One thing of a facet challenge.
Between jobs, because it have been, automotive designer Henrick Fisker took just a little day without work to do some artwork. That artwork, in fact, was automotive, however in comparison with designing all-new autos, Fisker selected to work with autos already in manufacturing, sparing himself appreciable growth time, in addition to price. This “facet challenge,” was named Fisker Coachbuild, and it produced simply two completely different autos, and never very a lot of them. (Click on right here for extra Forgotten Automobile Manufacturers.)
Historical past
This facet hustle befell between 2005 and 2007. On Fisker’s resume, the Coachbuild challenge falls between his time working for the likes of Aston Martin, BMW, and Ford (largely between 1988 and 2005) and his founding of luxurious range-extended-electric car maker Fisker Automotive (2007-2013). Henrick would later set up EV start-up Fisker, Inc. (2016-2024), which constructed the ill-fated Fisker Ocean electrical crossover.
Latigo CS and Tramanto
Fisker produced two automobiles whereas working Coachbuild, the Latigo CS, and the Tramanto. The Latigo was a coupe based mostly on the up to date BMW 645i, whereas the convertible Tramanto was based mostly on the Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG. The physique work was carried out in Italy by coach builder Stola. Observe that Fisker left the interiors of those automobiles largely untouched.
Costs
Whereas costs assorted based mostly on choices and particular requests, the automobiles got here in at round $300,000 every, together with the value of the doner automobile. All informed, Fisker Coachbuild, which was headquartered in Irvine, California, assembled 18 autos throughout it’s three years in operation.
Gross sales
Particularly, the corporate completed 15 Tramantos, 2 Latigos, and 1 high-performance M6-based Latigo, the Latigo CS V10.
Weak Demand
Operation’s ceased when it turned clear that demand for the custom-body autos was too low to make a go of the projected. Fisker had initially deliberate to promote 150 examples of every mannequin, after which transfer on to new designs.
Resale Worth
The Coachbuild automobiles haven’t held their worth nicely. A 2007 Tramanto lately offered for simply $33,000, not way more than ten % of its unique retail worth. That mentioned, the automobiles don’t appear to commerce palms typically, so establishing a price historical past can be troublesome. However that’s OK, the entire challenge was actually simply facet hustle, anyway.
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Fisker Coachbuild Footage
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