How a ‘Back to the Future' fan's hand-built DeLorean time machine made it to Broadway

Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.

Actually…

This “Back to the Future” superfan’s hand-built DeLorean time machine may look exactly like the one from the movie, but it still does need roads.

And it recently drove down one that’s considered among the most famous in the world: Broadway.

The DeLorean – with every detail recreated to accurately match its on-screen inspiration by its owner Peter Varrica, a 34-year-old from Rhode Island – made a red-carpet appearance outside the Winter Garden Theatre during the gala performance for “Back to the Future: The Musical” in July.

Its stainless steel body shimmering, its gullwing doors elevating, its flux capacitor fluxing, the time machine became a photo op centerpiece for cast and crew members from the movie who attended. That included Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd and executive producer Steven Spielberg.

“The first person that came out was Spielberg, and I was like, ‘What?!’” Varrica told NBC this week, days before Back to the Future day on Oct. 21. “He comes up to my car, he’s leaning against it taking photos. That was my biggest holy s--- moment.”

That moment, and those that soon followed, gave the stars of “Back to the Future” a blast from the past.

Marty McFly and Doc Brown were reunited with a replica of the DeLorean from the first movie in the iconic trilogy series. Fox and Lloyd posed for photos in front of the car with the actors who portrayed their characters in the musical, Casey Likes as Marty and Roger Bart as Doc.

“I loved being involved in all of that with the musical,” Varrica said. “Seeing Michael J. Fox leaning against my car and Christopher Lloyd next to it, I was like, ‘I’ve made it, nothing can top this.’”

Taking a time machine to Broadway

It wasn’t the first time Fox and Lloyd had seen Varrica’s DeLorean, with the car having also appeared on the 2021 discovery+ mini-series “Expedition: Back to the Future.” But two factors led to Varrica and his time machine traveling to Broadway: proximity and plutonium.  

The DeLorean community is small, with only around 9,000 of the cars having been produced between 1981 and 1983. The DeLorean time machine community is even smaller, with many of the die-hard “Back to the Future” fans who have built their own familiar with one another – and there’s more than you might think, with the Facebook group “DeLorean Time Machine Builders Group” having nearly 3,000 members.

The relationship between builders, however, can sometimes resemble a Marty-and-Biff-like rivalry due to the competition that stems from the endless search for rare military aircraft parts used to recreate the time machine from the movie.

“There’s so much drama in the time-machine world,” Varrica said.

But there’s also Marty-and-Doc-like friendships. People from around the world are linked by their love for a movie, their title for a 40-year-old car and their desire to turn it into a time machine that – even when it hits 88 miles per hour – does not actually travel through time.

When the “Back to the Future” musical shifted from London to New York, Varrica said the DeLorean owner whose car was used for the production’s promotions across the pond recommended him and his car. With the musical based off the script of the first movie, Varrica’s time machine featured the required plutonium chamber used to make the DeLorean travel through time, as opposed to Mr. Fusion (if you know the movie, this all makes perfect sense).

“They’re so specific, they only want the plutonium chamber, they don’t want anything to do with Mr. Fusion,” Varrica said. “Just because plutonium is a bit more important in this musical than in the movie.”

Prior to the red-carpet opening, Varrica’s DeLorean traveled into Manhattan for the musical’s promotional appearances on “Good Morning America” and “The View” and at the New York International Auto Show. For each, he said he trailered the DeLorean to a hotel in Yonkers and then drove the time machine from there to each event.  

“I avoid all the bridge tolls because I have the ‘OutaTime’ license plate,” Varrica said of the prop California vanity plates that match those on Doc Brown’s time machine in the movie. “I’m sure whoever has the real ‘OutaTime’ plate in California gets a lot of toll charges, probably from all over the world.”

Even with a plutonium chamber and free tolls, driving a DeLorean time machine through Times Square isn’t quite as easy as doing so in an empty JC Penny parking lot at Twin Pines Mall. There’s a lot of lights, a lot of traffic and a lot of people. People who have never seen a time machine on the road before. People who have questions.

Is this the real car from the movie?! How long did it take to make it?! Where’s Doc Brown?!

“Going to New York City kind of sucks bringing any kind of car into, but with the time machine, people go insane, which is good and bad,” Varrica said. “Sometimes at stop lights you just get surrounded and people are taking pictures and asking questions. The whole time I’m stressing out about the car because you can’t move, and it’s an ‘81 DeLorean, and I’m worried it’s gonna overheat because those things do not run cool.”

