Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / From Stainless Steel Dreams to Detroit Reality: Tony Vallelunga’s Journey Through Automotive History

Transcript

From Stainless Steel Dreams to Detroit Reality: Tony Vallelunga’s Journey Through Automotive History · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from
• 0:04
  all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors,
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  designers, and everything in between.
• 0:11
  Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder.
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  How did they get that job or become that person?
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  The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
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  When people look at a car, they tend to immediately associate
• 0:31
  it with a brand or maybe just a family name like Ferrari, Porsche.
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  Or DeLorean, but in actuality, it takes hundreds of people to make a car truly
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  come to life from the imaginations of designers to the complex calculations of
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  engineers and programmers down through the manufacturing process with tool and
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  die teams, chassis builders, as well as.
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  assembly and quality assurance.
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  With well over 40 years of experience in the heart of American automaking
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  in Detroit, our guest has seen it all.
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  And in the late 70s and early 80s, he could be seen running what
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  was at the time a state of the art 1200 ton hydraulic press, the
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  largest of its kind in any plant.
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  It was his job to take new development dies and make them into
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  parts for a very special build.
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  He fondly remembers getting the orders one day for gull wing doors in stainless
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  steel, suddenly realizing that these parts were destined for the new DMC 12.
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  With us tonight to talk in depth about the manufacturing side of the
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  automotive business is Tony Vallelunga, Senior Director of Manufacturing
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  and Quality at D& G Motors.
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  And I'd also like to welcome back my co host, the one and
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  only Kat DeLorean to BreakFix.
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  So welcome to you both to the show.
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  Thank you for having us.
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  Yeah, thank you for having us.
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  So Tony, like all good break fix stories, everybody has a superhero origin.
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  So talk to us about the who, what, when, and where of Tony V, the petrol head.
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  How did it all get started for you?
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  Did you come up from an auto making family or did you get interested in
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  cars as a kid and take us on the journey into how you started working in Motown?
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  Well, the journey started when I was a kid.
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  My father I had a 1957 Chevrolet.
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  It was fairly new at the time, but he taught me how to do maintenance on it.
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  But when I saw all the fancy styling on it, all the chrome,
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  the bumpers on the hood and everything else, I was just in awe.
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  I had a curiosity how mechanical things ran.
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  You know, when I was a kid, I asked my father if I could
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  tear apart a lawnmower engine.
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  He said, sure, go ahead.
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  From there, my curiosity was how do we make a fender, how do
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  we get a quarter panel, how do we make cars, what's involved?
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  And it just bloomed from there.
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  So I've heard tell stories of you grow up in the greater Detroit area, there's
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  certain schools that everybody goes to.
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  I even met somebody the other day that said, you know, I went to school at
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  the same place that John DeLorean went.
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  Not the same year, but the same place.
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  They're all sort of involved in the automotive world at some point and in
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  some way, especially being in Detroit.
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  How did you find yourself coming up through the system?
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  And then where did you end up?
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  Like we know John's story, right?
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  He started at Packard and then he moved to other places and so on down the line.
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  So My journey started in school, actually junior high.
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  They taught us how to do household wiring, wood shop, metal shop, and
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  so on, carried through high school.
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  I was in on all those classes.
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  I also had three years of auto mechanics.
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  You had auto one, auto two, and then you had the technical course
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  in your third year of high school.
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  Gear you to whatever you wanted to do after high school.
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  So I thought about, do I want to work on cars?
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  Or do I want to build cars, right?
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  I had an opportunity.
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  Well, I chose to build instead of being a mechanic.
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  Then I had the fascination of manufacturing.
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  I was just always so curious.
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  Well, being in a Motown here, back years ago, there was a, almost a
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  tool and die shop in every corner.
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  I remember the story of Tucker, right?
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  He was doing tulip dye out of his shed.
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  Yes, that's just how it starts, right?
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  There's all kinds of manufacturing around here, everything you can imagine.
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  I just always wanted to stick with stampings.
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  I had a curiosity how you take a flat piece of metal and turn it into a fender.
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  It's truly magical.
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  So is that something you went to school for?
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  Is that you learned it on the floor of the factories?
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  I learned it on the floor of the factory.
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  There was some schooling, some taught on the floor.
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  It was your choice however you wanted to pursue it.
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  But most everything I learned was on the floor.
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  Even some of your small shops will have classes and still get credits
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  through whatever classes they give you.
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  You get college credits for it.
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  You could either go part time to college, work full time,
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  or however you want to do it.
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  But most everything I learned was on the floor.
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  You know, you learn by doing.
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  Weren't you in an apprenticeship program, much like we want to help
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  kids go into when you first started?
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  Absolutely.
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  You know, the apprenticeship program, you have to have four years of
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  college or eight years experience.
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  So it still will get you the job you need, but it's just how you want to pursue it.
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  So where did you cut your teeth?
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  At MSI Prototype and Engineering, right where I met John.
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  That was the start of it.
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  I had worked previously in smaller so called job shops.
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  Went over there and it was a perfect opportunity.
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  We did everything there from woodwork to plaster to foundry.
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  Everything you could imagine for manufacturing.
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  Everything you ever needed.
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  Just a golden opportunity I had at the time.
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  So this would have been circa the late 60s, early 70s then?
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  Mid 70s.
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  So John had started to have some gray coming in right at that point.
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  So what was your first impression of him?
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  A walking saint.
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  Uh, the only way I could describe it, right?
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  He was the man of the day.
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  Would you say his reputation preceded him, especially all the
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  work that he had done at Pontiac, at Studebaker and Packard, etc?
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  And so on, yes.
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  He did very well for himself.
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  We did prototype work, but we knew when John came through, we knew
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  who he was, we knew that it wasn't just any car, it was a Galwing car.
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  Not only was it a Galwing car, but it was made out of stainless steel.
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  Totally, totally awesome.
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  Awesome experience to be able to do that because it was unheard of.
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  Did stainless steel before, but never to this extent.
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  They would put stainless steel trim on cars or gas tanks were made out
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  of stainless steel back in the day.
