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Felicity Ace sinks with thousands of VWs, Porsches, Lamborghinis

The stricken ship Felicity Ace sank overnight after a week of salvage efforts ultimately proved unsuccessful. The ship, which was carrying up to 4,000 VW Group cars, went to the bottom unexpectedly while a salvage team was attempting to tow it to shore, Bloomberg reports.  "Initial reports from the local salvage team state that the vessel had sunk at around 9AM local time having suffered a list to starboard," Mitsui O.S.K. Lines transportation company (MOL), which owns the Felicity Ace, said in a statement released early Tuesday.    "The last vessel position was around 220nm off the Azores," MOL said. "The salvage crafts will remain around the area to monitor the situation. Further information will be provided as it becomes available." The ship sank after being battered by waves and listing 45 degrees to starboard, the ship’s operator said. “The weather was pretty rough out there,” Pat Adamson, a spokesperson for MOL Ship Management (Singapore), a unit of Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd., said by phone. “And then she sank, which was a surprise.” VW, Porsche, Audi, Bentley and Lamborghini-branded models were aboard the ship, which was headed to Rhode Island from GermanyÂ’s Emden port when the fire broke out on Feb. 16.  Rough seas and ongoing fires fueled by the lithium-ion batteries of EVs onboard delayed the ship's salvage and recovery operations for the better part of a week. While the likelihood of salvaging the smoke and potentially fire- and water-damaged vehicles from Felicity Ace's hold was slim to none, some had held out hope that their special-ordered vehicles might survive the mishap.  The Panama-flagged Felicity Ace was safely evacuated of its 22 crew members by the Portuguese navy after a fire started in its hold more than a week ago. The ship can carry up to 4,000 cars. European carmakers declined to discuss how many vehicles and what models were on board, but it appears to have been transporting approximately 2,500 cars, including roughly 1,100 Porsches and an undetermined number of Volkswagens.  The cars aboard were on order. Porsche customers in the United States were being contacted by their dealers, the company said. “We are already working to replace every car affected by this incident and the first new cars will be built soon,” Angus Fitton, vice president of PR at Porsche Cars North America, Inc., told The Associated Press in an email. The ship sank in water nearly 10,000 feet deep, the Portuguese Navy said.

One-off Bugatti Chiron Super Sport Golden Era features hand-drawn sketches

Although the Bugatti Chiron is sold out, the French brand still has several examples left to build before it can close this chapter of its history. It unveiled a Chiron Super Sport that took two years to create and that stands out as one of the most difficult projects it has ever taken on. Called the Chiron Super Sport Golden Era, the big coupe was designed jointly by Bugatti and the anonymous collector who commissioned it — the buyer played a significant role in shaping this one-off. The customer wanted to celebrate the brand's history, so the design team that was led by Achim Anscheidt until he retired in July 2023 came up with a one-of-a-kind livery that consists of 45 sketches of cars, planes, symbols, and even buildings from Bugatti's past. There's a catch: every one of these sketches needed to be drawn on the car by hand. "The implementation may sound quite straight-forward, but achieving a perfect finish, and one that would last the test of time, took more patience and craftsmanship than you could ever imagine," Anscheidt explained. Designers assigned each side of the car its own facet of Bugatti's history. The passenger's side highlights early cars, like the Type 41 Royale and the Type 57 SC Atlantic. The driver's side focuses on newer models, including the EB110, the Veyron, and the one-off La Voiture Noire. With the layout finalized, Bugatti turned its attention to the color. Designers painted the front end in Nocturne Black, and this color fades into a shade of gold called Dore (which means "golden" in French). Then came the hard part: putting it all together. "It was very clear to us from the beginning that we can only achieve an authentic finish for these sketches – and at Bugatti authenticity is paramount – if we actually used the pencils that we use for sketching on paper – anything else would result in something looking fake or low in quality," Anscheidt said. All told, the drawing process took over 400 hours of work. The interior received a similar (but not quite as labor-intensive) treatment. The outline of three Bugatti models is painted directly onto each door panel, "Golden Era" is stitched onto each headrest, and a "One of One" logo appears on the center console. The era shown on each side of the car is written on the door sills to add a finishing touch to the look. Bugatti will deliver the Chiron Super Sport Golden Era to its new owner during Monterey Car Week. Related video:

Bugatti shows off the 10th and final Centodieci

Limited to 10 examples globally, the heritage-laced Centodieci has left the Bugatti range and entered the pantheon of automotive history. The company built the final car in its Molsheim, France, factory and delivered it to its anonymous new owner. Sold-out before its debut in August 2019, the Centodieci is a tribute to the EB110 released in 1991. It's related to the Chiron under the skin, but it's different enough that it was put through a series of tests before executives signed it off — hot weather testing notably took place in the American desert. Production of the first prototype began in August 2021 and Bugatti started building the 10 cars planned shortly after. Customers were invited to work directly with Bugatti to personalize their Centodieci's design. The last example (pictured above) is finished in Quartz White with Black Carbon accents on the lower part of the body and Light Blue Sport paint on the massive brake calipers. Light Blue Sport paint on the rear wing adds a finishing touch to the look, and Bugatti notes this color is inspired by one that was offered on the EB110. Light Blue Sport leather dominates the interior: It's on the seats, the door panels, the dashboard, and the headliner. The trim is either bare carbon fiber or black, and the door sills feature "Centodieci 10/10"-branded plates to underline the limited-edition car's serial number. Power for the Centodieci comes from a quad-turbocharged, 8.0-liter W16 engine tuned to develop about 1,600 horsepower (that's roughly 100 more than the Chiron's version of this engine) and 1,180 pound-feet of torque. Mid-mounted, it spins the four wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. Bugatti quotes a zero-to-62-mph time of 2.4 seconds and a top speed that lies north of 230 mph. The last Centodieci closes a chapter of Bugatti's history that also includes 40 units of the Divo and the one-off La Voiture Noire. Bugatti isn't out of cars to build, however. It's now shifting its focus to wrapping up production of the sold-out Chiron and it also needs to build the 99 planned examples of the Mistral (its last street-legal W16-powered model) and 40 units of the track-only, 1,824-horsepower Bolide.