The CEOs of the majority of the Volkswagen Group’s premium brands have confirmed that all customer orders aboard the Felicity Ace cargo ship that caught fire and sunk on its way to the USA last month would be replaced, including 15 Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae editions that were actually from the final production run of the supercar.
An online roundtable with journalists and the heads of Audi, Bentley and Ducati a day before Audi’s annual press conference, Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann said the brand had managed to piece together plans to replace the US$500,000 (NZ$726,000) end-of-run Aventador Ultimae editions that went down with the ship.
“This was the edition which was closing the production of the Aventador, and there were 15 on board of the ship,” Winkelmann said.
Supplied
Lamborghini CEO Stephan Winkelmann has stated that 15 out-of-production Aventador Ultimae’s that sunk on the Felicity Ace cargo ship will be replaced.
“We put our heads together, and luckily, we are able to replace those cars, so there will be no loss for our customers in the U.S. due to the sunken ship. This is good news!”
READ MORE:
* Volkswagen assesses the cost of ship fire
* Ship fire creates a unique problem for Lamborghini
* Bentley and Lamborghini to release first EVs before end of the decade
* Lamborghini confirms plug-in hybrid V12 for Aventador successor
Sources within the company had previously said that there were 85 Lamborghinis aboard, most of them Urus SUVs, but hadn’t said how many were end-of-run Aventador Ultimaes.
Portuguese Navy
The cargo ship Felicity Ace caught fire in the middle of February and sunk at the start of March, taking close to 4000 cars down with it.
“All the rest we are able to replace. The Aventador was tricky, but we made it,” said Winkelmann, who didn’t go into further detail about exactly how the cars would be replaced.
Bentley Motors, that had 189 pre-old cars on board the ship, already had plans to replace more than half of the cars lost, according to CEO Adrian Hallmark, who was confident the company could replace the remainder within six months.
“We’ve already found a solution for 100 that we can rapidly redirect, and we will catch the others up within six months,” he said.
“We’ve promised those customers, and we’re doing some clever things with dealers to keep them mobile, which I won’t talk about.”
SUPPLIED
It’s been four years since Lamborghini launched the Urus. Not its first SUV, but definitely its most important.
Meanwhile, Audi CEO Markus Duesmann said his brand had approximately 1,800 cars aboard the Felicity Ace, and that all would be replaced, but didn’t offer a timeframe.
“We are able to replace them,” he said. “It will take some time, but we will do our best.”
The Felicity Ace caught fire at sea on the 16th of February off the coast of Portugal while on its way to the U.S. with nearly 4,000 vehicles aboard, most of which were from Volkswagen Group brands. The vessel sank on the 1st of March in rough seas while it was being towed to port.
According to an Audi spokesperson, the cause of the blaze “remains under investigation.”
