Jay Leno loves the new DeLorean

Irish car was once a sensation

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Jay Leno has come out in favor of the new DeLorean, the Belfast-made sports car once famous for its role in 'Back to the Future' films.

The car is now being manufactured again in Texas by Liverpool businessman Steve Wynne.

Jay Leno – a car nut – says the new DeLorean car "looks even better in reality than it does in pictures,”

The NBC star added: “It certainly looks cool and it’s fun to drive... and when you’re going down the road everyone wants to look at it. It’s unique — and everyone has a reaction to it.”

The car has its trademark gull-wing doors and stainless steel body and was once the sensation of the auto world .

It was manufactured in Belfast by John DeLorean ,the former whizz kid executive at General Motors who went bankrupt in 1982 after drug trafficking charges. The British government lost untold millions when the plant closed ,

“A lot of people in Northern Ireland put their hearts and souls into the vehicle – and they got hurt,” said Leno, 59.

At its peak, some 9,000 DeLoreans were made at the huge Belfast plant – and rather too hastily, it seems.

But quality was generally poor, the car was slower than it looked and the stainless steel exterior was easily marked.  Wynne and his team have done it right this time however.

“The original DeLorean company did not fall apart in Belfast because it was a bad car; it fell apart because of bad management,” Leno wrote in the  Sunday Times.

“Now, they are literally being made as good as new.”

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