The DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) has officially revealed its Alpha 5 electric vehicle (EV), a new take on the stainless steel-clad, gullwing-doored sports car that featured in the Back to the Future film series.

The United States-based DMC released images of the new EV earlier this month with the car to have its full debut at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance car show in California on 18 August, 2022.

DMC has partnered with Volkswagen-backed Italdesign, which helped develop the original DeLorean, to build the Alpha5. The new EV retains some of the iconic design staples of the original DeLorean, such as the low-lying frame, louvres on the rear window and the iconic gull-wing doors.

“The Alpha5 is a representation of the past 40 years of DeLorean,” DMC chief marketing officer Troy Beetz said in a statement. “There was this enormous responsibility to make sure we honoured the history of the DeLorean brand, but an even greater responsibility in curating its future … I think we did both with the Alpha 5.”

Though the original DeLorean became a pop culture icon through its appearance in 1985’s Back to the Future as a time machine, the car’s performance never lived up to its looks. The original company produced only about 9,000 of the cars at its Northern Ireland factory from 1981 before going bankrupt in 1982.

DMC chief executive Joost de Vries said the new “Alpha 5 is for people that love to drive”.

The base Alpha 5 is expected to be built around a 100 kWh battery pack with a range of more than 485 kilometres. The company said the all-wheel-drive vehicle has an electronically limited top speed of 250kph and accelerates from 0-100kph in 2.99 seconds.

As a nod to the film series that made the car iconic, DMC also lists the time it takes for the Alpha 5 to accelerate from 0-88mph (140kph) – the speed needed to achieve time travel in the movie – which clocked in at 4.35 seconds.

The car, which now seats four instead of two, is not going to be cheap with reports suggesting the base model will be priced at about $250,000 (US$175,000). It is expected limited production of the vehicle will begin at DMC’s Texas facility in 2024.