G.M. Loses a Swinger

General Motors executives tend to be solid, conservative men who spend decades laboring in patient obscurity. Alongside them, John Zachary DeLorean, 48, stood out like a Corvette Stingray in a showroom full of G.M.C. trucks. Flamboyant, irreverent and unpredictable, DeLorean wore long hair before that was fashionable--it still is not at G.M.--dated Hollywood wows like Ursula Andress, and was twice divorced. Still, he rose steadily to head all G.M. car and truck production, and was rumored to be G.M.'s next president. But last week DeLorean abruptly resigned his $300,000-a-year post to become unsalaried president of the National Alliance of Businessmen, a group active in minority job placement and training. So far as can be determined, he did not lose a backstage power fight. Instead, he committed the most startling of all his breaks with G.M. tradition: he simply quit because he grew dissatisfied with his job.

DeLorean had been in that job only since last October. The son of a Detroit welder, he came to G.M. in 1956 from Packard, after that company folded, and quickly made a name as a crack engineer. He is credited by G.M. with such innovations as the overhead camshaft engine and the concealed windshield wiper. As head of Chevrolet, he set industry sales records in 1971 and 1972. But after ascending last fall to the group vice presidency in charge of all car and truck production, DeLorean became visibly unhappy. As had been his wont, he showed up late for G.M.'s numerous staff meetings and joked to the press about G.M.'s stodgy image. He also grumbled that his headquarters post, despite its importance, had less visibility than his previous jobs. "At least when I was Chevrolet general manager, people knew I was in town," he told TIME Correspondent Ed Reingold.

DeLorean will not lack for things to keep him busy. He owns part of the San Diego Chargers football and New York Yankees baseball teams, and will remain on the G.M. payroll as a consultant and become a Cadillac dealer in Florida. That will enable him to collect accrued bonus payments, but also may bar him from working for a competing automaker--to the industry's loss. DeLorean has been heard to mutter that the auto business is something less than all important, and Detroit can use men with that heretical perspective.

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