DeLorean

The DeLorean story compressed an entire rise-and-fall into five years: John Z. DeLorean, GM's rebel star executive, launched his stainless-steel, gullwinged DMC-12 from a purpose-built Belfast factory in 1981, and the company was in receivership by 1982 with around 9,000 cars built. Then Back to the Future made it immortal. Few cars separate market value from cultural fame so completely — the DMC-12's screen legend guarantees it an audience, and a supply of survivors, that cars ten times rarer would envy.