Despite being technically retired, the 80-year old Lutz remains more active than many people 1/3 of his age. At #NAIAS  today, Lutz and business partner Gilbert Villarreal announced their new venture, VL Automotive. VL has struck a deal with +Fisker Automotive to purchase Karma gliders straight from the Valmet factory in Finland and have them shipped to a facility in Auburn Hills, MI.

For those not familiar with automotive jargon, a glider is a vehicle that is partially complete but missing a powertrain. When +Tesla Motors was building Roadster, Lotus built Elise gliders that were shipped to California where Tesla installed the battery and electric drive system. This deal is different because Fisker is supplying it's car minus the A123 lithium ion battery or the electric drive system. 

At the VL facility, technicians will install a supercharged 6.2-liter from a Corvette ZR1 and the 6-speed automatic transaxle (along with other assorted driveline components. The result is a car with the stunning good looks penned by Henrik Fisker along with a durable, reliable conventional powertrain. Best of all, without the battery, it weighs about 1,000 pounds less than the rather portly stock Karma. 

What makes this deal particularly interesting is some of the players involved. When Lutz and Jon Lauckner conceived the extended range electric vehicle (ER-EV) architecture that eventually became the Volt in early 2006, one of the first people they brought onto the team to lead the engineering effort was Tony Posawatz. Tony was appointed Vehicle Line Director for the Volt and remained with the program until after it finally went into production in late 2010.

During the Volt's gestation, Henrik Fisker started to start his eponymous car company and designed his luxury sports sedan around a similar ER-EV powertrain concept to the Volt. He agreed to a deal with with GM to buy 2.0-liter turbocharged four cylinder engines for range extenders. 

Posawatz retired from GM about a year ago and several months later he was hired as CEO of Fisker. Fisker now has a problem because it can't build and sell Karmas until battery supplier A123 Systems comes out of bankruptcy. This deal at least gives Fisker the opportunity to sell some partial cars. 

When I learned about this car, one of the first things that occurred to me was another car from Lutz's past, the 1991 Chrysler 300 concept. Two years after showing the original Viper concept, Chrysler was looking at other uses for the chassis and V10 engine it was developing for the production version. The 300 was luxury four-door sedan with similar proportions to the Karma. http://www.amcarguide.com/concept/1991-chrysler-300-concept/

Ultimately, Chrysler where Lutz was president opted not to build that 300, but the VL Destino is in many ways its spiritual successor. VL hopes to sell a few hundred units a year at a price of $180,000. Hopefully, they will succeed. http://vl-automotive.com/