Autoblog

Click above for a high-res gallery of the 1964 Pontiac Banshee

The very cool 1964 Pontiac Banshee prototype is being auctioned off, again. Back in November of last year, the super-cool and svelte vehicle was put up on eBay with a Buy-It-Now price of $1.3 million. It didn't sell, so it's back up... with a cool $2 hundred-grand tacked onto the price.

Powered by Pontiac's OHC straight-six engine, the Banshee was intended to compete with the just-introduced Ford Mustang. As an extremely unique piece of automotive history, there are surely a few people out there with very deep pockets who would like to get their hands on the car that GM thought was too close to Corvette territory. Because GM had already committed to the 'Vette as its halo-car, it squashed the Banshee program before John De Lorean, then head of Pontiac, was able to get the Banshee into production.

Look closely and you'll note that many of the design elements introduced on the Banshee prototype were stolen carried-over to the 1968 Corvette, along with the tail-end of the Banshee ending up on the new-for-1970 Pontiac Firebird and Trans Am. We're big fans of the Pontiac Banshee prototype, and current owner Len Napoli, a Connecticut car dealer, is understandably aiming to capitalize on the unbelievable deal he got when he snatched the car up for a mere $214,500 at the 2006 Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale. That, as they say, was well bought, indeed. In a December 2007 conversation with Automotive News, Napoli said that he hadn't gotten any offers at his then-$1.3M asking price and that he'd like to see the car go to a museum. If you have a museum and want to add the Banshee as an exhibit, it's there for the taking. Just bring money.


[Source: eBay via Car Scoop]

Kathryn DeLorean appeared on the DMC talk forum as Dmckid recently and asked, "Do you have a question about JZD?" That would be John Zachary DeLorean. Members, would you believe, did have lots of questions about DeLorean, the man and the machine whose fortunes and iconic status are inseparable. Kathryn has taken the time -- in between midterms, it appears -- to address them as she can.

She says some things you might expect: it wasn't easy to grow up in a famous household that had to regularly deal with legal hassles, and the other kids weren't always kind. She even says that there aren't many memories of things that happened before she was nine years old, perhaps because she blocked them out. But she also reveals some unexpected things: DeLorean wanted to be a professional musician -- he played the clarinet -- but gave it up and went to night school for engineering. And it turns out she is not happy at all about the return of custom-built DeLoreans by the new DMC, though she doesn't say why.

Her father's favorite accomplishment is not the DMC. It's the Pontiac GTO. But the biggest accomplishment of all, for her is the man himself, who she says was "my best friend, my best teacher, my hero and remains the inspiration in all I do." Head on over to DMC Talk to find out more about the real DeLorean.

[Source: Winding Road, Photo: Josh Haldeman]

You may remember a post we did back in January about the DeLorean Motor Company selling flux capacitors and hover conversion kits on its website. The fictional for-sale items were a joke that got a lot of attention for the Texas-based company that's been selling old DeLorean parts and making new ones since 1995. That business has been going like gangbusters, so much so that the company has announced that it plans to begin selling new DeLoreans next year for $57,500. They will be built by hand at the rate of one to two cars per month, and be nearly identical to the originals. The company will update the interior as well as provide stronger, more modern engines, and it may go further to address other shortcomings of John DeLorean's original design.

[Source: Jalopnik]

Apparently John DeLorean was into more than just threatening the Big 3 with his DMC-12 stainless steel-bodied sports car. Winding Road uncovered a patent filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a unique monorail design that shows a pair of tracks suspended on either side of a divided highway. The elevated monorail would also allow an additional lane of traffic to flow beneath it. The DeLorean monorail, of course, was never built, and John DeLorean left this mortal plane in 2005. So unless someone else cares to pick up and carry the late, great almost-automaker's torch, it will remain filed away in the USPTO's archives where Winding Road found it.

[Source: Winding Road]