But they do run, with hundreds of hours of work and tens of thousands of dollars put into those transformed into time machines.

Going Back to the Future

Varrica knew every line to “Back to the Future” by the time he was 6 years old.

His passion for the movie – and with the “Back to the Future” ride at Universal Studios – ignited a lifelong dream of owning a time machine. That dream became a reality in 2016 when he and his father purchased a running DeLorean for $25,000.

Building it into a time machine in the years that followed, Varrica said, has required 300 to 400 hours of assembly work plus $25,000 in parts and $20,000 in repairs.

“My time machine has so many extra holes drilled into it from trial and error,” he said. “I’ve swapped out nearly everything a second time. I’ve had two different time circuits, two different flux capacitors. But it’s not only just the time machine stuff, for the car itself I’m on my fifth fuel pump, my fifth alternator. So, the car just kills itself.”

Varrica gives it new life. As do his fellow builders, one of whom was seated in the passenger seat during the ride to Broadway.

Long before Steve Layden made that trip to the musical’s opening, he pitched the idea of buying a DeLorean of his own and turning it into a time machine to his wife. She was eight months pregnant at the time, and the couple also had two young children.

He bought the car for $37,000 in 2016 and then maxed out two credit cards with $40,000 in parts, with 18 months to pay it back interest free.

“I took on all of that credit card debt with no idea if I could pay it back,” Layden said.

He then spent 800 to 900 hours over the course of a year building it in his garage and constructing parts in his kitchen, where the island’s countertop was constantly covered in spools of wire, a soldering iron, a heat gun and other tools and parts.

“There’s no coming back when you start cutting into a car and drilling into the stainless panels,” said Layden, a Philadelphia resident who works in sales for a telecommunications company. “Once that happened, there was no turning back.”

And he eventually not only paid off the debts, but he made a trip to Broadway.

“We’re just nerds that have a time machine from a movie and we’re working with all these people who made the movie,” Layden said. “We looked at each other like, ‘How are we here?’”

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Building Doc Brown's time machine

Despite the operating expenses, the cars built by Layden and Varrica would still sell for a profit – and that’s not including the revenue already banked from paid appearances made at Comic Cons, weddings, corporate events, private parties and Broadway musicals.

A well-maintained DeLorean in the current market sells on average for more than $50,000. A fully recreated and running DeLorean time machine can go for around $200,000.

Finding the exact parts to create a screen-accurate replica requires relentless research, countless phone calls and an endless pursuit. Famed interior parts like the time circuit are made by custom movie prop makers. Other components added to the DeLorean in the movie were military aircraft parts that can’t exactly be purchased on Amazon. And many of the time machine builders are quite particular, if not obsessive, about the authenticity of each part added to their DeLorean, even if the casual “Back to the Future” fan admiring the car would never notice the difference.

“I always say, ‘If you’re gonna ruin a DeLorean, at least do it right,'” Varrica said.

To find each part, Varrica said he would call various aircraft suppliers with a list of National Stock Numbers for the parts he needed. Upon learning the part was for a time machine, some suppliers hung up. Others made the sale.

Varrica said he takes most pride, not in the flux capacitor or time circuit that fans most take notice of, but in a small hydraflow hose behind the driver’s side door because it’s so rare that few DeLorean time machines have it.   

The search constantly continues for those rare parts that would make the time machine identical to the one in the movie.  

“People always ask how long it took to build,” Varrica said. “I always tell them it’s still not done because every time I find the super rare parts, I’m still upgrading.”

Varrica is now a full-time time machine builder and driver. He left his job as a mailman after securing enough events with the DeLorean to pay the bills, and he’s now also paid to make complex parts of the DeLorean and even do full-time machine builds for customers, recently competing two simultaneously in Arizona over a two-week span of 10-hour days.  

“I feel like I don’t have a job,” he said. “But I’m making more money than I was at the post office.”

And he’s appearing on Broadway.

Back to the red carpet

Varrica drove onto the red carpet, stood beside members of the cast and attended a post-show gala. He then gave a ride to the winner of an auction who paid thousands of dollars in support of the Michael J. Fox Foundation to drive around Manhattan in the time machine on what was a stormy and humid night.

“There’s no air conditioning in the time machine, so it couldn’t have been very pleasant,” Varrica said.

His time machine also lacks one other key luxury that Doc Brown’s featured: the ability to fly.    

“Some of the time machines have the hover conversion wheels where it makes it looks like the car is flying,” Varrica said. “But I don’t think we’ll ever be able to get them to actually fly.”

So, where they’re going, they do need roads.