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  To have a gallwing car stainless steel was the most awesome thing in the world.
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  I knew when we were doing this, it was the most awesome thing in the world.
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  And if you can master stainless, you can master anything else.
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  What an experience, you never forget it.
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  So let's walk that back and unpack it a little bit.
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  It's a bit of a marvel to see how you can take a flat sheet of steel or even
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  stainless steel or aluminum or something else and suddenly it turns into a fender.
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  So for our audience that's kind of scratching their heads going,
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  well, how does that exactly work?
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  Can you kind of talk us through it?
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  Maybe boil it down and make it easy for folks to understand.
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  Start with the designer, right?
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  They give us the blueprint.
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  Back then we turned them into wood models, copied them and plastered.
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  We would do a dye development.
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  So, in order to take apart, we just can't take the exact shape and say,
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  hey, we're going to stamp it out.
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  We have to develop curves and shapes for stretch and form
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  to eliminate wrinkles, right?
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  So, we call that draw dye development.
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  So, the guys who do this can basically, back then, look at a part.
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  See where we need to stretch it, where we know where the
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  wrinkles are going to come in.
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  So they develop the dye along with the part.
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  Once they do that, they copy it out of plaster, then they pour the dye.
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  We'll say, for prototype, we'll use Kurzite.
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  And Kurzite's a soft alloy that can be formed and shaped quickly.
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  And once they pour the dye, we have a tracer machine that
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  would cut off the plaster to cut the right patterns in the dye.
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  They pour it, clean it up a little bit, we throw it in the press and it burns.
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  It's simple in a way and in a way it isn't.
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  Once you do the dye development and it's operational, when you
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  get it running, it'll run forever.
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  But you have to create...
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  tool and die for every panel and component that you're pressing out, right?
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  So there's a left fender and a right fender and the doors and the
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  quarter panels and the trunk and the hoods and all that kind of stuff.
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  It's a pretty big operation to basically punch out all the
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  sheet metal of a car, right?
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  Huge.
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  Very huge.
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  Yes.
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  So are chassis also stamped out or sections of them?
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  Yes, absolutely.
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  Yes, everything is.
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  To describe how big a facility would be to build a single car, not talking like
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  all of Chevy's different models that they have, because you have to have tool
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  and die for every single thing, which boggles my mind when you see car designers
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  changing little things every year.
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  It's like you have to re up all of your tool and die every time you make a change.
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  How big are these facilities just to create one car, something
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  like the DeLorean DMC 12?
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  Massive.
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  Yes, just massive.
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  The dies alone.
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  So, uh, for each die, for each part, there's a checking fixture.
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  So if you could imagine all these parts that are in a car, all
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  have fixtures to check them on.
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  It's just way huge.
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  Way, way huge.
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  How many different tools and die are there on average to a vehicle?
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  Regardless of its size versus, you know, we won't get into
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  convertible versus minivan.
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  For each part on a car, it takes three to six dies to make.
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  Usually your outer skins will take three to four, but any other complex
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  parts takes at least six dyes.
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  So that's a layered approach then, you use the first dye to make an initial
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  shape, the second one to then stretch that shape and continue from there.
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  So you have a draw dye, right?
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  It's the initial form dye.
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  Once that's developed, the rest of the dyes are pretty fundamental, right?
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  You have a restrike trim.
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  Maybe a little reform, but the most important part is to get
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  the first draw die developed.
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  In the instance of talking about the original DeLorean, why is stainless
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  so much harder to work with than a lot of the materials we use today?
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  It's tough material.
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  We look for ductility and it's the ability to stretch without breaking.
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  Stainless steel is tough.
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  It has less ductility, so it takes more work on the die to
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  get it to form certain shapes.
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  It just takes longer.
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  Regular steel has more formability to it than stainless.
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  For most people that do tool and die work, stainless steel is rare.
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  Most people will have a learning curve on it.
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  Into you get it the folks at Kohler and Delta know how to do
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  when they're making sinks, right?
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  But they're all square so it's not too bad Well, right, but you have in a car you
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  have all kinds of exotic shapes, right?
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  Exactly and remember for most manufacturers even well today
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  we build cars at one a minute.
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  So these things have to run And if you can imagine all the dyes, right?
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  Well, we can't run them all the time.
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  We have to dye set them all the time, right?
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  And then various presses.
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  So it's a huge process.
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  It really is.
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  Is there heat involved in the pressing process?
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  On rare occasions, yes.
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  Mostly it depends on whether they try not to, right?
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  But for exotic shapes, yes, sometimes there is heat involved.
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  A little bit of persuasion, right?
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  Yes, yes.
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  Yeah, that's very important, right?
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  You were talking about the ductability of the metal.
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  There's also the malleability of the metal, right?
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  Its ability to fold without breaking as well.
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  How different are the dyes for metals versus those of, let's
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  say, carbon fiber or fiberglass?
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  Or are they the same?
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  So for carbon fiber, right, you use a type of vacuum form to get your shape,
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  but it still has to be cut and trimmed and holes put in and everything else.
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  But to get your shape, yeah, it's done the same way.
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  You gotta cast it, get your shape.
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  Could you use an old die, let's say, the left front fender of a DeLorean,
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  and suddenly make it out of fiberglass or carbon fiber instead of stainless?
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  Or do you have to make a whole new die?
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  Yes, it's a different type of die, yes.
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  It's a different process.
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  But you could use the old die as a mold.
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  Yes, once you have the shape, yes.
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  Yes, you can do that.
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  We've been nerding out here, Kat.
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  Sorry.
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  As he's describing all of these processes, I have a picture on my
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  desktop of the old car and the new car.
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  So if you see me getting lost, it's because I'm listening to him describe.
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  Doing all of these processes and thinking about how it would apply
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  to manufacturing the new car.
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  Which is kind of what's happened to my brain lately.
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  Everything goes back to manufacturing the new car.
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  Tony's been talking to me for quite some time now about all of the different
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  processes that go into building a car.
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  It's always amazing to hear just how much goes into a car in a car a minute.
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  I hadn't heard that.
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  That's staggering.
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  Astonishing.
