Henrik Fisker’s next supercar is a boat
Acclaimed automotive designer Henrik Fisker, known for creating Aston Martin’s DB9 and V8 Vantage, and the forward-looking premium plug-in Fisker Karma, has a new project in the works.
But this time it’s not a car. It’s a yacht.
Fisker has teamed with top-drawer Italian boat maker Benetti to create the Fisker 50. The super yacht concept, revealed here for the first time, will be a custom-made 50-meter (164-foot) luxury ship for private use.
It will retail, when completed for about $35 million-$40 million, depending on what options and accessories it includes.
The yacht will have sleeping quarters to accommodate 12 and enough entertainment space to allow for 100 party guests.
The ocean-going craft is a first for Fisker, though he remembers sketching boats as a lad and later as a student at the Art Center College of Design.
Fisker said the design job was in some ways simpler than creating a car. Among other things, there are not as many safety and emissions regulations to work around.
On the other hand, he said, “On a car design, you can look at a full-size clay model, and put a tape on it and correct your lines. You can’t do that on a 164-foot boat!”
Unique to this project, Fisker says, was a platform-sharing idea he imported from the auto world. Traditionally, ships of this size are one-offs, custom built to order and very time consuming.
The Fisker 50, he said, could be built in multiple iterations simultaneously, and, because the platform is reproduceable, could be affordably built using very high-quality materials.
But fear not, Fisker fans. The designer has not abandoned road-going vessels, nor lost his enthusiasm for them.
He’s excited about the Galpin Fisker Ford Mustang Rocket, a Mustang-based bullet he built in conjunction with Los Angeles’ Galpin Auto Sports, a 725-horsepower, coach-built, carbon-fiber supercar that, in limited production, will cost about $109,000.
He’s also excited about the VLF Force 1, a V-10, carbon-bodied, two-seat roadster built in collaboration with former GM head Bob Lutz and former Boeing executive Gilbert Villarreal. That car, when ready, will retail for $300,000.
Fisker is no longer involved with the Karma, a pre-Tesla luxury electric car that is now being reborn under new ownership.
But he’s busy. There’s the executive leadership course Fisker will soon undertake at UCLA. And there’s a reality TV show that Fisker won’t say much about, except that he has a network partner and a budget, for a show about car building in which designers will compete, “American Idol”-style.
“There have been a lot of shows about cars, about how you hammer old cars together,” Fisker said. “This one will be about how you design one.”
Twitter: @misterfleming
