Prosser couple sport their DeLoreans on ‘Back to the Future’ Day

DeLoreans and the Back to the Future movies go hand-in-hand. So Wednesday is a big day for a couple who live north of Prosser.

Lynn and Chris Boast have what they believe to be the only “his and her” DeLoreans in Washington.

And they plan to show them off Wednesday at separate screenings of the film trilogy in the Yakima area.

Fans have been waiting for this day since 1989, when Back to the Future Part II was released.

Marty McFly, his girlfriend and Doc Brown take a DeLorean time machine from 1985 forward to Oct. 21, 2015.

“Everybody’s pretty cranked up about it,” said Lynn Boast, 65. “We’re getting requests daily from people wanting to have DeLoreans at one of their events.”

Their cars don’t fly or use garbage for fuel, but a community of DeLorean owners has formed, including national conventions every other year. The Boasts took Lynn’s 1981 DeLorean to the convention last year in Dayton, Ohio, where the car was among 161 sports cars.

The cars, with their distinctive gull-wing doors, were only made from 1981 to 1982, with sales falling well-short of what company founder John DeLorean envisioned. But they remain popular with collectors.

Lynn said around 7,000 of the 9,200 DeLoreans made remain on the road.

“They’re all stainless steel with fiberglass under-bodies, so they don’t rust,” he said. “They ride really nice. Everybody thinks they’re a muscle car, but they’re grand touring cars. They’re nice to get on the road and just drive.”

Theirs are valued at $40,000 — a pretty good return on the $22,000 Lynn paid for his.

Each of their cars has a reminder of the Back to the Future series.

Lynn’s DeLorean has a replica flux capacitor, the component that makes time travel possible, custom built by a Florida movie prop maker and placed behind the front seats.

Chris got her DeLorean in 2008 as a gift for their wedding. The 1982 model has signatures from several of the movies’ stars above the glove compartment, including Christopher Lloyd, who played Doc, and Claudia Wells, who played Michael J. Fox’s girlfriend, Jennifer.

And they plan to get more autographs next month when they go to Florida to board a Back to the Future-themed cruise.

The Boasts have become close with Wells, and two other performers from the movies — Don Fullilove, who played Hill Valley Mayor Goldie Wilson, and Jeffrey Weissman, who picked up the role of George McFly in the second and third films. Chris even has a “Save the Clock Tower” shirt given to her by Wells.

They take their DeLoreans, part of a dozen classic cars they own, to several appearances a year in the Yakima Valley, as well as other parts of the country. But there are unscheduled appearances too.

“We didn’t make as good a time as we thought we would because every stop was a car show,” Chris, 59, said of a recent cross-country trip. “We stopped our first night in Wyoming. It took us 30 minutes to get out of the parking lot.”

A favorite event was a comic convention in Seattle, where they were part of a group of 28 DeLoreans, and also got to meet Lea Thompson, who played the mother of Fox’s character, Marty McFly.

They also take the DeLoreans to St. Patrick’s Day parades, since the vehicles were made in Northern Ireland.

The tight-knit group of Northwest DeLorean owners has 168 members, with Chris even getting to know John DeLorean’s daughter.

“Everybody pretty much knows everybody,” said Lynn, who got his second, and current, DeLorean in 2005 after his first was in a wreck. “We DeLorean owners are kind of different. We all know our VIN numbers. That tells us what kind of features are in it.”

This story was originally published October 20, 2015 at 8:02 PM with the headline "Prosser couple sport their DeLoreans on ‘Back to the Future’ Day."