DeLorean

The 1983 DMC DeLorean Time Machine as modified by Doctor Emmett Brown.

A modified 1983 DMC DeLorean is the time machine featured in the motion picture franchise Back to the Future. Built by inventor and scientist Dr. Emmett Brown in 1985, the vehicle is depicted as making journeys to the years 1955, 2015 and 1885. Additional media such as comics, games and animated series, show the car or a version of it travel to other time periods, including the American Civil War, prehistoric earth and ancient civilizations of the Incas, Egyptians and Romans. The vehicle is capable of standard travel through space, as all ground vehicles are, but this ground locomotion is the trigger for its time travel capabilities. When the DeLorean reaches 88 MPH, provided it has sufficient power, the vehicle's "flux capacitor" unit will activate, carrying it and its passengers to the set time coordinates. While the car can only travel through space using the more pedestrian method of gas combustion, expanded media shows a version of the DeLorean capable of vast jumps in space, and not just time, albeit limited to the locality of the earth.

## Description

### Development

In 1955, Dr. Emmett Brown slips and hits his head while hanging a clock in his bathroom, only to be struck with the idea for time travel and the means to make it viable. It's uncertain if he meets Marty McFly on this day in a closed timeline, or if the events of a 1955 where Marty doesn't travel back in time happens "first". Only for Marty to then change history when arriving in 1955 from 1985 after the time machine is built. In either scenario, the "Doc" eventually encounters Marty, a friend he won't make until 30 years in the future, the day he gets the idea to build a time machine. Thus avoiding many of the peculiarities of a Bootstrap Paradox.

When asked why he chose a 1983 DeLorean for his time machine, Brown merely replied, "The way I see it, if you're gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?"

### Functionality

The DeLorean time machine's time travel capabilities are facilitated by a device called the "flux capacitor". The capacitor requires a power output of 1.21 “giga watts” (pronounced *jigowatts* by Doc Brown) and forward locomotion of 88 MPH in order to activate the "time circuits" and achieve time travel. Thus, the prototype version of the vehicle required plutonium and a mini nuclear reactor. This was later improved upon after visiting the future, where the reactor was replaced by a device called "Mr. Fusion", presumably a fusion generator, that can generate enough power using regular household waste.

While the flux capacitor depended on vast amounts of power to operate, the built-in internal combustion engine of the DeLorean remained its primary means of locomotion, even after the advanced modifications made by Brown in the 21st Century. One of those modification gave the vehicle the ability to retract its wheels and become flight capable, which was seemingly also dependent on the car's engine.

The specific destination in time could be set through a control panel on the DeLorean's dashboard, called "time circuits", which displayed time in the format of Month/Day/Year/Hour/Minute, with an led indicating AM or PM. The digital display had three main components: An indicator of your current place in time, an indicator of what time period you last departed from and an interactive display where you set the time you wish to travel to. Essentially, your non-linear past, present and future.

Expanded media went on to give versions of the DeLorean additional functionality. The animated television series of the same name depicts a DeLorean capable of changing shape, expanding to four doors when necessary or even turning into a blimp. Back to the Future: The Game shows the DeLorean fitted with an automatic retrieval system. Back to the Future: The Ride features a DeLorean modified to be a convertible, as well as seat eight passengers.

### Durability

The DeLorean had no special modifications making it more durable than your standard vehicle, as it was shown smashed to bits in a train crash and even taking damage from a bow and arrow. Doc Brown also commented that they couldn't obstruct Biff Tannen's 1946 Ford De Luxe Convertible with their vehicle, as Biff would "*rip through us like we were tin foil"*, suggesting the DeLorean was primarily made from its stock fiberglass components. So it's unknown what the rigors of time travel, if any, involve. However, the DeLorean is shown to withstand incredible power inputs, likely lessened by the absorption of that power into the flux capacitor.

## Depiction of Time Travel

Time travel is shown to be instantaneous in the Back to the Future franchise. Other than a crackling of energy all around the vehicle, there are no portals or alternate dimensions shown being traversed. From the perspective of a passenger, first you're in one time period moving at 88 MPH, there is a flash of bright light, and then you are in your destination time period, still moving at 88 MPH.

Time travel is shown to have an affect on the physical reality left behind in the form of flaming tire tracks. These tracks can be left behind on the surface of the ground, but we also see them form in the air by the flying DeLorean. In addition, the surface of the vehicle is observed to reach freezing temperatures so cold that it's painful to touch with bare skin. Perhaps even capable of causing ice burn, aka frostbite. This problem seems to have been addressed by the 21st Century upgrades made by Doc Brown.

Apparently, no special protective gear is needed to operate the vehicle as it travels through time, other than protective eyewear, and no ill effects were shown to be an issue in the film franchise. Any problems caused by time travel were direct results of meddling with the time stream, rather than anything deleterious caused by the time travel itself. The one life threatening element specifically caused by time travel was an accidental altering of time preventing you from ever being born. In that event, you would gradually begin to vanish unless the original, or near original, course of the time stream was restored.

Brown describes major alterations in the time stream as creating alternate timelines, with their own separate futures. These timelines can be "corrected" and reset to their original path by undoing the cause of the branching timeline. In one instance, and elderly Biff Tannen steals the DeLorean in 2015 and travels back to 1955 to give his younger self a sports almanac with 60 years worth of games results that he can use to his financial advantage. The elderly Tannen then returns the DeLorean to 2015, where Doc Brown and Marty then take the car back to 1985. Faced with a drastically altered and dystopian Hill Valley, Marty suggests they go back to 2015 to stop Biff from stealing the DeLorean. But Brown explains how that future is no longer the same future they originally traveled to. This future would now be part of this new timeline created by the time traveling Biff in 1955. The have to go back to 1955 and stop those events from unfolding.

This begs the question, how did Biff return the DeLorean to Doc Brown and Marty, if the time stream was now altered? How is it that this timeline exists, at all, for him to travel to? According to a deleted scene from Back to the Future Part II, elderly Biff actually vanishes after stepping out of the vehicle in 2015, implying he set events in motion that lead to his demise prior to 2015. Additionally, Doc Brown tells Marty that it is safe to leave an unconscious Jennifer Parker alone on her porch, even though this is a dangerous version of Hill Valley, as if they succeed, she will transition into the restored 1985. This suggests that Doc Brown and Marty transitioned into the new timeline unknowingly, while Biff returned to a time where he no longer existed and that consequence caught up with him, much the same way Marty and his siblings began to vanish when their parents initial meeting was compromised.