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  Can't even eat M& M's that fast.
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  I mean, they're flying through these cars.
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  So on our show, we talk a lot about Design and cars and how
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  styles have changed over the years.
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  And there's been periods for just certain shapes.
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  There was the wedge period in the seventies and he had all the boxy cars
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  with round headlights in the eighties.
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  And going back to what you were talking about in the fifties, it was all the big
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  fins and the swooping designs versus.
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  The cars that came before them were very much, let's say beetle
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  like to use a car analogy.
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  Are there certain shapes that are easier or harder to manufacture than others?
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  Absolutely.
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  Yes.
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  Yes.
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  Yes.
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  So I'm going to guess the square cars are probably easier
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  to make than the round ones.
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  Ah, really?
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  Every shape has its own challenge.
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  Never say never, right?
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  Yeah.
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  They the day.
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  I can't believe the guys that were hand hammering out the old car
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  from the 30s and 40s and stuff.
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  I mean, that's just masterful work in and of itself.
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  I wonder when you look at the DMC 12 versus the DMG and you
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  look at their shapes, obviously they're radically different.
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  One inspired the other.
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  It's an evolution of a thought as we talked to Angel Guerrero
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  on a previous episode.
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  So when you look at it from a more technical approach, you compare
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  the two cars having worked on the original and now gearing up.
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  to tool up and die the new car.
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  What are some of the things that you see on the new design that may pose a
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  challenge in the manufacturing process or something you go, Oh my God, this is
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  so much easier than the early cars were.
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  So I I'll look at something and picture it in my head and I can
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  envision how to make the dyes were to split them off that right.
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  What will work and not work.
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  I look at the car.
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  And I already have in my head what I would want to do with it.
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  I look at the shapes, and I look what's easy, what's going to be hard on it.
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  Maybe if we made the hood, I would look at it and say, hey, well, maybe we'll have
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  the hood shape and fenders a certain way.
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  And this is where we'll body open the hood in a certain area.
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  Because I know in my head that we can make a die to do this.
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  And still have it look right and still be functional.
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  The shapes, how many dyes, right?
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  It just comes automatic to me.
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  So that's what goes through my head when I look at a vehicle.
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  I want the superpower, Tony.
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  I want to be able to like look at a car and just be able
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  to pick it apart and see it.
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  I can imagine in your head like explodes into body panels
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  and you can turn it around.
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  It does.
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  Yeah, I'll look at it.
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  I'll look at a shape.
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  Okay, well, that's doable.
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  And maybe this won't be doable.
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  So we're going to change this.
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  And that's just how I think that's my thought process.
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  But yeah, I could just look at it.
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  No, but today that's all different today.
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  We have Draw dye simulators that will simulate the forming
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  of metal in a dye, right?
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  A certain way we're going to tip the dye or shape it.
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  How has that improved the manufacturing process?
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  So being able to actually use the technology before you have
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  to put it into production.
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  How has that improved the whole overall process?
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  It helps most people out who don't understand draw dyes.
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  Because when they see it in a simulation, it clicks in their head.
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  Oh yeah, right?
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  So it makes sense.
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  But we didn't have draw a die simulators years ago.
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  We just knew in our head from doing.
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  Usually a generic fender or a generic quarter panel or a generic door.
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  The guys on the floor know how to make that draw a die, how to develop it.
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  It was all up in our heads, right?
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  They knew where we needed to stretch, and not stretch, and hold a certain way.
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  But today, we have Draw A Dice simulators.
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  They're about 80 percent correct.
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  So, you're already pretty intimate with how to stamp
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  out the Gullwing doors, right?
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  The doors, the doors, the doors.
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  But when I look at the new design, I look at that front end, and as gorgeous as
• 17:18
  it is, it Kind of throws me for this one piece clamshell similar to like a Viper
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  or a Lotus Elise and with the reverse popping hood like an E30 or a Corvette.
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  So do you see that as maybe one of the more challenging
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  pieces to create on the new car?
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  Yes, absolutely.
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  When you look at a car and you look at all the shapes, right, you
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  have to remember a die and a press only run straight up and down.
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  So when you design your die, you have to design to shape in the tip of the
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  actual, say, we'll say a fender, right?
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  What has to be tipped a certain way for backdraft angles, because that
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  press only runs perpendicularly, right?
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  That's it.
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  We know this, so we figure out how we're going to get the shape.
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  Do we need another die to get a certain angle to kick it in?
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  We have to remember that.
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  Press and it goes straight up and down.
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  Do you think that with the advent of technology, we're going to lose some
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  of what is gained by somebody like you who has all the knowledge because you
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  understand the process so intimately?
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  We as humans can put together much more disparate information
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  than a computer because the computer has to be told to do so.
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  And from what you've been describing and from working with you, it seems as
• 18:35
  though these new simulators are going to actually start to cause some loss
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  of innovation in this process because the masters will no longer be able
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  to pull a car apart in their head.
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  And figure out how to do it better.
• 18:48
  Exactly right.
• 18:50
  Yeah.
• 18:50
  Kind of like learning math.
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  We didn't have calculators years ago.
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  You had to learn and just do it.
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  So once you get a calculator, well you lose the ability
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  to learn your math skills.
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  It's the same thing with simulators.
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  You need to learn hands on to really get a grasp on it.
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  These simulators, they're just aids.
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  But yeah, same thing.
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  If you have it, then you rely on it as a crutch, but it's a help.
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  It's a tool.
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  There's some value in what's learned when you have to work
• 19:22
  through troubleshoot things.
• 19:24
  My experience working with Tony, he's able to come up with some of the most
• 19:28
  fantastic ideas and thoughts just out of the blue, because you'll start talking
• 19:33
  about some component of the car and.
• 19:35
  Hearing him describe it, I can now picture every conversation
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  that he was picturing everything in his head and picking it apart.
• 19:42
  Just listening to this conversation, that's a masterful skill that has to
• 19:46
  come from years of troubleshooting.
• 19:48
  Tony has talked about just some of the ways that he's been able to innovate.
