They did. Watches and all kinds of stuff. Though with no real venture capitalists wanting to get on board, a new car company was never going to happen.
Though funnily enough, deloreans are still being manufactured.
Steven Wynne got the rights to the name, logo, and bought the remaining factory inventory from consolidated (who bought it from the factory when it closed)
Actually, as far as collector cars are concerned, us delorean owners have it REALLY good. This is because the factory closed in mid production with little advanced warning, leaving oodles of unused parts. If the closing had been planned, cars would have continued to be produced until the stockpiles had all been used up.
It's one of the reasons why DMCH is able to sell NEW deloreans, and also why the delorean is one of the more affordable collector cars to own. Most other cars, the only source of parts are from parts cars, and usually go at a premium. We, on the other hand, have a factory's worth of parts to pull from. Only a very handful of parts on the delorean are hard to find, and to be honest, most of these have been reproduced. The only two parts I can think of off hand that are hard to find, are the original grooved hoods with gas flaps that were used on the early cars, and left front fenders.
FYI there are only 3 exterior 'style' differences in the delorean througout it's production.
Wheel color: The first 700 cars I believe had dark grey wheels. All the rest had lighter silver.
Hood: Initially the hoods had grooves and a gas flap cut out so you could put gas in the car without raising the hood. Later on the gas flap was removed, and finally the grooves vanished as well. I've read these changes were done to try and minimize stamping rejects. The hood is the biggest single sheet of stainless on the car after all. Flat hoods are all that are available new. Grooved hoods (which my car has) cost a bit more, but aren't super rare on the used market. It's hard to find someone giving up a gas flap hood though unless they're just parting out a barn find not worth restoring or otherwise deemed non-salvageable car.
Antenna location: the first 500 or so cars had the antenna embedded in the windshield. Looked ok. reception sucked though. The antenna was then relocated on later cars to a fixed antenna on the passenger side fender. Reception much better, but looks crappy. This is how my car is. Finally the last change was locating the antenna in the drivers rear quarter panel as a power antenna. This is generally what people who aren't worried about the car being 'original' switch to as it looks the best. I'll be doing this modification as well, and having the hole in the passenger fender patched when it gets to this point.
A note on getting gas. Never drive your D when it's low on gas, when you need to be somewhere in a hurry. You'll end up at the gas station at least half an hour talking to people and being told repeatedly that your putting gas in the windshield washer reservoir. :undecided:
it gets old at times.
