On Thursday, the DeLorean World Tour team arrived in Houston (specifically at the DMC-Texas facility in Humble), driving their three stock, but slightly modified DeLoreans.
Wolfgang Hank, Klaus Steiner and Andre Springer where the three driving team members, while Sven Sabrowski and others back in Germany took care of travel logistics for them.
By their own admission, Wolfgang is the mechanic for the group, Klaus is the navigator, Andre, the quiet one, finds all the good places to eat, and Sven handles all the logistics.
The World Tour distance is some 37,900km, originating in Austria, and traveling through the Balkans, Middle East, India, Singapore, Australia, North America, Iceland and terminating in Ireland, in April, just in time for EUROFEST 2016.
In Humble, after initial introductions were all put to rest, there was a time for Wolfgang, Klaus and Andre to answer lots of questions about their adventure, and the numerous questions about their specially marked cars.
Since we here in Houston were not anywhere near their first stop, I know the world tour team has answered the same questions over-and-over-and-over again.
We appreciate their patience with our seemingly endless questions about the stock (but slightly modified) DeLoreans.
Numerous photo opportunities abounded, and lots of stories were told throughout the afternoon.
Next, Stephen Wynne and James Espey personally led the driving team on a warehouse tour of the Humble facility. Rows and rows of fenders, doors, engines, transmissions, glass, and about a ga-zillion parts of every size and shape were seen.
While Wolfgang was mostly discussing technical issues, Klaus could be seen off by himself at times taking pictures of the rows and rows of parts and inventory and complete DeLoreans awaiting refurbishment.
After the warehouse tour and lots of shop talk, there was time to take a load off, sit down and do some serious story telling.
Wolfgang wowed us with stories about the intricacies of getting through customs in various countries, where they had trouble, and where they sailed through.
Klaus told me that, surprisingly, they had a difficult time getting clearance getting through the border from Canada into the United States.
While not usually difficult, Klaus explained that they had to declare that they had been in Iran recently, and this raised a red flag to the border officials, and some significant paperwork had to be done, or re-done, for the team to finally gain clearance into the United States.
All photos by Thomas Kidd (click images to enlarge).
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Photo 1 - At first arrival (around 3PM), the World Tour had parked their cars close to the entrance of the Humble DMC facilty.
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Photo 2 - Andre's World Tour car.
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Photo 3 - Klaus' World Tour car.
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Photo 4 - Wolfgang's World Tour car. The secret here, regarding this and photos 2 and 3, and as revealed by Wolfgang himself,
is that while it is believed the first name initials put on the hoods of the cars were done so for asthetic reasons.
But the reality is, that they were done that way so that the drivers could more easily see which car was theirs!
Why who got which color? Who knows?
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Photo 5 - Another view.
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Photo 6 - Great graphics on all cars. Very stylish and sophisticated, and worthy of stainless steel cars traveling around the world.
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Photo 7 - The interior dash board in each car was fitted with a special adaptation, which made room for such things as a GPS, fuel guages for the second fuel tank, and misc. other switches and controls.
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Photo 8 - Special vents needed to be added in the RFF, so to assit with fuel and transmission cooling.
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Photo 9 - Stephen Wynne greets the team, along with some of the DMC-Texas staff.
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Photo 10 - (Left to right) Thomas Kidd, Stephen Wynne, Wolfgang Hank, Andre Springer, Klaus Steiner.
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Photo 11 - The DWT team give their traditional "thumbs up" pose, with Stephen.
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Photo 12 - Wolfgang explains to Stephen and James all about modifications to the cars, to accommodate the weight of the spare tire on the outside back, air intake re-routing, and other engine compartment aspects.
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Photo 13 - Bet you never saw a photo of a DeLorean from this angle. I liked the exhaust setup on the World Tour cars.
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Photo 14 - Wolfgang futher discussed the cars and their trip so far.
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Photo 15 - In my opinion, some of the interior aspects about the modified cars were the most interesting. Here Wolfgang goes over some of those modifications.
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Photo 16 - A closer shot of some of the interior modifications.
The are equiped with CB-radios, backup-cameras, cruise-control, tire-pressure-monitoring-systems, an extra-fuel-tank, among other things.
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Photo 17 - Once the group had had its fill of soaking in information about the DWT cars, it was time to move indoors, and have a look at the DMC-Texas showroom.
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Photo 18 - After the showroom, it was on to the shop floor.
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Photo 19 - After the shop floor, Stephen led the DWT team on a warehouse tour. Always very interesting!
Here stacks and stacks of fenders can be seen, along with hoods and transmissions.
While I was the photographer for our local club, Klaus is the photographer for the DWT team, and I often caught him taking pictures for their web site.
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Photo 20 - Occassionally, Klaus would stray away from the warehouse tour off by himself, and try to capture unique photographs to help document their experience.
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Photo 21 - Many DeLoreans awaiting refurbishment were lined up in some of the parts isles.
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Photo 22 - This is the last isle.
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Photo 23 - Back in the shop area, Wolfgang specifically thanks Marcelo, a member of Stephen's staff, for doing such a great job with an order he had prepared for shipment to Wolfgang.
