DeLorean is now in the business of alternate timelines

If you know your car history, you’ll remember that John DeLorean was a leading light in the American car industry who struck out on his own and started an eponymous car brand with a luxury sports car. You also might know how that all ended up. But if you were to peruse this DeLorean history page, you’d find an entire backstory leading up to its Alpha5 EV. Almost as if someone went back in time and messed around with history...

Unfortunately, we’re in this timeline – the one where Nikola Tesla died penniless, Van Gogh’s last words were “The sadness will last forever”, and Train wrote a song called ‘Hey Soul Sister’. Which means the history of the DeLorean brand is just another case of all that could have been, right?

Not when you enlist Italdesign – the company behind the original, inimitable DMC-12 (sorry, Will.i.am) and the upcoming Alpha5 – to help create the stepping stones between what was, what could have been and what’s to come. And especially not when they’ve added proper Philip K. Dick narrative to go with it, delivered completely deadpan. It’s a genuine work of art.

After the very real DMC-24 concept – or the Alpha, if you will – DeLorean presents a retconned timeline showing three models (and even discarded designs), updated corporate logos and badging, how DeLorean responded to changing demands, embraced new technologies and more. As retcons go, it’s actually amazing. And as alternative histories go, we wish we lived in a world where DeLorean’s fanfic backstory existed and Fifty Shades of Grey didn’t.