• 19:52
  Solutions that I think have led to somebody who can understand
• 19:56
  how to change things and bring you to a new way of doing it.
• 20:00
  Oh, yeah.
• 20:01
  You have a saying you learn by doing.
• 20:04
  Yes.
• 20:05
  Throw you to the wolves and you go to work, figure it out.
• 20:08
  Because if it's not you, who else is it going to be?
• 20:10
  Tony's going to teach me how to do it all, including forging and fire, because now
• 20:15
  everybody in the world wants to do that.
• 20:16
  And Tony's going to teach us.
• 20:18
  You can thank History Channel for that.
• 20:20
  Yeah.
• 20:21
  You don't want to be doing a blindfolded before you know it.
• 20:23
  Let's rewind the Wayback Machine for a moment.
• 20:26
  What was one of the most challenging things for you as the
• 20:29
  tool and die guy on the DMC 12?
• 20:32
  Was it the gullwing doors or was there something else about the original car
• 20:35
  that posed, you know, a challenge that you had to kind of adapt and overcome to?
• 20:39
  Uh, the doors were the most challenging.
• 20:42
  The hood's flat.
• 20:44
  That was the easy part.
• 20:45
  Well, isn't there all controversy over that too, depending on when it was
• 20:48
  built, the hoods are actually different, or so you guys change something,
• 20:52
  flap or no flap, I lose track of it.
• 20:54
  Right, so we call those engineering changes or developments along the way.
• 21:02
  So yeah, those are the things we do, right?
• 21:03
  We either put a flap in or no flap.
• 21:06
  When the incremental changes are made, On modern cars on the DeLorean,
• 21:10
  what happens to the old dyes?
• 21:12
  Are they able to be modified to be repurposed?
• 21:15
  Are they just gotten rid of what happens to them?
• 21:18
  No.
• 21:18
  So small changes, we can modify the diet.
• 21:21
  It's fairly easy.
• 21:22
  Yeah.
• 21:22
  There's no reason to make for a small change to make a whole new bag.
• 21:25
  You know, not unless you have a radical change where it makes sense
• 21:30
  when they get rid of a model year.
• 21:32
  So the Corvette, you know, see it.
• 21:34
  So C7.
• 21:36
  Body dyes, what happens to those, do those get destroyed so that nobody can make them
• 21:41
  or do they get sent to somebody who can then continue to make them after market?
• 21:46
  Yes, what happens to the old body dyes is they still have to make replacement
• 21:53
  parts for 10 years afterwards.
• 21:55
  So for replacement parts, usually before the end of the run, they'll
• 21:58
  try to stock up the warehouse.
• 22:00
  For service parts, but after that, they'll have a another
• 22:05
  company just run service parts.
• 22:07
  That's all they do.
• 22:08
  They'll just run service parts for the 10 years for whatever, you know, damage rust.
• 22:13
  And that's the way it is after the 10 years.
• 22:15
  Well, I'd have to say, what's the demand of the vehicle, right?
• 22:19
  Perfect example, 55 through 57 Thunderbird.
• 22:22
  I had worked for the bud company in Detroit in the late 80s.
• 22:26
  The Thunderbird Club bought and stored the dyes there, and we ran
• 22:30
  replacement parts in the late 80s for the 55 through 57 Thunderbird.
• 22:35
  So, It depends on the demand.
• 22:37
  So you think maybe you just have to run service parts for 10 years, but
• 22:41
  that's not always true, depending on the demand of the vehicle.
• 22:44
  Of course, DMC is one of them, right?
• 22:46
  We still need replacement parts 40 years later.
• 22:50
  So it just depends.
• 22:51
  But for the most part, they usually have to run service parts.
• 22:54
  Notice he said nobody kept the 58 to 60 square bird dies though.
• 22:59
  They were like, no, we're putting those in the ocean.
• 23:01
  Nobody wants parts for those supply and demand, right?
• 23:06
  Tony, you've had a very extensive career in the automotive industry.
• 23:09
  And like you said, you met John at MSI and, and, you know, you worked at DMC
• 23:13
  and everything else, but you also found yourself at Chrysler for a long time.
• 23:17
  Tell us about some of the cars you worked on.
• 23:19
  Some of the things that we would notice right away and go, that's.
• 23:21
  Car that Tony V built the dyes for.
• 23:24
  It wasn't all me, right?
• 23:26
  It was at this point, you know, it's the company, right?
• 23:28
  But what I was involved in at Chrysler was the Ram truck, the Dodge Dakota,
• 23:35
  Jeep Grand Cherokee, Chrysler's minivan.
• 23:39
  And.
• 23:40
  Part of the regular Cherokee.
• 23:42
  I had covered all those vehicles.
• 23:44
  I thought you were gonna say like Aries K car, but no, that's Well, you know We
• 23:52
  did do some stampings for those, right?
• 23:54
  Well, it's all good.
• 23:55
  Did it Mike work on parts for the Viper though?
• 23:58
  Oh, absolutely.
• 23:59
  Yeah He had a little different career than me.
• 24:02
  He just stayed there for 40 years and he got the chance
• 24:06
  to do all the exotic vehicles.
• 24:08
  Mike, I got to work on the, uh, Ford GT, custom made panels, right?
• 24:13
  Heaton wall for some of those shapes.
• 24:15
  He also worked on the Viper.
• 24:17
  And numerous other vehicles, Mike is the other gentleman on our team who works with
• 24:23
  Tony in Detroit, who also worked on the first cars that were built in Detroit.
• 24:27
  Yeah, both Mike and I worked on the DMC together.
• 24:30
  Were you in Ireland then with everybody else?
• 24:33
  No, no, no, no.
• 24:34
  Everything that all that was done in Detroit.
• 24:36
  And then shipped overseas for assembly.
• 24:38
  Yes, so what happened was the prototype dies were done here in Detroit.
• 24:43
  And the prototype build was done here in Detroit.
• 24:47
  The first 500 cars were actually manufactured here in Detroit
• 24:51
  with the prototype dies.
• 24:53
  That's the story that I've been told about.
• 24:56
  So basically the first 500 were done in Detroit.
