Detroit 2008: Henrik Fisker builds a Cheshire car

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Henrik Fisker, the superstar designer of the BMW Z8 and the Aston Martin DB9, bailed on corporate autodom three years ago, with a plan -- a bit of a lunatic plan, really -- to re-skin BMW 6-Series and Mercedes-Benz SLs as Latigos and Tramontos, respectively. This plan had one obvious flaw, and that was that these cars were beautiful to begin with. Quelle dommage!

These days, Fisker Automotive has an even more audacious goal: to build a plug-in hybrid luxury car. Fisker hatched his plan after a trip to Monaco to see Prince Albert -- really, that’s where I get all my good ideas -- and the good prince said he wouldn’t have his picture taken in anything but a ‘green car.’ Fisker realized there was really no such thing as a ‘sexy green car.’ He dismisses the Lexus LS 600h with an airy hand-wave of European contempt. Something like, ‘Pfft.’

Behold -- for as long as you can stand it -- the Fisker Karma. With a powertrain based on Quantum Technologies plug-in architecture (Quantum is a member in good standing of the military-industrial complex, and the system is derived from a canceled Special Forces vehicle project), the Karma is a four-door luxury sedan designed to go 50 miles in all-electric mode, called ‘stealth’ mode as a reflection of the Quantum system’s military origins. After it runs out of plug-in juice, the Karma will run as a conventional gasoline-electric hybrid.

Nominal numbers: zero to 60 in less than 6 seconds; top speed, 125 mph; production of the Karma and its variants, as many as 15,000 units a year.

Those are ambitious numbers, but Fisker says he needs that kind of follow to get suppliers to play along. The vehicle will use super-formed aluminum panels made in California, and the Fisker plan envisions outsourcing the assembly to a coachbuilder TBA.

And that’s all well and good, but what’s with that grille? This unusually lovely four-seater sports a hideous rictus of aluminum. The car looks as if it has been huffing nitrogen oxide. Easily fixed, a company investor confided, and soon will be.

-- Dan Neil