Lamborghini has announced that it will start the production of the Aventador Ultimae to replace the fifteen cars that perished in a shipwreck.
On March 1, fifteen of the luxury brand’s vehicles retired to the bottom of the Atlantic after the Felicity Ace ship caught fire and sank en route to the United States.
This posed a problem for the Italian automaker, as manufacturing of the Aventador had already been halted to make room for the supercar’s successor.
Stephan Winklemann, CEO of the Italian super maker, confirmed that the company would restart the production of the luxury cars in the “near future.”
“This was the edition which was closing the production of the Aventador, and there were fifteen on board of the ship,” said Winklemann. “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.”
While speaking at a round table with European journalists on March 17, the CEO said they had made all arrangements to kick-start the production.
Winklemann also revealed that eighty-five Lamborghinis were among the vehicles that sank with the cargo ship, far more than the twenty-one that earlier reports had estimated. A significant majority of the lost cars were Urus SUVs. They are still in production.
According to Winkelmann, the $500,000 supercar’s replacement will be “tricky” and poses several logistical challenges. The Aventador is manually assembled and was the company’s last purely-gas-powered V-12. It is unknown what restarting production at the marque’s Sant’Agata Bolognese factory will involve.
Aventador’s successor was set to be unveiled in 2023, but it remains unclear whether that is still the case, considering the new direction adopted by the company. However, the company’s leadership has assured the public that it is working to ensure the launch goes as planned.
“We understand that the challenges that our company has faced in the past few weeks may appear to make it difficult to achieve our target. We recognize those challenges and have already put measures to ensure our major production lines continue to run,” said a company representative.
Other automakers whose vehicles sank with the Felicity Ace have also begun working toward replacing their lost inventory.
Adrian Hallmark, CEO of Bentley, has said that the British luxury brand has made a breakthrough toward replacing its 189 sunken vehicles within six months.
As for Audi, CEO Markus Duesmann told journalists that the German automaker will soon manufacture more cars to compensate for all 1,800 of the vehicles the company lost.
Porsche has not revealed its plan regarding the 1,100 of its luxury vehicles that were destroyed in the incident.