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Fisker and Lutz hot-rod the Karma as V8-powered Destino [w/video]

You didn't think Henrik Fisker was done with the Karma, did you? The father of that stylish hybrid is returning to the design, teaming up with Bob Lutz and Gilbert Villarreal to transform the hybrid into an all-American, eight-cylinder performance sedan. As you may recall, Lutz and Villarreal formed VL Automotive a few years ago with plans to retrofit Fisker Karmas with Corvette V8s, calling the reworked product the VL Destino. Now Henrik Fisker has signed on to the project as head of design and product strategy, with Lutz serving as chairman and Villarreal as CEO under the newly renamed VLF Automotive. The joint plan calls for swapping the hybrid powertrain out of the Karma and replacing it with the 6.2-liter supercharged V8 from the previous Corvette ZR1. In stock form, the LS9 makes 638 horsepower and 604 pound-feet of torque. The VLF Destino is estimated to hit 60 in 3.9 seconds and top out at around 200 miles per hour. That will make it a world-class performance sedan capable of tangling with the finest imports, but will be retrofitted right here in America – in Auburn Hills, MI, near the Chrysler headquarters where Lutz once occupied the big corner office. VLF Automotive is showing the revised Destino at the Detroit Auto Show alongside the Force 1. We're trying not to get too excited about the prospect of a Fisker sedan with American muscle, as the Destino is slated to retail for $229,000 – which is even more than Aston Martin, for example, gets for the Rapide S or Porsche does for a Panamera Turbo S. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. VLF AUTOMOTIVE IS BORN A New American Luxury Sports Car Company Is Born Auburn Hills, MI January 8, 2016 - VLF Automotive, a new, US-based luxury sports car company, officially launches today through a partnership between legendary automotive designer Henrik Fisker, former General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz and entrepreneur and manufacturer Gilbert Villarreal. Fisker is a VLF shareholder and third member of the executive management team alongside Lutz and Villarreal. "It's a circle," Lutz explained. "When Gilbert and I formed VL Automotive in 2012, we wanted to take Henrik's beautifully proportioned design, replace the hybrid gas-electric power train with a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 drivetrain, and create a bespoke four-door luxury car with outstanding performance.

Henrik Fisker previews secretive car with gorgeous butterfly doors

Earlier this month, Henrik Fisker announced plans for a 400-mile electric car that would follow up on the failed Fisker Karma. Fisker recently took to Twitter where he posted a picture of a mysterious vehicle with magnificent dihedral (also known as butterfly) doors. This, then, is our first look at Fisker's upcoming electric vehicle. So far, everything looks good. Besides the dihedral doors, there's not much to go off of. Dihedral doors aren't new, as McLaren uses the units on its entire range (as do other cars, mainly exotics), but the rear-hinged ones are unique. We've seen suicide doors and falcon doors on four-door vehicles, but no rear-hinged dihedral ones intended for production that we can recall. According to Fisker, the upcoming model uses the fancy doors for better ingress and egress. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Other than the nifty doors, the front fascia has what looks to be LED accent or running lights on the side, while the rear taillights are also LED units. As Fisker claimed earlier this year, the upcoming electric car will be a "spiritual successor" to the Karma and that shows in the profile of the car, although the teased car has shorter front and rear overhangs. Fisker hasn't released a lot of information on the upcoming vehicle, besides that it would be "sporty and spacious." The outline of the vehicle definitely looks sporty, but there's no way to say if it's spacious from the one image. The new vehicle will be Fisker's first under his new company called Fisker Inc. The battery technology for the vehicle is currently being developed at UCLA, by the company's own battery division known as Fisker Nanotech. The vehicle is expected to be revealed late next year. Related Video: News Source: @FiskerOfficial Design/Style Green Fisker Electric Future Vehicles Sedan Henrik Fisker nanotech fisker inc

Fisker Pear shows up in L.A. in video and pics

With the Fisker Ocean running down production lines at Magna's plant in Graz, Austria, Henrik Fisker has decided to let the Pear out the play. The Fisker Pear will be the second car introduced to the lineup, expected to happen sometime around late 2024. The CEO said he was going to take it out for a drive in L.A., and someone caught the hatchback crossing the new 6th Street Viaduct Bridge last Friday morning. This week, a prototype dressed in the same camouflage and bright green 22-inch Slipstream wheels was caught parked in an L.A. alley, giving us an even better look.  This one's dubbed a battery-electric city car for a global audience, its name an acronym for Personal Electric Automotive Revolution. Said to challenge cars like the Volkswagen ID.3 in international markets, the Pear is actually sized like a subcompact crossover. Length is given as 4.55 meters or 179.1 inches. That's 12 inches longer than the ID.3, 9.5 inches longer than the Chevrolet Bolt EUV, half an inch longer than the 2024 Chevy Trax. A series of patent application drawings at Fiskerati give glimpses into novel features, one of them being a drawer that emerges from the front fascia, the other being a hatch that partially disappears into the bumper. The steel chassis debuting with the Pear will eventually support two more vehicles. That platform can hold one of two batteries on offer, one for local city duty, and a Hyper Range pack with an estimated 310 miles of range. Fisker has announced a price of $29,900 for the base version with the smaller battery, but we imagine it's going to be hard to hold the line on that until the Pear goes on sale. The key to making it work is keeping the parts count low, and maximizing manufacturing efficiency. The automaker hired a production exec from BMW's South Carolina facility to oversee plans at the Foxconn facility where the Pear will be built, the target being 250,000 per year by 2025. Fisker wants the Pear to get Fisker Automotive to 1 million sales by 2027. Last we heard, Fisker said it had 5,000 reservations for the little guy. Now that it's out and about, we should see and learn more soon.