• 24:59
  Interesting.
• 24:59
  So do they still exist?
• 25:01
  Cause I've heard things about the VIN numbers.
• 25:03
  Don't start at one and all that kind of thing.
• 25:06
  That part of the story.
• 25:07
  I don't know.
• 25:08
  Cause there are the other, the early, early variants.
• 25:11
  Even there's the pictures of your dad with Jujaro with the JZD and then the DSV that
• 25:15
  preceded it and all that kind of stuff.
• 25:17
  I wonder where those cars ended up.
• 25:19
  Are they in a museum somewhere?
• 25:20
  Are they locked in a crate, like, with the dyes?
• 25:23
  What's weird is that I know that my dad had six.
• 25:28
  That were on our farm in New Jersey.
• 25:29
  I have a photograph.
• 25:31
  The Peterson Museum has one of their prototypes, don't they?
• 25:35
  There's Proto 1 and then Proto 2, but there's also another prototype
• 25:40
  car that to some extent exists.
• 25:44
  But the first 500 DMCs, it's very interesting because you're not the first
• 25:48
  person to ask, where are these cars?
• 25:50
  Where are these cars?
• 25:51
  And I have no idea.
• 25:54
  This is a new mystery that's turned up.
• 25:56
  Maybe somebody knows.
• 25:57
  Maybe it's like when you get a checkbook for the first time and
• 26:00
  they ask you what number you want to start at and you just go from there.
• 26:05
  I believe historically they either used the prototypes for crash tests, maybe
• 26:11
  they weren't so called street legal at the time, maybe they have to destroy them.
• 26:15
  That's a good point because a lot of the cars were crashed for crash tests.
• 26:19
  It could be that a good portion of them were crash tested.
• 26:23
  It could be that the early cars to belong to special enough
• 26:27
  people that they're locked away.
• 26:29
  Yeah, somebody's really special collection.
• 26:32
  Yeah, we just don't know.
• 26:33
  But it's definitely a question that has come up quite a few
• 26:37
  times during this journey.
• 26:38
  What happened to your dad's cars?
• 26:40
  And what happened to the early cars?
• 26:42
  And why does it bins all weird?
• 26:44
  I don't know.
• 26:44
  Hopefully we'll find out.
• 26:46
  You've had a, again, a long, illustrious career working in different organizations
• 26:50
  within Motown in Detroit, and now you find yourself as the Senior Director
• 26:54
  of Manufacturing and Quality for DNG.
• 26:57
  So, what are you thinking?
• 26:59
  This is huge.
• 27:00
  Way huge.
• 27:01
  Way huge.
• 27:02
  I am so honored to be working with Kat and Jason.
• 27:07
  and everybody on the car.
• 27:10
  It's such an honor.
• 27:11
  I'm excited.
• 27:12
  I'm ecstatic.
• 27:13
  There's no words to describe it.
• 27:15
  Grateful.
• 27:16
  Something I've always wanted to do.
• 27:18
  Whatever I could do to help, because what John has done for me.
• 27:23
  I think a lot of people might be thinking, well, manufacturing and quality, that's,
• 27:26
  that's like after the fact, right?
• 27:28
  Especially the quality part, but you're involved.
• 27:30
  In the process right now, right alongside Angel, who's refining the design.
• 27:35
  Everybody else is getting involved, you know, in this massive circus.
• 27:38
  That is what car companies are, right?
• 27:40
  Like we talked about in the intro, it's so many people to make this happen.
• 27:43
  So what are you thinking about?
• 27:46
  You're obviously interfacing with a bunch of people.
• 27:48
  What have you suggested?
• 27:49
  Any changes yet?
• 27:51
  You know, other things that are on your mind about the new design.
• 27:53
  The new design in my head, I want to make exactly.
• 27:59
  As Angel would want the best of my ability and we're going to give them if we have
• 28:04
  to change something for a reason, we're going to talk about it and tell them what
• 28:09
  I see fit for a form or how we're going to match up a door to a quarter panel.
• 28:17
  Or a hood to a fender or vice versa.
• 28:19
  That's what we go through, right?
• 28:21
  But we want to try to give Angel exactly what he wants, what he's looking for.
• 28:27
  So have you already started putting together the prototype dyes yet?
• 28:30
  And I guess the question that we didn't ask that goes along with that, how
• 28:33
  long does it take to construct a dye?
• 28:36
  Well, that's a huge question.
• 28:38
  Usually once we get the green light to go, three months.
• 28:45
  And that also depends on the material you're making it out of.
• 28:48
  Yeah, it depends on the material, right?
• 28:49
  We'll have to tune it in to the type of material we use, but the
• 28:54
  shape will generally be the same.
• 28:57
  We'll just need to process a little bit.
• 28:59
  If the decision gets made to go 100 percent stainless again, do
• 29:04
  you see anything getting in the way of making that successful?
• 29:09
  Or has the manufacturing process for stainless changed?
• 29:13
  Enough in the last 40 years that it's it's just like anything else
• 29:16
  when I first saw the new car design.
• 29:20
  I pictured everything in stainless and what it would take to make it work.
• 29:24
  If you could do that in stainless, you can make it out of anything after that.
• 29:30
  So this is actually a great time to talk about some of the challenges that arose
• 29:33
  trying to make the car out of stainless.
• 29:35
  So we have a couple of different things that we need to address.
• 29:39
  In creating a car in a company, there's a whole order of operations
• 29:43
  that you go in, which was blown away by everybody coming and saying, here
• 29:47
  you go, let's skip all the steps.
• 29:49
  We have a situation where we have a lot of things before most people
• 29:54
  normally would, including the whole team of Incredible people and actually
• 30:01
  an engine and all sorts of things that we shouldn't have at this point.
• 30:05
  One of the things that posed a really, really critical challenge was making
• 30:09
  the car out of stainless steel, the funding that's required to do so.
• 30:12
  And the challenge of working with the metal in the time that we have
• 30:16
  to actually build a show car, we are working to address a lot of
• 30:19
  different things in how we actually manufacture the car out of stainless.
• 30:23
  And one of the challenges that I've given my team is.
