With its gull-wing doors, stainless steel exterior and illuminated circuits, the DeLorean time-traveling machine in the movie “Back to the Future” captivated audiences and car lovers 40 years ago and still does today.
Seeing one in real life is a dream for many, according to Naperville resident Jason Alspaugh, who says he’s been enamored with the car since he was a kid.
“I think everybody has the same feeling. It’s magical,” Alspaugh said. “Number one, what is that? And is that a real car?”
The 46-year-old said he noticed that people who owned “Back to the Future” time machine replicas rented them out for parties and special events but had no way to meet the demand beyond a local basis. Alspaugh realized he could create a one-stop-shop through which people across the country could rent the fictional car, and that’s how Naperville-based DeLorean Rental was born.
The first “Back to the Future” movie hit screens in 1985, four years after the DeLorean DMC-12 went into production. Only about 9,000 were manufactured before company owner John DeLorean went out of business in 1982.
The car captured the public’s imagination, but was short-lived thanks to an economic recession at the time coupled with John DeLorean’s indictment on drug and fraud charges, of which he was later acquitted.
However, its futuristic look made it perfect for it to serve as Doc Brown’s time machine in “Back to the Future,” sending Marty McFly to the 1950s, where he encounters his parents while they are in high school. Two more installations of the movie came out in 1989 and 1990 featuring the time-traveling vehicle.
Like John DeLorean, Alspaugh picked an inauspicious time to launch his new business — just before COVID-19 put the economy into a spin and ended almost all social events and large gatherings for months.
“For the first few years, all we were doing was very small birthday parties,” said Alspaugh, who works full time as a product manager. “People were masked up. You had to wipe the car down. And I started with just a couple cars.”
Over time, things picked up. People started reaching out to Alspaugh to have their time machine replicas made available for rent through his company. He now has access to more than 80 cars from coast to coast and even some in Germany, Spain, France and Canada.
The company also has expanded to include other types of rental vehicles, including Batman batmobiles, “Jurassic Park” Jeeps and the “Ghostbusters” Ectomobile.
“A lot of these car owners do rent out their cars on a local basis, wherever they are throughout the country,” Alspaugh said. “But what makes it easier for them to have me do it is they don’t have to create a website, they don’t have to do the social media, they don’t have to do the (price) quoting. I do all of that. All they have to do is show up to do the gig.”
For time machine DeLorean owner Scott Mulhollen, who lives in Ohio, partnering with Alspaugh has allowed him to take his vehicle to such diverse locations as Las Vegas, Tennessee and even Canada.
“He knows he can trust me as a business owner,” Mulhollen, who also has his own rental company called Ohio Time Machine Rental, said. “He knows he can count on me to be able to get to those clients when he’s under a crunch. And that’s what’s provided me the opportunity to be able to go these different distances for these clients.”
There is no one type of person who rents the time machine, Alspaugh said. Past renters include everyone from fans of the film who want to use the time machine for a wedding or graduation party to businesses looking to use it for a commercial or special event.
It cannot be rented to drive due to restrictions by insurance companies.
“This is a 40-year-old car. There’s no airbags. There’s a lot of sharp components in the car, time circuits, things that insurance would never allow us to rent it out for somebody to drive,” Alspaugh said.
He estimates there are about 200 DeLorean time machine replicas in the world. When fans first started making their own, they would examine the vehicle in great detail by watching the movies on VHS tapes. Social media has made it easier for people to share tips on building a replica or to find parts and advancements in technology have made it more convenient to build the parts needed, he said.
“A lot of these parts that go on the DeLorean time machines, they’re old aircraft aerospace parts from the ’50s and ’60s. They’re just not available anymore,” Alspaugh said. Time machine builders will have these parts manufactured to be as true to the original as possible, he said.
Easier, however, does not translate into cheaper, Alspaugh said. Building a time machine is still a costly endeavor, with a used DeLorean DMC 12 typically costing $50,000 to $90,000 and modifications running from $15,000 and $40,000.
Completed time machines can sell for between $150,000 to $250,000, he said.
“Believe me, this is not a cheap hobby,” DeLorean time machine owner Edwin Pineda said. “The only way you can actually get your money back is if you put it to rent for events and all this stuff.”
Pineda, who resides in Los Angeles, reached out to Alspaugh for help with renting his DeLorean. Thanks to DeLorean Rental, Pineda has taken it to places he never imagined, like the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” late night television show.
“It was a last-minute idea that they had on the show and (Alspaugh) called me right away,” Pineda said. “He says, ‘You know what, Edwin, the Jimmy Kimmel show, they need a car. But they need it in the next two hours. I was taking care of some business with my kids when he called me, but as soon as he said that it was for the Jimmy Kimmel show, of course, I dropped everything.”
The price to rent a DeLorean time machine can vary greatly depending on location, Alspaugh said. In the Chicago area, the cost is between $250 and $400 per hour, with a two-hour minimum.
For Alspaugh, one of the best parts of DeLorean Rental is the people he’s met through the company, including some of the “Back to the Future” cast members.
“Christopher Lloyd is just the nicest human being you’ll ever meet,” said Alspaugh, referring to the actor who played Doc Brown in the “Back to the Future” movies. “They always say, ‘Never meet your heroes.’ That is not true when it comes to the ‘Back to the Future’ cast. They could not be nicer.”
What brings him the deepest sense of joy, however, is seeing people’s faces light up when they see the time machine in person, Alspaugh said. He’s seen everything from people jumping up and down to strangers breaking down in tears.
“To do something that I love is amazing, but to see the reactions of people as you’re driving down the road and people are just losing their minds trying to get a picture … it doesn’t get any better than that,” he said. “That is the apex for me — being able to share this with other people.”
cstein@chicagotribune.com