Marv Hein
My name is Marv Hein, and I live in Las Vegas, NV, with my wife Terri
and sons Robbie, Peter and David. We moved to Nevada in 1996 to
escape the harsh winters of Rochester, NY. It was there that I
went college and where I saw my only, until now, DeLorean, sometime in
the Fall of 1982. I remember it looking, well, short. And
gray. But then, everything looks gray in Rochester in the
Fall. I don’t know why, but except in the movies, I hadn’t seen
one since. I had recently purchased a 1980 MGB and was only
curious about the DeLorean, which was way out of my league. By
December of 1982, I met Terri, and well, my mind was no longer on cars.
Jump forward to late April of 2005. I’d been driving a 2000 Jaguar
S-Type for a couple of years now and, while happy with the car, the
miles had been growing and the value rapidly depreciating.
Frankly, it had almost become a “been there, done that” car.
Since I owned the car outright and was pretty well even if I sold it, I
started to wonder what I might be able to trade it for that would be
fun to have. I don’t know why, but a DeLorean popped into my
head. I doubted any were around. If any were available, I was
sure they would be more than I could obtain by selling my Jag.
Of course, I headed to the Web and found a variety of ads and eBay
DeLoreans in a price range very close to what I could handle.
I’ve been a private pilot since 1994, but hardly ever get the chance to
fly. This sure looked like the next best thing! I was
instantly hooked.
Terri is practical and a veteran of the MG days. She realized right
away that a 2-seat car will not carry me and three kids when she’s off
somewhere else and I need to do the driving. Of course, I’m
impractical, and said there would be no problem using the D in the
daily grind of Vegas traffic and we’d just trade cars as needed to haul
the kids. After all, you only live once, and as Doc Brown said,
“If I’m going to build a time machine, I might as well do it with
class!”
Keeping in mind that my new car needed to be a daily driver, I sought
low miles and a car that had been driven recently. Ideally, I
wouldn’t have to ship it too far, and it would be even better if I
could drive it home! I bid on two eBay cars and just missed on both
auctions.
Browsing through the ads on dmcnews.com, I happened on a new ad for a
car in Bakersfield, California, with only 10,400 miles. It had
been used as a short-commute daily driver for a couple of years and had
new suspension, hoses, fuel lines, fuel pump, A/C, tires, etc.; things
required for it to be reliable for the previous owner.
I immediately contacted the owner and he sent me quite a nice set of
digital photos. Even though it was way over my original budget, I
started to believe the money spent up front on a clean car would help
me in the long run, certainly in the frustration department. It’s
the motto of a Vegas resident: “Rationalize, rationalize, rationalize.”
I and another buyer offered him full price the same day. Luckily
for me, the other buyer didn’t want to get into a bidding war and the
previous owner, a pilot himself, happened to come to Vegas on
business. We met and pored over more pictures and, kind of
kindred spirits, struck a deal. Two days later, my son and I
rented a car one way to Bakersfield and drove #10820 home that same day.
Since then, I have added close to 1000 miles to the car, fried a fuel
pump in the desert heat and sweated my way through the A/C system to
discover how to get my cabin fan running again. The strong
support I received from members of the Arizona DeLorean club as I
worked through these issues was a major factor in my joining the
club. I only hope I can reciprocate as time goes by.
So, barely a month into ownership, I’ve admitted that maybe even this
very clean D isn’t quite ready to be a daily driver and Terri has
admitted, with the appraisal in, that maybe it was a good
investment. The boys love the car and our dog Molly keeps trying
to tell me she has an uncle named “Einstein” she wants to visit.
As a compromise, I’ve resigned myself to keeping my Jaguar as a backup
(sigh). As my friend John says, “You sure picked the right
woman.” Any time she looks at the new car a little
cross-eyed (I named it “Delores”), I remind her that 1982 is a great
year… the year I saw my first DeLorean, the model year of the DeLorean
I own, and the year I met my wife!
Marv Hein
1982 Grey Interior 5-speed
VIN #10820