• 30:26
  My father is not the only person that I need to honor in making this car.
• 30:30
  It's also the people who've kept his legacy alive all these years.
• 30:33
  So it doesn't matter if John would have made it out of stainless today.
• 30:36
  It has to have stainless to honor the people who really
• 30:39
  want to see it in stainless.
• 30:41
  But given what we have available to us today, can we leverage
• 30:45
  what new technologies, new ways of manufacturing new ideas?
• 30:49
  That we can use to make it lighter because the stainless car is heavy.
• 30:53
  So what can we do to actually manufacture it and still maintain that look and
• 30:59
  then have something that's lighter.
• 31:01
  A lot of the ways that we've come up with, they either work or they don't.
• 31:05
  One of the other things that is important to address is the
• 31:08
  positive intent of the stainless.
• 31:10
  which was to make it cost effective for the owner to maintain.
• 31:14
  So if we can't make it out of a solid stainless panel for whatever reason,
• 31:18
  what can we do to honor that aspect?
• 31:20
  How do we still make it look the same, have the same stylistic aspects to it
• 31:25
  and be able to meet the challenges.
• 31:27
  And as we go along, we're taking notes of the changes and the things
• 31:30
  that we have to do because it allows us to address the questions such as.
• 31:35
  Why does the DeLorean have a Renault Tension?
• 31:37
  There are reasons for these things.
• 31:39
  They all have to do with the challenges that we're currently
• 31:41
  facing and trying to manufacture this car exactly the way my father did.
• 31:45
  Tony has been incredible coming up with some really unique out of the box ways
• 31:49
  that we might be able to actually build this car and keep it 2, 500 pounds
• 31:54
  instead of 3, 200 pounds, make it actually go really fast and handle very well.
• 32:00
  If that comes under advanced manufacturing, I would say.
• 32:03
  Yeah.
• 32:04
  It's been a lot of fun, though, because what we also get to do is think outside
• 32:08
  the box and brainstorm some pretty crazy and fun ideas, and these guys
• 32:12
  are brilliant, and I'm having the time of my life learning things I never
• 32:18
  thought I didn't know about making cars.
• 32:22
  Well, now's a perfect opportunity.
• 32:24
  Time to do this right now, right?
• 32:26
  So it's fabulous.
• 32:28
  If you look back in automotive history, we're sort of repeating ourselves in a
• 32:32
  way, not necessarily the DeLorean story.
• 32:35
  What I'm getting at is if you look at the 1920s versus the 2020s in
• 32:40
  the original twenties, there were all these boutique manufacturers.
• 32:44
  And you see it now with the rise in the advent of EVs.
• 32:47
  Every time you turn around, some new company is developing some
• 32:51
  alternative fuel vehicle, whether it's electric, hydrogen or otherwise.
• 32:55
  And then eventually the market course corrects itself and they get
• 32:58
  absorbed by the bigger companies just like they did back then.
• 33:01
  The truly inventive survive, right?
• 33:03
  And then they flourish from that point.
• 33:05
  I see that.
• 33:06
  With this car in a lot of ways, and all the things that have been privy to thus
• 33:10
  far, you know, the kind of out of the box thinking and revolutionary ideas.
• 33:14
  I think you guys are the pointy end of the sphere when it comes
• 33:17
  to some of these techniques.
• 33:19
  I'm really curious to see how it plays out because.
• 33:22
  The engine packaging alone makes a huge difference on the body panels
• 33:26
  themselves because internal combustion engine or a hybrid even for that
• 33:31
  matter, you don't have to worry so much as like a negatively charged
• 33:35
  body like you would end up with an EV.
• 33:37
  And then you have issues with if it wasn't in stainless steel with the
• 33:42
  painting process and even the Let's say the car care application process,
• 33:46
  you have to get specially manufactured waxes and things to work with EVs.
• 33:50
  A lot of people don't realize that when they buy a Tesla or
• 33:53
  Lucid Air or something like that.
• 33:54
  So to your point, Kat, there's so many different pieces of this down to the,
• 33:59
  how do we do the LEDs and the brake light to how do we keep it light?
• 34:03
  How do we make the Bonnie panels and all that?
• 34:05
  And I think there's some compromises out there.
• 34:07
  We talked about this it's like maybe a composite material, something space age.
• 34:12
  Something that hasn't been thought of before.
• 34:14
  There is a huge challenge with building a car in Detroit, which is what we've
• 34:19
  promised and what we are working to do.
• 34:22
  I want to manufacture it there because I want to be able to give work to
• 34:26
  the people who are there, which is more important to me than the
• 34:29
  building of the car, but when you have people who can hand build the car.
• 34:33
  Out of composite materials and produce the same car without actually having to build
• 34:39
  any dyes and you can save money like that.
• 34:42
  You have an opportunity to produce something that you can
• 34:44
  actually show people while you work on the manufacturing process.
• 34:48
  Because you do have to build those dyes.
• 34:51
  And one of the ways that we've been talking about is if you hand build the
• 34:54
  car out of composite, the stainless panels become something that is much
• 34:59
  more of a challenge because then they would have to be hand formed for the car.
• 35:02
  That's a little Pagani area for me when it comes to the price of the car.
• 35:06
  And I love those cars, but I'd like to not have mine cost that.
• 35:10
  One of the things that I asked was specifically, can we get a wrap?
• 35:14
  I was told that that would not translate.
• 35:17
  white as well.
• 35:18
  But we are looking into an alternative way to actually create that thin
• 35:22
  sheet of metal to go on top.
• 35:24
  One of the problems that that has is it becomes merely a stylistic component.
• 35:30
  And then we have the aspect of the body panels could end up in
• 35:35
  a landfill because they can't be recycled and broken back down.
• 35:38
  If we cover the composite with the metal, how can we then recover the materials
• 35:43
  from it and turn it into something that matches my father's positive intent?
• 35:47
  Because Part of the reason why the panels weren't stainless was so that they could
• 35:51
  be sent back to the factory, melted back down and body panels made from
• 35:55
  crashed cars, making it incredibly cost effective for the owner to actually own.
