Fisker EV saved by V8

In what is shaping up as one of automotive history’s finer moments of irony, the Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid will live on thanks to a firm peddling monster V8 power.

As we’ve reported, Henrik Fisker stepped down as CEO of the company that bears his name in March and since then Fisker has sacked most of its staff and hired bankruptcy consultants.

But the knight in shining armour that will ensure Fisker’s Karma lives on is former GM Vice-Chairman Bob Lutz’s post-retirement project, VL Productions.

Last January, VL booked a stand at the Detroit motor show to pull the covers off the Destino, essentially a facelifted Fisker Karma with a stonking, supercharged Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 engine in place of the original petro-lectric plug-in hybrid powertrain.

On the face of it, VL’s formula is pretty simple: take one of the prettiest four-door designs of recent times and give it a 430kW, 6.2-litre V8 heart transplant with a conventional six-speed auto transmission.

Give it a face transplant to differentiate it from the donor vehicle, then bump the price up to something suggesting a serious competitor for Euro super-sedans like Aston’s Rapide and Maserati’s Quattroporte.

VL claims it has about 100 Destino orders on its books at a list price of $US185,000, mainly from the Middle East. That’s quite some premium, with Karma prices starting at around $100K.

Nevertheless, Lutz has told US analyst Wards Auto the company had procured 20 “gliders” – Karma bodies without batteries and electric drivetrains – before Fisker’s bankruptcy, and that it’s looking at picking up residual Karma stock from dealers keen to liquidate their inventories.

He also threw in that he’s received enquiries from “hundreds” of current Karma owners about the possibility of aftermarket conversion, despite a mooted cost somewhere between $US85K and $95K.

“We’ve heard from hundreds of Karma owners, with about 10 per cent who may want to convert their cars, because sooner or later the cars might wind up as boat anchors,” he told Wards.

VL isn’t due to start deliveries in the US until the third quarter of this year and, even if Fisker ceases to exist, it could build the Destino from scratch itself with the help of Fisker’s suppliers, said Lutz.

“If Fisker disappears, it won’t affect us,” he said.

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