When it comes to cars, we’re used to reinterpretations of iconic originals—think New Beetles and the reborn Mini Cooper, both recently joined by a new Fiat 500 that’s been garnering rave reviews. More than one million Chrysler PT Cruisers, inspired by a generic 1930s four-door sedan, have sold since 2001.

But those are modern vehicles, inside and out. What happens when someone decides to build cars that are fully or nearly identical—not just “reinterpreted”—to vehicles that have been out of production for years?
 
A few entrepreneurs are planning to bring beloved cars, including the short-lived DeLorean and the plastic Trabant, back from the dead. They’re banking on nostalgia to help them succeed—albeit with a much smaller target audience—where the originals failed. And a key to that success is making sure the cars are built well enough to satisfy modern buyers.

A Texas company that is the largest source of DeLorean parts is about to build models from those original parts, acquired when the factory shut down, and a handful of new components. Only two a month will be produced, starting early in 2008.

In 1975, when auto-marketing superstar John DeLorean left General Motors and unveiled the DMC-12 “ethical” sports car—inexpensive, creative, safe—some analysts thought he might succeed. DeLorean had experience, charisma, a sexy stainless-steel car with gull-wing doors, and a grant from the British government to build his car in Northern Ireland. DeLorean Motor Company didn’t start manufacturing cars until 1981, selling 9,000 vehicles before it collapsed under a welter of debt in 1983. (DeLorean was even arrested and tried for cocaine trafficking, and reportedly planned to use the proceeds to save his dream. He was later acquitted.)

The new DeLorean has a few things going for it that the original didn’t. For starters, there’s the iconic movie role. “Most of the people who buy our cars were teenagers when Back to the Future came out in 1985,” says James Espey, vice president of DeLorean Motor Co. The Humble, Texas, firm, started in 1995, not only owns the original DMC stock but its name and logo as well. “They’ve wanted [a DeLorean] since they were kids. Now they’re surprised to find out they can get parts and service, and that brand-new cars are affordable.”

Today’s DeLoreans will come with a price tag of $57,500, not that far from the 1981 price of $25,000 (roughly $63,000 in today’s dollars). Modern options—heated and cooled seats, satellite navigation, an iPod interface, L.E.D. bulbs—will add $9,000 to the total. As for quality, “we like to say that we’ve had 9,000 prototypes on the road for 20 years, so we know everything that can go wrong,” Espey says. DMC can provide 96 percent of the car from its spare-parts warehouse, and has designed a new stainless-steel frame to eliminate the rust problem that plagued the original. The engine is a 2.8-liter V-6, still fresh in its crate from the factory in Belfast, Ireland.

DMC isn’t the only one to be filled with  the hope of bringing back bygone autos. Herpa, a German company that makes miniature cars, has bought the rights to the Trabant name and is planning to partner with a full-size manufacturer to build 5,000 Trabants—the automotive symbol of communist East Germany. The originals, with their plastic bodies and dirty two-cylinder rear engines, are now collectibles. The new Trabants will have metal bodies and modern running gear—Herpa is considering a BMW engine, which would put the total price at about $70,000—but retain the distinctive styling and sky-blue color.  

These are far from the first reborn cars, however. (See slideshow.) Almost 30 years ago, Shay Motors of Battle Creek, Michigan, built thousands of Ford Model A Roadsters, which had been designed in the early 1900s. Occasionally even major automakers—MG and Ford, for example—have remanufactured classic models. But results were mixed, and ambitions often met with a quick demise.

From 1978 to 1982, Shay Motors produced more than 5,000 Model As, hiding modern running gear—the four-cylinder Ford Fairmont engine—under a fiberglass Model A body. With up-to-date suspension and brakes, the Shay appeared to be a 50-year-old classic that could tackle contemporary traffic. But the company was woefully underfinanced, and the vehicles had numerous quality problems: suspension vibrations, erratic speedometers, balky gearshifts, doors that didn’t fit properly. Fed-up customers and the early eighties recession did Shay Motors in—the company collapsed the same year as DeLorean Motor Co.

Major automakers should be immune to such quality problems when putting their own classics back into production. From 1992 to 1996, the MG arm of Britain’s Rover   created a version of its classic MGB (manufactured from 1962 to 1980) fitted with a V-8. Built by hand in small numbers, with luxury touches the original never possessed, the resulting MGR did well in Japan—but it remains a footnote to the affection inspired by the hundreds of thousands of original MGBs.

Similarly, Ford celebrated its GT40 racecar—which won the 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race from 1966 to 1969 and was never sold for street use—by building 4,000 Ford GTs from 2004 to 2006. The sleek styling of the original remained, and the car, priced at $140,000, delivered exceptional performance thanks to its 550-hp V-8. But Ford learned the hard way that wealthy people who buy expensive cars have little patience for variable quality and frequent recalls.

The new Trabis won’t be sold in the U.S.—some auto memories are just too specific. And it’s the memories that lure buyers: what the cars were and how they made us feel, and the desire to recapture those feelings. With air conditioning, power brakes, a stereo, and a sunroof, of course.