• 35:59
  Now, all of these things are next to impossible to implement
• 36:04
  into a one off prototype.
• 36:09
  So having something that's going to be affordable in a prototype
• 36:13
  is not a realistic thing.
• 36:15
  But we're using this whole process to find out how do we
• 36:18
  reduce the cost of manufacture?
• 36:20
  What materials can we use?
• 36:21
  What processes?
• 36:22
  How can we distribute the manufacturing to actually bring the
• 36:25
  cost down by simply going to unique places never thought of before?
• 36:29
  How do we create a new way of doing it and a new way of building the car where we can
• 36:36
  give both the people what they want and still be able to meet these challenges.
• 36:41
  If I fail, you'll know why I failed and how I failed and what needs to be done
• 36:44
  differently in order to succeed next time.
• 36:47
  But we're going to have a car, it's going to be amazing.
• 36:50
  And It better be stainless steel of some kind.
• 36:54
  Yeah.
• 36:55
  And we'll get it.
• 36:56
  Not a problem.
• 36:57
  The fun part's going to be everybody being able to learn a little bit more
• 37:01
  than they ever knew before about how this all goes down, because we're going to
• 37:05
  take everybody along with us and explain what's going on to tell my father's story.
• 37:10
  So that's the fabulous part about this, bringing people on board and collaborating
• 37:16
  different stories together, right.
• 37:18
  And learning from one another.
• 37:20
  Extremely happy to be part of this, ecstatic.
• 37:22
  It's going to be a great venture.
• 37:24
  The way that we're working together, from what I've been learning about
• 37:28
  how everything's always been done before, it's truly a unique experience.
• 37:32
  And the way that we're going about it, the way that everybody has come together
• 37:36
  to do this, the collaboration, the minds.
• 37:39
  The people who've come forth to participate have astonished me.
• 37:43
  They're truly geniuses together.
• 37:47
  We are definitely my father's mind.
• 37:49
  I can tell you that much, which is saying a lot.
• 37:52
  Thank you for orchestrating all this, right?
• 37:55
  No, you all found me and said, let's build a car.
• 37:57
  And all I'm here is.
• 38:00
  To be the person to run the meeting is really all I do.
• 38:05
  I guess that's what a leader's job is.
• 38:07
  Is to let their people do exactly their great stuff.
• 38:11
  They truly are remarkable.
• 38:12
  And I don't think anybody has ever had this much fun building something
• 38:17
  as stressful as a car company.
• 38:19
  Well, we try to keep it fun as much as we can, right?
• 38:22
  There's a serious side too to it, but we have fun along the way.
• 38:26
  For sure.
• 38:26
  I just love collaborating on different ideas all the time.
• 38:30
  It's just fabulous.
• 38:31
  CAD has me really thinking outside the box when it comes
• 38:36
  to creative and manufacturing.
• 38:38
  With your experience in the industry, I mean, obviously you're bringing
• 38:42
  that to the table, which is...
• 38:43
  To cat's point, kind of shortcutting the process and there's a lot
• 38:46
  involved in this, but you're passing that knowledge on right?
• 38:49
  Rather than us going, how do we use a simulator to make this work?
• 38:52
  But there's the other side of the paradigm here, which is the stem program.
• 38:59
  I want to address your involvement in that and how you
• 39:03
  take everything that's in your.
• 39:05
  Vast experience and translate that down to high school and college
• 39:08
  kids that don't know a spanner from a wrench at the end of the day.
• 39:13
  So how are you planning on turning this into an educational moment for them?
• 39:17
  See what their knowledge is at the time and keep it simple enough.
• 39:23
  To where they understand it and run with it from there.
• 39:27
  So are you going to have them maybe building scaled versions of the dies and
• 39:32
  stuff to stamp out like smaller models?
• 39:34
  We can do that.
• 39:35
  Yes, absolutely.
• 39:35
  1 18th scale, please.
• 39:37
  That's, that's all I'm going to say about that.
• 39:41
  So, you know, what was funny when Kat and I first met, we got on a
• 39:46
  conversation to ask, can we source some fenders or parts out of stainless?
• 39:52
  And my first question is, sure, how many you want?
• 39:56
  Uh, then it turned into building a car.
• 39:58
  Okay, then I, I said, okay, how many you want?
• 40:02
  Just having that knowledge and to be able to pass it on to somebody.
• 40:07
  For me, it would be easy, right, but to explain it to somebody,
• 40:12
  and they can, a person can only grasp so much knowledge at once.
• 40:15
  So, you have to be careful and keep it simple in the beginning
• 40:19
  and work with it and go from there.
• 40:22
  Once you know the whole process, it's...
• 40:25
  Fairly fundamental.
• 40:27
  It just depends on a person and how fast it clicks.
• 40:29
  My experts that I have, what I've been asking them along the way is for what I
• 40:35
  like to call how to put on your socks.
• 40:38
  Jason told me about a basketball coach.
• 40:42
  Who would have his players put their socks on correctly with the seam in the
• 40:46
  correct place because then they could play longer without their feet hurting.
• 40:49
  So what we want to do is what are those fundamental things to think
• 40:53
  about and teach and create muscle memory for What will create a good
• 40:59
  manufacturer or a good engineer?
• 41:01
  And so each of my experts in the field, particularly useful are people who have
• 41:07
  that knowledge prior to simulators, it seems, what are the things that we could
• 41:12
  have the students do that will form this fundamental knowledge that can then be
• 41:17
  built upon when they go into the job space and create somebody who has a stronger
• 41:21
  foundation to be able to learn it faster.
• 41:24
  And Dan Milliman, in his book, The Complete Warrior's Way,
• 41:28
  he was a coach of gymnastics.
• 41:31
  And he said, he sees natural talent as the ability to learn something faster,
• 41:36
  not the ability to learn something better.
• 41:39
  It's just that other people need more time.
• 41:42
  To be taught it.
• 41:43
  So if we can bring people up to that base level by giving them the exercises
• 41:49
  and the foundational knowledge they need to be able to learn it on the
• 41:52
  job, just as fast as everybody else, or send them with the skills to know
• 41:57
  how to ask for what they need to be able to get what they need to learn it.
