Organisers of the DeLorean Revival raised enough funds to restore the marque’s original test track and hold the first gathering there in eight years.
Sixty DeLorean DMC-12s returned to their Northern Irish birthplace on 7-9 June for the long-awaited DeLorean Revival in Belfast.
Organiser Alastair Vanstone told CCW: ‘There’s usually a big DeLorean meet every five years – DeLorean Eurofest – but the last one couldn’t happen due to Covid. The original test track at the old Dunmurry factory had developed a lot of extra growth on it over the intervening years so we decided to hold a separate event, The DeLorean Revival, to restore it.
‘There was a real danger that the track would have been lost to nature if we hadn’t held the event now.’
Alastair Vanstone
‘It’s the first time that any DeLorean has been on the track in more than eight years and there was a real danger that the track would have been lost to nature if we hadn’t held the event now.
‘It was a lot of work to clear it. Myself and the other organisers, Dave Mathers, David Abraham and Paul Jenkins, sourced contractors and raised the necessary £10,000 to make it usable again.’
The Revival began on the Friday with a gathering of cars at the city's Europa Hotel before heading to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum and an afternoon in the Titanic quarter.
Alastair said: ‘The owner of the Titanic Distillery used to own a DeLorean and produced a special DeLorean whiskey, the funds from which were donated to the upkeep of the track. We’re now making plans to keep the track in a usable condition.’
Dave Mathers organises a DeLorean event in Stormont so 50 formed a central avenue up to the Assembly buildings as the centrepiece of the Dollingstown Classic Car Club’s annual show on the Saturday.
Sunday’s main event – the return to the test track – began with a walk-around where owners were joined by spectators, former employees and the track’s original designer and builders who then witnessed 60 DeLoreans circling the track, more than 40 years after all had seemed lost.
Alastair added: ‘We had fantastic support from all of the places that we visited and there were people lining the streets and waving. It was an unbelievable response to seeing the cars back on the roads where they came from.’