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Photo 24 - In the shipping area now, the team inspects merchandise being made ready for shipment to awaiting customers.
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Photo 25 - In the order processing area, Stephen discussed quality-control, with regard to shipping orders.
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Photo 26 - It's a real pleasure to be able to inspect DeLoreans with the body removed, and frame and engine exposed.
You can see things that you cannot with a fully assembled car.
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Photo 27 - Here two master mechanics, one British and the other German, discuss DeLorean chassis issues.
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Photo 28 - At the end of the warehouse and shop-floor tours, in the customer lounge area, there was time to sit down and rest a bit, and tell stories of the adventure so far.
Wolfgang, Klaus and Andre had lots of interesting things to report, and the discussion time was enjoyed by all.
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Friday, the DWT team’s second day here was a chance for them to meet the local DeLorean club.
DMC-Texas, as many times in the past, again showed their willingness to support the local club by allowing us to assemble, meet, congregate, loiter, malinger, chat, take lots of pictures, and generally cause mayhem at their facility.
Many thanks to Stephen, James, Sarah, Bill and the other staff, for your generous hospitality, and putting up with the local DeLorean geek citizenry again and again.
So after more introductions, story telling, and photography, we caravanned to the Humble City Café for informal dinner, where we could all unwind, and talk more DeLorean stuff.
I personally felt that re-energized about being a DeLorean owner, and participating more in local club activities.
With some new members coming in, I think the visit by the DWT team pumped some new blood into our local club, and so we thank them again for that.
All photos by Thomas Kidd (click images to enlarge).
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Photo 1 - So apropos, the three World Tour cars placed on display in front of the largest DeLorean facility in the world.
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Photo 2 - Being one of the first club members to arrive that day, I was able to get my car in a photo with the three World Tour cars.
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Photo 3 - Some more shop-talk inside the facility.
This time, the talk was specifically about the pros (and cons, if any) of electric power steering, which are installed on all three World Tour cars.
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Photo 4 - Wolfgang gives Sarah good information about his car's setup. He later allowed Sarah to test drive his car.
In the backgroud, Klaus provides Aaron information about his car's setup.
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Photo 5 - A neighborhood resident family saw the commotion on their way home and stopped in.
Here Andre allowed this young future DeLorean owner the chance to sit in his car.
Little does this young man know, that his future is now forever changed, as he has now touched one of the cars he will one day own.
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Photo 6 - Making preparations for a line-up photo.
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Photo 7 - It was difficult to heard-up the group and get them to line up.
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Photo 8 - Ok, moving along now....
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Photo 9 - Now that looks a little better. We're getting there.
We still don't have the BTTF car there in line yet. James, where are you?
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Photo 10 - There we go, the BTTF car now in line at the end, with James Espey at the helm.
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Photo 11 - With the cars in line now, driver-side only doors up, we're getting ready for the photo shoot.
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Photo 12 - Ok, what a great line-up.
Now, if we could just get James, Owen and Stephen out of the way (you should have heard how many times someone asked ME to get out of the way)!.
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Photo 13 - Perfect! (Well, almost).
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Photo 14 - There we go, that's the perfect shot, with Wolfgang capturing the line-up for their DeLorean World Tour and Facebook pages.
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Photo 15 - Another great photo of the line-up, with rain approaching Houston from the west.
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Photo 16 - We're not known for getting our car lineup lines perfectly straight, but hey, still pretty-darn-good!
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Photo 17 - 'Nothing to say here really, except another good angle.
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Photo 18 - Now all finished with the photo shoot, it's time to 'round-up the group, and head for the Humble City Cafe.
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Photo 19 - Wait, there's Klaus again...gotta get that perfect shot.
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Photo 20 - When we finally got underway, we did again get into a some rain. But you know rain never really hurts a DeLorean, as long as it stays on the top-side of the car.
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Photo 21 - Here we are having just arrived and parked, adjacent to the cafe.
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Photo 22 - The DWT team and our local DeLorean club got to meet and talk with one of Humble City's finest.
This officer was a great sport, and agreed to have his picture taken. Thankyou sir, and please stay safe!
On the DWT web site, you will see the picture taken by Stephen, of Wolfgang and the Humble Police Officer.
This is a picture of Stephen taking that picture.
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Photo 23 - I may have to take back what I said earlier about Klaus being the one to drift off from the crowd in search of his own unique photos.
He're Wolfgang doing the same thing, standing in the middle of the street getting a picture of the Humble City Café.
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Photo 24 - We finally get a chance to sit down, look at the menu, and decide on what to have for dinner.
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Photo 25 - James in discussion with Wolfgang and Stephen. Klaus in discussion with Owen.
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Photo 26 - These two have obviously had a little too much...ah, um, well...ice-tea.
We disavow knowing them, they were just two strangers walking by, and decided to have dinner with us.
Anybody know who these people are? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?
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Photo 27 - As we get up to leave after a good dinner, good-byes are said and good-wishes passed on.
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Photo 28 - A final look-over of the cars (it's a good thing there was not much traffic on that street), and we all departed for the evening.
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