DeLorean is making a Real-Life flying car!

After being promised flying cars for the last 30 years, DeLorean is stepping up to change the game yet again and you won't need roads with this new vehicle. Except there is some competition this time around since Larry Page, Airbus, and Uber are all racing to develop a fully functioning flying car. Paul DeLorean, the nephew of John DeLorean has revealed his plans for a two-seater vehicle called the DeLorean DR-7 and it doesn't look like the classic DeLorean that we all know and love from Back to the Future, but it sure looks pretty cool. Doc Brown's words at the end of the first Back to the Future movie are finally becoming true.

Wired reports that the new DeLorean DR-7 flying car will be made of incredibly light materials and will include a special battery that will allow up to 120 miles in a flight, which is more than the other flying cars currently in development. The DeLorean DR-7 will also contain sophisticated computer controls as one would imagine. The flying car will be started as a personal transport vehicle and DeLorean hopes to have it fully automated. The entirely electric vehicle is set to be 20 feet long with a wingspan of about 18.5 feet.

The DeLorean DR-7 will have two sets of wings, which are capable of folding back for easy storage. The vehicle's takeoff and forward propulsion will rely on a pair of fans, which are powered by electricity and mounted along its center. The fans will reportedly swivel after takeoff to propel the flying car forward. DeLorean is aiming to make the vehicle self-driving so that anyone can use it without any special license and the company is expecting to have a full-sized flying prototype within a year with a plan to test it out in the California desert as a remote controlled device before they start to test with actual people in it.
The DeLorean was first released in 1981 for a mere $25,000 or over $100,000 in today's USD. There were roughly around 9,000 released before the DeLorean hit the skids, and it was only really popular among wealthy people until it was brought front and center in the classic 1985 movie Back to the Future as a stainless steel time machine that needed to reach 88 miles per hour and use plutonium before Marty McFly could time travel. Thanks to the popularity of the Back to The Future franchise, the DeLorean still holds its value and are relatively sought after. The classic DeLorean car will also be shown prominently in the new Steven Spielberg directed Ready Player One movie early next year.

Price points and a release date are not clear at the moment, but one can imagine that it will be a pricey endeavor, much like the release of the original DeLorean car back in the 80s. Even though the release date has not been announced, the flying car will have to go through a ton of regulation processes before one even comes close to hitting the market. It's pretty amazing that the time is finally almost here for flying cars and that they're in development at all. Now if we could only get some hover boards into development...


Wired/Movieweb.com