History
The Fisker Latigo and Tramonto were intended to bring back the lost art of custom coachbuilding. The intent was to allow high-end luxury customers to get the greatest exclusivity by both limiting production and by offering many customizable options. There may have been many reasons for slow sales in 2006-2007, but one reason was clear: steadily rising oil prices that were under $30 a barrel in 2004 but were headed toward $80 per barrel and higher in 2007. According to Henrik Fisker, many high-end customers were now expressing that their desire for luxury and performance was now accompanied by a desire for greater efficiency and for a "green" image. It was this realization, and a fateful meeting with Alan Niedzwieki of Quantum Fuel Systems, that led Henrik Fisker and Barnard Koehler to start a JV called Fisker Automotive, whereby Fisker Coachbuild would provide design and Quantum would provide the Hybrid-EV technology to create a new range-extended Electric Vehicle, which would ultimately be named the Karma. Fisker Coachbuild continues to provide design services for automotive and other applications. As Fisker Coachbuild turned its attention to the new EV market, the company stopped further marketing of the Latigo. The only two Latigos ever built were car #000, the prototype based on the BMW 645i, and the only customer car ever delivered: car #001 based on a BMW M6, discussed further below.
Read more about this topic: Fisker Latigo CS
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It is true that this man was nothing but an elemental force in motion, directed and rendered more effective by extreme cunning and by a relentless tactical clairvoyance .... Hitler was history in its purest form.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I feel as tall as you.”
—Ellis Meredith, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 14, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)