06/18/2026
Before Hollywood Made this DeLorean Famous, They Already Owned It
For Norman and Roslyn Levy, their 1982 DeLorean isn’t just a car, it’s a piece of pop culture, a family heirloom, and a lifelong companion that has never quite behaved… but has always been loved.
The story began in 1983.
Norman had taken their 16-year-old son to a local used car lot, looking for something practical, a simple, reliable car for a new driver. Instead, they found something unexpected: a DeLorean DMC-12 sitting on consignment, barely a year old, with just 5,000 miles on it.
It wasn’t practical. It wasn’t sensible.
But it was impossible to ignore.
Norman bought it and brought it home, where Roslyn returned from work to find a stainless-steel car in the driveway, its gullwing doors raised like something from another world.
Her first reaction? Surprise.
His first words? “We can take it back if you don’t want it.”
They didn’t take it back.
At the time, the DeLorean was already an unusual machine, a bold creation by John DeLorean, a former General Motors executive who set out to build something entirely different. The result was a car that defied categories: Italian design, British engineering, built in Northern Ireland, powered by a Franco-Swedish V-6 engine.
It was as unconventional as its creator.
What no one knew then was that the car’s real fame was still ahead.
A few years later, Hollywood transformed the DeLorean into a time machine in Back to the Future, forever cementing its place in pop culture. For the Levys, that connection only deepened their bond with the car, especially when Roslyn discovered that October 21, 2015, the film’s “future” date, happened to be her birthday.
Over the decades, the DeLorean became part of their lives in unexpected ways.
Their children drove it to prom. The couple brought it to charity events and community gatherings. During the pandemic, when visits weren’t possible, they would simply drive the car to friends’ homes and wave from outside, spreading a little joy wherever they went.
Because that’s what the DeLorean does.
It makes people smile.
At stoplights, at gas stations, anywhere it appears, it draws attention, curiosity, and nostalgia.
Owning it, however, has never been easy.
Norman is the first to admit the car is underpowered and overengineered. Roslyn calls it “a naughty child.” It has spent plenty of time on flatbed trucks, heading off for repairs.
But none of that has ever mattered.
Because the DeLorean is not about performance.
It’s about presence.
Now, more than 40 years after they first brought it home, the Levys are still living with and loving their DeLorean. With the Broadway debut of Back to the Future: The Musical, they plan to travel to New York to celebrate yet another chapter in a story they never expected to be part of.
They may never have traveled through time.
But somehow, this car has carried them through decades
and turned ordinary moments into something unforgettable.
