DeLorean Is Taking Its Name Into the Sky

21 October 2026 ·3 min read

For years, the DeLorean has belonged to two places at once: the road, and the imagination. One is made of stainless steel, gullwing doors and a very particular moment in automotive history. The other takes off whenever someone says “flying DeLorean”.

Now the name is heading into the sky for real — though the distinction matters. DeLorean Motor Company is joining the Airspeeder International Series as constructor of the United States team. This is not a road-going DeLorean with wings, nor a flying car available to buy. It is an electric vertical take-off and landing racing aircraft, entering a competition that aims to make advanced air mobility a spectator sport.

That difference does not make the idea less interesting. If anything, it makes the project more credible. Rather than promising that everyone will soon fly to work, Airspeeder is putting its technology into a racing environment, where performance, control and safety have to be demonstrated under pressure.

DeLorean Airspeeder Team pit stop, official press image — DeLorean brings its name to the Airspeeder grid. Images courtesy of DeLorean Motor Company / Airspeeder.

A familiar name in unfamiliar territory

The DeLorean Airspeeder Team is scheduled to make its debut when the 2026–27 season opens in November. For that first season, the team will race an Airspeeder Mk3C, with DeLorean leading its design identity. The aircraft design, pilot line-up and sporting programme are due to be revealed ahead of the opener, according to Airspeeder’s announcement.

The constructor role is expected to expand in the following season. Airspeeder says the DeLorean aircraft planned for 2027–28 will be developed with university engineering teams in the United States, including partners at UC Berkeley and Georgia Tech.

Those are the announced plans; the aircraft and the racing programme still have to prove themselves in competition. But the project is already more substantial than a nostalgic badge placed on a futuristic rendering. DeLorean is entering a series with a team, a race aircraft and a longer-term design role.

DeLorean Airspeeder Team creative image showing an electric flying race craft — The official creative image imagines DeLorean’s new chapter above the ground. Images courtesy of DeLorean Motor Company / Airspeeder.

Racing in three dimensions

Airspeeder describes its series as three-dimensional racing: electric eVTOL aircraft compete through electronically defined courses rather than circulating on a conventional track. There is no asphalt ribbon to follow, no grandstand view that tells the whole story. The aircraft move through space, and the course itself becomes part of the spectacle.

It also gives the competition a practical purpose. Racing can put electric propulsion, flight control, vehicle communication and safety systems under visible pressure. That does not mean a race aircraft automatically becomes a useful passenger vehicle. The engineering demands are different, and the series is not evidence that everyday flying cars are just around the corner. But competition can help make new technologies understandable — and expose where the hard questions remain.

That is the part I find compelling. The future of mobility is often sold as a finished answer: a rendering, a date, a promise that the difficult details will somehow take care of themselves. A race series offers a more honest proposition. Show us the machine. Show us how it moves. Then let it perform.

From movie fantasy to a real design challenge

DeLorean’s cultural association with flight is almost impossible to separate from its fictional history. The company’s chief brand officer has said people have imagined a DeLorean in the sky for decades. This project takes that image and gives it a real engineering context — while leaving the movie magic where it belongs.

For me, that is the right way to use a legendary name. The DeLorean does not need to pretend that its past can simply be repeated. Its value is that it still makes people picture a different future. In Airspeeder, that instinct meets a very contemporary question: what happens when racing leaves the road and moves into the air?

Studio view of the DeLorean Airspeeder racing aircraft — Airspeeder says the DeLorean-led design identity will first appear on the Mk3C race aircraft. Images courtesy of DeLorean Motor Company / Airspeeder.

The answer is not yet a new kind of personal transport. It is a new kind of motorsport, with a familiar name on the grid and a real aircraft waiting to be tested. That is enough to make me want to see the first race.

By Patrice Meignan — TRANSMISSION by TheArsenale