• 42:01
  The way that everybody else does, then we can create people who can just
• 42:06
  excel and enjoy what they're doing.
• 42:08
  I've been working a lot, asking a lot of questions and Tony helped me very early
• 42:14
  on to map out some of the classes we have.
• 42:17
  The vocational schools, they start a little earlier in Detroit,
• 42:20
  but most schools, you can't take auto shop until junior year.
• 42:24
  We want to have something that can actually work with the other teachers and
• 42:29
  be able to tie their knowledge in their automotive program to other subjects.
• 42:34
  For instance, How did World War Two impact the automotive industry so that
• 42:39
  you understand how that happened or what can you learn about your customers in
• 42:44
  sociology and how that can impact how you design a car because you understand more
• 42:49
  about humanity, everything that we learn.
• 42:51
  As we're out there experiencing the world, every subject that we take pertains
• 42:55
  to what goes into automotive design.
• 42:58
  Because it's all about the people, the marketing, the build,
• 43:01
  the manufacturing, the safety.
• 43:03
  All of these things have components in all of the subjects we learn.
• 43:06
  So how do we teach them to think about all of it and put it all together in the end?
• 43:10
  And that's where my experts come in.
• 43:12
  But I'll tell you a secret.
• 43:14
  We are working on virtual reality manufacturing labs.
• 43:19
  For the students to be able to practice some of these skills and immerse
• 43:23
  them in things that they normally wouldn't be able to experience due
• 43:26
  to safety or location, fun story.
• 43:30
  I go to a car show in celebration, usually in the spring.
• 43:34
  I haven't gotten since COVID, but it's an amazing car show and
• 43:39
  they raise money for make a wish.
• 43:40
  And I got to meet these two wonderful people, Douglas Saunders and Nick Kambata.
• 43:45
  They're just.
• 43:46
  incredible and so much fun and we've become really good friends over
• 43:49
  the years and they've been working on this incredible virtual reality
• 43:52
  platform that they're focusing on for what it's designed for now.
• 43:56
  But I said, as we go and build this out, would you consider
• 43:59
  working on a virtual reality lab?
• 44:01
  Hopefully we can make that a reality too, because that would expand access to
• 44:06
  this knowledge to so many more students.
• 44:08
  And that's what we're trying to do.
• 44:09
  Nice, obviously the program is going to be limited in the number of people that
• 44:13
  we can put in the seats in the DNG STEM program for the listeners out there,
• 44:19
  or maybe even folks that are in the industry right now, I happen to know a
• 44:24
  few myself, any words of wisdom, anything you can pass on to them, maybe some
• 44:28
  lessons learned in the field that you'd like to share with these folks as well.
• 44:31
  The biggest thing is giving the opportunity to do it.
• 44:35
  Giving the opportunity in working with a group of people and bounce out ideas
• 44:41
  off one another is just how it's done.
• 44:44
  Pass this knowledge down to everybody we can, to the next generation.
• 44:49
  What I'm going to enjoy doing.
• 44:50
  I can eat meat.
• 44:53
  The DeLorean Legacy Project is dedicated to extolling the
• 44:56
  positive impact of John Z.
• 44:58
  DeLorean and his creations on this world, that continue to this day
• 45:03
  through the fans and owners of his cars.
• 45:05
  The DeLorean Legacy Project's mission is to change the world one person at a time.
• 45:10
  To learn more about the project, check out www.
• 45:13
  deloreanlegacy.
• 45:14
  org Or follow them on social at DeLoreanLegacy on Twitter.
• 45:18
  You can catch up with Kat on social media at Kat DeLorean on Instagram at Katherine.
• 45:23
  DeLorean on Facebook.
• 45:25
  And you can learn about this stellar new cutting edge technology DNG Motors
• 45:30
  vehicle in Inspired by Angel, Tony, and a cast of other folks at www.
• 45:38
  dngmotors.
• 45:39
  com or follow the cars build progress at dng.
• 45:43
  motors on Instagram and Facebook or at dngmotors on Twitter.
• 45:48
  So Tony, I can't thank you enough for coming on Brake Fix and sharing your
• 45:52
  wealth of experience with us, talking us through the old days of both the
• 45:55
  DMC 12 and the heyday of Motown, sharing some of your insight on how
• 46:00
  the new car is going to be built.
• 46:01
  So we'll be keeping up with you and watching the progress.
• 46:04
  And I think all of us are saying the same thing.
• 46:06
  We can't wait to see this thing in person.
• 46:08
  I'm going to always thank my team, including you, Eric.
• 46:12
  Without you guys, I could definitely not be doing what I'm doing right now.
• 46:16
  I am only as good at this as all of you are helping me be,
• 46:21
  so always and always, thank you.
• 46:23
  Yeah, thank you.
• 46:25
  Thank you.
• 46:25
  Again, it's everybody involved, right?
• 46:28
  Extreme cooperation is just fabulous.
• 46:31
  Thank you for having us.
• 46:33
  Thank you for hosting us.
• 46:35
  We'll be talking again, right?
• 46:38
  I can't wait.
• 46:44
  If you like what you've heard and want to learn more about GTM,
• 46:46
  be sure to check us out on www.
• 46:48
  gtmotorsports.
• 46:50
  org.
• 46:51
  You can also find us on Instagram at Grand Touring Motorsports.
• 46:54
  Also, if you want to get involved or have suggestions for future shows, you can call
• 46:59
  or text us at 202 630 1770, or send us an email at crewchief at gtmotorsports.
• 47:06
  org.
• 47:06
  We'd love to hear from you.
• 47:08
  Hey everybody, Crew Chief Eric here.
• 47:11
  We really hope you enjoyed this episode of Break Fix, and we wanted
• 47:14
  to remind you that GTM remains a no annual fees organization, and our goal
• 47:20
  is to continue to bring you quality episodes like this one at no charge.
• 47:24
  As a loyal listener, please consider subscribing to our Patreon for
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• 47:48
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• 47:49
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• 47:56
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