I would like to introduce the “Shrine of Flaming Capitalism’s Product of the Month“: The Destino.
And flaming is a worthy designation indeed. The Destino is essentially a Fisker body over a Corvette Engine.
Legal Insurrection readers may recall Fisker is a company that produces plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that cost over $100,000 each. The firm was approved for a $529 million taxpayer-funded government loan, in order to supposedly promote “green energy”. However, the only thing it seems to be promoting is emergency response activity.
This August, there were reports of Fisker Karmas igniting due to design failures.
Fisker has issued a recall of over 2,000 of its plug-in hybrid sedans in the wake of a fire that consumed the driver’s side front end of a privately owned Karma earlier this month in Woodside, California.
Fisker enlisted the help of independent experts at Pacific Rim Investigative Services Group to suss out the cause of the fire on August 10. The investigation determined the ignition source as a low-temperature cooling fan, which “had an internal fault that cause it to fail, overheat and start a slow burning fire.”
The recall will involve some 1,400 Karmas currently owned by private individuals, along with another 1,000 $100,000+ sedans that have yet to be sold.
And another 16 Karmas caught on fire in at at Port Newark, New Jersey in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
The designers of the Destino remove the “green energy flaws” and replace it with an All-American system proven to work extremely well:
Destino is a new exotic car made by Gilbert Villereal of VL Automotive and former General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz. It is based on the Fisker Karma, and it has a brilliant idea: replace the Karma’s electric drivetrain with a V8 engine from the Corvette ZR1!
It is not a tuner’s nonsense, either. They are planning to produce this car in the second quarter of 2013, and are already testing prototypes. With Destino you get the amazing look of the Karma, but none of its electric system’s drawbacks. For one thing, it won’t be catching fire very often!
The performance of that ZR1 engine is the cherry for the top of Destino’s cake. The 6.2 liter supercharged V8 delivers 640 horsepower and over 800 Nm of torque. Later on they reckon they can offer the car with the newer LT1 engine out of the new Corvette C7.
A VL Automotive statement indicated that there were styling modifications to differentiate the Destino design, as well as a re-engineered chassis to accommodate the 638-hp ZR1’s handcrafted LS9 engine with either a manual or automatic transmission. The firm touts their approach:
“The result is truly an American designed, engineered and manufactured four-door performance car that rivals such models as the Porsche Panamera and Aston Martin Lagonda Rapide.”
Score 1 for classic energy technology!
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Comments
Pretty car…I want one, even if I can’t afford the likely six-figure price tag 😀
Heh! It’s better looking than either original. The Fisker was especially egregious. This is an “upgrade.”
While the ‘Vette could burn rubber, the Fisker would burn your garage. Good luck to the Destino.
Well the new C7 leaves the Fisker in the dust in terms of looks and styling. They are going to need to do some nice modifications on that shell though, the Fisker like all electric don’t ingest enough air to feed a high end V8.
Not a fan. It looks like a Camaro.
Ah yes, I always wanted to pay 100k for a 50k car, just to have the privilege of strangers assuming I was an idiot that bought an electric POS. I’ll go get my checkbook… I think I left it with my brain.
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