RAND MEETS REALITY (via Rick Turley):

DeLorean: a vision clouded by vanity: The automaker lived fast and his burnished dream died young, the icon of an age of excess. (Dan Neil, March 23, 2005, LA Times)

The death of John Z. DeLorean on Saturday put me in mind of a 15th century English epitaph: "His life was a well-acted story of himself." Talk about drama: The love-starved son of an alcoholic foundry worker, DeLorean rose on his native intellect and fierce energy to lead first General Motors' Pontiac division — credited with cars such as the GTO and Grand Prix — beginning in 1965, then the Chevrolet division (starting in 1969). In 1972, he attained the vice-presidency of GM in record time. If one were to storyboard this moment in the inevitable DeLorean bio-pic, the camera would pull out on the empty, expectant chair of GM's presidency.

In true cinematic fashion, it was not to be. [...]

There are two versions of DeLorean's fate at GM, both seemingly true and both instructive. In the first, DeLorean wearies of GM's dull dynasticism and engineering by ledger sheet and, like Ayn Rand's Howard Roark, quits rather than compromise. The second: DeLorean was a fop and a fool whose personal excesses and vanity — the plastic surgery, the Carnaby Street mod togs, the swinging singles pads, the half-his-age wives and girlfriends — were so repellent that, when he threatened to resign in a tantrum, the GM board let him.

What if DeLorean and GM had reconciled?

It certainly seems now they needed each other. GM needed the bold strokes of an unconventional thinker such as DeLorean. He needed the coat-and-tie discipline of the 14th floor. If the collapse of the DeLorean Motor Co. proves anything, it's that the bean-counters have their place.

How often life conspires to teach us the wisdom of conservative dicta:

The good society is marked by a high degree of order, justice, and freedom. Among these, order has primacy: for justice cannot be enforced until a tolerable civil social order is attained, nor can freedom be anything better than violence until order gives us laws.
-- Russell Kirk

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 23, 2005 6:56 AM