William Haddad

William Haddad Joined DMC in March of 1979. Haddad had been a personal friend of John DeLorean going as far back as when John was Head of the Pontiac division at General Motors.

Haddad’s background was extensive in the field he established for himself. He was a journalist with a long involvement with the Kennedy family. Through connections like the Kennedy’s, Haddad started to ‘know the right people’ and DeLorean realised that this would make Haddad a valuable team member.

Born in 1928 in Charlotte, North Carolina, Haddad grew up in Florida and took a physics degree at Columbia university (NY).

In May of 81’, Haddad was ordered to work at the Dunmurry plant permanently - due in part to the fact that DeLorean and Haddad were not seeing ‘eye to eye’ on certain matters. DeLoreans view won out, and Haddad moved with his wife Noreen and his new baby to Belfast. However working out of Belfast, or the New York Office from time to time, it was not long until Haddad’s relationship with John DeLorean became unbearable. Haddad found himself caught up in ‘the great memo scandal’, which totally destroyed his friendship with DeLorean.

Writing a memo sent to John DeLorean on Boxing Day, Haddad talked of the ‘gold faucet memo’. This memo listed points of concern to John that the company had over spent monies provided by the British government for the Dunmurry operations. Most notably was a point on the memo concerning over indulgence at Warren House, recently renovated by the company at the order of Charles Bennington - who lived there.

The criticisms were blown out of proportion. Haddad mentioned that the faucet taps were made of gold and purchased from Harrods in Knightsbridge, London. In truth they were only gold painted - however the overall criticism was valid as the cost of renovation was excessive, and unwarranted. At a later time when DMC was forced to defend itself for possible misuse of company money, the reasons presented by DMC management were that the renovation of Warren House was intended for use of visiting VIPs.

This memo and all the allegations mentioned in it brought about a police investigation into the company ordered by Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister. Marion Gibson, a DMC employee, was responsible for the infamous memo being shown to Nicholas Winterton, a British member of parliament (MP). The national press managed to find out about the DeLorean scandal and then went public with allegations of company money being wasted and claims of mismanagement of taxpayer’s money. The incident died down, but some DMC executives, including Mike Knepper, were held and asked questions by police. When no evidence of fraud or misuse of company money was proven, the incident was over as quickly as it begun.

This incident seriously strained the relationship between DeLorean and Haddad to breaking point. After the media frenzy had died down, Haddad’s days at DMC were numbered, and after a drawn out process including a troubled meeting with Roy Nesseth, Haddad left DMC on September 23rd 1981.