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New Fiskers Revive Coachbuilding

A first look at Fisker Coachbuild’s new Latigo CS and Tramonto.

Can a Danish designer and a German businessman launch a new American car company - and in the process, revive the lost art of custom coachbuilding?

That's the ambitious goal of Henrik Fisker and Bernard Koehler, two former colleagues at BMW, and founders of Fisker Coachbuild, LLC. Setting up shop in the trendy Southern California community of Newport Beach , they've laid out admittedly "high-risk" plans to produce a new line of ultra-luxury cars.

Their first two products, the Latigo CS coupe and Tramonto roadster, will make a grand, global entrance at the Frankfurt Motor Show, which opens this week. TheCarConnection.com got a sneak peek at the new vehicles, as well as an inside look at what Fisker and Koehler are planning with their new company.

As the name of the new firm would suggest, Henrik Fisker is the better known of the two aspiring auto executives. The Danish designer will have an unusually strong presence in Frankfurt this year. Not only will the Latigo and Tramonto make their debut, but so will the production version of the new V-8 Vantage, which he penned while working at Aston Martin.

Until early last year, Fisker served as the chief stylist at the British brand, a job that gave him an inside look at how to produce cars with a lean team and a miniscule budget. "I learned about doing a lot with a little," he explained, during a recent interview.

Fisker clearly wasn't comfortable when transferred to California and put in charge of advanced styling for Aston's parent, the Ford Motor Co. Looking to take advantage of what he'd learned in Britain , he turned to Koehler, with whom he'd worked at both BMW and Ford, and laid out plans for a very different kind of car company.

What they had in mind was taking the classic concept of coachbuilding into the digital era. In the "golden age" of the automobile, it was common for high-line manufacturers, like Rolls-Royce, Delage, or Talbot-Lago, to produce only the chassis and powertrain of a new car. Customers would turn to outside design houses, to style and produce a body.

The so-called carrossiers faded away during the post-War years, in part, explained Koehler, "because hand labor became too expensive." But the two partners were convinced they could shave enough cost out of the process, and demand a high enough price, to make it possible to revive a modified version of coachbuilding.

To start with, Fisker Coachbuild makes extensive use of digital design and engineering software. In particular, Fisker hinted that his firm has come up with technology that makes the development process "incredibly fast. When we started the company, on January 15, I didn't even have a sketch." On average, he believes the firm will be able to go from concept to production in just seven months.

Where a conventional car company might need as many as 800 designers and engineers to develop a new product, the new firm hopes to get by with as few as fifteen, added Fisker. Right now, there are just three full-timers, though that figure is a bit misleading. Fisker Coachbuild takes to new extremes the concept of outsourcing.

"We're 95 percent about design," stressed Koehler. About a dozen closely allied parts manufacturers will take on the much of the engineering work for each new product. The powertrain of the new Tramonto, for example, was developed by Kleemann, a German "tuner" specializing in high-performance cars.

Though Fisker and Koehler liken their company to a classic carrosier, there are some distinct differences. Most notably, they are not producing one-off designs. They intend to build limited batches, typically no more than 150 of any particular design. The goal is to roll out two new vehicles annually, and produce each product for no more than a year.

As with early generations of carrosiers, Fisker Coachbuild has no plan to produce cars from scratch. The Latigo CS, for example, starts out life as a BMW 6-Series coupe, the Tramonto as a Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG.

The obvious advantage is that these well-established automakers do most of the work. That includes safety engineering. By modifying existing products, Fisker Coachbuild will not have to subject its designs to costly and time-consuming crash tests.

There are some big differences between coachbuilders past and Fisker. Once, a designer like LeBaron would establish a close working relationship with a Rolls or Packard. Fisker has no direct ties to BMW or Mercedes. Meanwhile, the auto industry has moved away from body-on-frame engineering, which allowed manufacturers to ship partially finished vehicles to a carrosier.

Today's unibody vehicles are essentially an integrated whole, so if a customer decides to contract Fisker, the process begins at the dealership, placing an order for a conventional Mercedes or BMW. The car is then shipped to a preparation center in Irvine, California , where the factory sheetmetal is peeled off, almost like "using a can opener," Koehler noted. Then the interior is gutted.

Fisker Coachbuild's partners provide virtually complete exterior and interior modules that are bolted or welded back on. Other vendors, such as Kleemann, rebuild the powertrain. And within about six weeks, a customer takes delivery of a completely new Tramonto or Latigo.

The total price tag? For the Tramonto, figure $253,000 - plus any customized features you might want to add. For your money, you get a striking redesign with a bold nose that shows "a tiny bit of Aston," but according to Fisker was more directly influenced by the next-generation U.S. Air Force fighter jet, the FA-22 Raptor.

A hallmark of Fisker Coachbuild is its attention to details. The stock seat controls, for example, have been replaced with elegantly finished aluminum pieces, the same material used for the F1-style paddle shifters. The rear turn signals are LEDs that flash like lightning bolts. The interior is lavished in fine leather, a numbered plate for each vehicle mounted above the center stack.

The SL's stock folding hardtop remains untouched, but every other body panel has been replaced with either aluminum or carbon fiber pieces of Fisker design. The firm also substitutes larger, 20-inch wheels and tires.

Kleeman took the SL55's already powerful AMG V-8 from 490 to a jaw-dropping 610-horsepower. During a test drive, the Tramanto proved incredibly responsive and blisteringly fast, Fisker claiming a 0-60 time of 3.6 seconds and a top speed of 202 mph. Special attention was paid to tuning the sound of the powertrain which, under hard acceleration sounds uncannily - and intentionally - like something out of NASCAR.

Final pricing for the BMW-based Latigo CS hasn't been decided yet. The second of Fisker's two planned products for 2006 is not as far along in development. But the company expects to come in somewhere just under $200,000 for the V-8 version and $235,000 with the V-10 BMW is getting ready to launch.

When Fisker Coachbuild finishes up, the modified car is slightly wider, a wee bit shorter, and about an inch lower than the BMW original. The nose bears a strong resemblance to the Tramanto, and the rear is decidedly more elegant than what began life as a BMW 6-Series. As with Fisker's other car, Latigo's interior is an elegant expression swathed in leather, machined aluminum, and carbon fiber. Even the iDrive **** has been refinished.

Fisker is still finalizing a deal with a powertrain tuner, so engine details won't be available for awhile.

There are plenty of parts on the market that allow an SL or 6-Series owner to customize their vehicle, but Fisker's focus on hand-finishing makes it clear these aren't a bunch of aftermarket bolt-ons. "We know we have to be leaner, faster, and higher quality than anyone else. Otherwise, we don't have a place in this business," Fisker said.

Whether the company can convince enough potential buyers remains to be seen, though Fisker insisted, "We don't have to sell 150 cars to be profitable. We can sell half that volume."

Longer-term, the two partners admit they'd like to explore the possibility of producing cars from the ground up. They also suggest their concept is scalable - that it could be used to produce far less expensive products in significantly higher volumes. That, Fisker said, could give a manufacturer a distinct advantage in an increasingly fast and fickle market. A maker that could respond to trends quickly and profitably would have a distinct advantage over the lumbering giants that dominate today's auto industry.

Source: The Car Connection

 
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Fisker Tramonto:











I think these cars are hot.

 
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yes they are. i love the razer holder in the roadster hahaha
the latigo from the side view looks like a mazerati 4 door in the front, 6 series in the middle from the front door to the back window and a tsx in the rear.