Last November, Nigel Mills decided to take his DeLorean DMC-12 out for a spin. Since it was 11 a.m. on a Sunday and very little traffic around, he decided to speed. Two police officers clocked him going 89 mph and gave him a ticket, requiring him to appear in Magistrates’ Court in Chelmsford. He was not a happy camper.
The DMC-12 was the only vehicle made by the DeLorean Motor Company and was only manufactured between 1981 and 1983. But the DeLorean DMC-12 became immortalized in the Back to the Future trilogy after the first movie was released in 1985. In Back to the Future, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) manages to travel back in time to 1955 from 1985 in a DeLorean made into a time machine by Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd). When the car reaches the speed of 88 mph, it breaks through the space-time continuum, enabling the vehicle to travel through time.
Mills bought the car in 2004 for £22,000 (approx. US$29,103). He is both a car enthusiast and a fan of the Back to the Future movies. He said he only takes the car out three or four times a year and put just 200 miles on it last year. Mills likes it when people recognize the two-seater from the movies and slow down to take pictures.
Mills denied he was trying to time travel. He said if he was, something would have happened when he reached 88 mph. Mills also did not believe he was going as fast as police claimed he was.
The Telegraph reports when Mills received the summons to appear in court, he decided to fight it. Mills said the same day he got the summons, a group of travellers camped out in the parking lot of his company. Police would not do anything about it and Mills was angry they wouldn’t but they go after tax-paying law-abiding citizens like him whom he described as “soft targets” for the police. The travellers get away with it but he is supposed to pay a fine. Mills was fed up.
Nonetheless, a spokesman for the Essex police said they will not tolerate excessive speeding or bad driving.
When Mills appeared in court, the two police officers who caught him speeding did not show up. The case was thrown out.
