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"If you think everything&amp;#039;s better with a V8, the Fisker Karma will be your most convenient case study. Bob Lutz appears to share that opinion, and doesn&amp;#039;t seem worried that a dissolution of the ambitious Fisker adventure will hurt the efforts he and partner Gilbert Villareal have undertaken to make the Karma into the VL Automotive Destino. &amp;quot;If Fisker disappears,&amp;quot; Lutz told Ward&amp;#039;s Auto, &amp;quot;it won&amp;#039;t affect us.&amp;quot;  Of course it won&amp;#039;t, because, really, how many $200,000 coachbuilt exotics with a Cadillac CTS-V engine can you sell in a year, anyway? VL Automotive has a stock of 20 Karma &amp;quot;gliders,&amp;quot; bodies without powertrains, and 100 orders. There are plenty of owners looking around for more long-term reassurance that their sophisticated vehicles, about as satisfying a vegan raw diet to a steak lover, will remain at least serviceable for the next few years.  Imagine it: you&amp;#039;ve invested in this new car company with a really stylish extended-range electric vehicle. It&amp;#039;s technology you believe in, and you think this car will make a big splash and raise awareness/acceptance of the technology. What do you get for your considerable money? Stuck with the bag. In the Destino, Lutz has your solution. Bring your own Karma to them, and they&amp;#039;ll swap in the 556-hp V8 and six-speed automatic for about $90,000. Lutz says &amp;quot;we&amp;#039;ve heard from hundreds of Karma owners,&amp;quot; who are worried that &amp;quot;sooner or later the cars might wind up as boat anchors.&amp;quot;  How do you fill 100 orders with just 20 bodies? Thats&amp;#039; a good question. It probably doesn&amp;#039;t mean that VL Productions contracts directly with Valmet to get the pieces they need to fulfill their demand, but it could. Lutz is somewhat cool on that, citing potential logistical difficulties, but for the right price, nearly anything is possible. (Disclosure: VL Automotive partner Bob Lutz is a Road &amp;amp;amp; Track contributor.)  via WardsAuto "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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