake system and rear calipers. That inner CV joint laying on the ground doesn't look too healthy. It had separated in the collision, but was repairable. The engine cradle and suspension would eventually become the rear end of the custom Delorean frame.

Originally, I was going to use the steering components of the 1985 eldorado to implement rear wheel steering, but decided that the cost in terms of effort, weight, money, and risk was too high to justify. Besides, just how outrageous did I want this car to be (hee hee hee)?

I bet I was popular with the neighbors. They were very tolerant.

This 1988 Honda prelude was a salvage job. It ran great, and looked terrible, just what I wanted. I intended to use everything from the firewall forward as raw material for the front Delorean engine. I should have kept the fuel tank as a template, but I wasn't thinking at the time. I had to buy another one later.

So far, I've got the engine and suspension components out.

Here's the front end. It seemed pretty implausible to me that any significant fraction of this front end would fit into the front end of a Delorean.

The 2.0 liter Honda engine and transmission. It's very compact, fuel efficient and reasonably powerful for its size. I like it. It's also set up for air conditioning and power steering.

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