In these troubled times we have learned the hard way that governments are not to be trusted with money.

But of course it’s not just a modern phenomenon. Back in the early days of Margaret Thatcher’s reign, ministers decided it would be a good idea to back a maverick American with a bright idea for building a revolutionary sports car to the tune of US$156m (£98m at today’s rates).

When you consider that this character was called John DeLorean, then the logic beggars belief.

The caveat to this deal was that the car had to built in Northern Ireland to give the locals a decent job and crank down civil unrest.

The positive about this arrangement was that the province is the nearest place in the UK to DeLorean’s target market of the United States. The downside was there is still 3,000 miles of sea between the two countries.

So the workforce who, at best had built a few ships between them, turned up for work not knowing one end of a car from a bottle of Guinness and were paid handsomely thanks to the Government and gullible celebrities such as Johnny Carson and Sammy Davis Jr, who also chucked in millions.

This also allowed DeLorean to live like a king but the prototype car was a disaster and Colin Chapman from Lotus had to be called in to completely re-engineer it.

Effectively it became a Lotus Esprit at a bad taste party.

Coupled with an asthmatic Renault engine further hampered by a catalytic converter required in the US market, the omens weren’t good, particularly when the Yanks could buy a Corvette for a lot less money.

By 1982 production of the DMC-12 was in full swing. But in the teeth of a recession it could never last and the company went bankrupt while DeLorean himself was arrested on drug trafficking charges less than 24 hours later.

He was later found not guilty but he spent much of the rest of his life paying back creditors and lawyers.

As for the car, more than 8,000 were built and it became best know as the time-travelling transport in the Back to the Future films.

DeLoreans are now collectors’ items not because they were great cars but more of a monument to the ego, folly and persuasive personality of an extraordinary individual.