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Rough seas delay salvage operation for burning ship carrying luxury cars

LISBON — Rough waters forced authorities on Wednesday to postpone a salvage operation for a ship packed with luxury cars that have been on fire for a week in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a port official said. With teams unable to board the Felicity Ace, heavy tug boats sprayed water to cool the vessel, which is carrying around 4,000 vehicles, including Porsches, Audis, Lamborghinis and Bentleys. Lamborghini of America CEO Andrea Baldi told Automotive News that there were dozens of pre-sold Lamborghinis aboard, mostly the Urus SUV. But also some Huracans and Aventadors, the latter of which have ceased production. The ship's 22 crew members were evacuated last Wednesday, the day the fire began. Some of the vehicles are electric, and their lithium-ion batteries have made the fire very difficult to extinguish, port officials have said. Joao Mendes Cabecas, the captain of the nearest port on the Azorean island of Faial, said the blaze had lost its intensity — probably because there was little left to burn. Salvage teams hoped to board the ship, which is is adrift around 170 km southwest of the Azores near Portugal, to assess its condition and start preparing it for towing, the Portuguese navy said in a statement on Tuesday. The navy took photos of the ship that showed a gaping hole at least four decks high, with burn marks running the length of the ship. It is unclear if the vessel will be towed to the Bahamas or Europe. Cabecas told Reuters bad weather prevented the team from boarding the ship. Waves as high as 2.5 meters battered the coast of Faial on Wednesday, Portugal's weather agency IPMA said. The salvage team was expected to be flown to the ship on a helicopter belonging to the Portuguese air force, which will decide on Thursday if the operation can proceed, Cabecas said. Ship manager Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd (MOL) said in a statement on Tuesday the vessel was still on fire but stable, and that no oil leak had been reported so far. It did not respond to a Reuters request for comment on the cause of the fire. Insurance experts said the incident could result in losses of $155 million.   Weird Car News Audi Bentley Lamborghini Porsche

Listen to the Lamborghini Hurac'an fire up

Lamborghini just revealed all the juicy details about its 2015 Huracán this morning, but apparently Autobild was on hand for a photo shoot of the car, and shot this quick video of the new Lambo starting up. It's not a rev-happy video, but we're still happy a camera was on hand to capture the raucous exhaust note as the 610-horsepower V10 roared to life.
The note emanating from the Huracán's quad exhaust outlets doesn't sound quite as high-strung as an Aventador or Reventón, but it's definitely a throatier, more menacing sound than the Gallardo it was designed to replace. While the video posted below is a good tease of what the car sounds like in real life, we can't wait to hear this engine hitting its peak horsepower at 8,250 rpm.

Lamborghini battery electric 2+2 GT coming by 2027

Lamborghini's Sant'Agata factory hasn't put out a production four-seater car since the last Espada blasted down the road in 1978. We haven't stopped hearing rumors about another four-seat Lamborghini car since the Italians introduced the four-door Estoque at the 2008 Paris Motor Show. The subject's been especially warm over the last three years, ever since former Lamborghini CEO Stefano Domenicali told Automotive News in 2018 there was a five- to seven-year window to add a fourth vehicle to the lineup. Matters have firmed up since then, current CEO Stephan Winkelmann telling Autocar a few months ago that this fourth vehicle is in the initial stages of development and will hit the market "in the second half of the decade." Winkelmann said the company hasn't decided on the platform or the bodystyle — those answers come next year — but he favors a 2+2 GT. AutoNews' crystal ball gazing into future product says we'll get a battery-electric version of just that between 2025 and 2027. Porsche and Audi will contribute to the project, which is only natural seeing as they're the Volkswagen Group's mainstream performance brands leading the way with spicy EV sedans. With the changes that have happened at VW, the timeline means that the Italian brand might not adopt the Porsche Taycan's J1 platform nor the Audi A6 E-Tron's PPE platform, but could get the highly modular Scalable Systems Platform that debuts under the Audi Artemis in 2026. The SSP bones combine aspects of Volkswagen's mainstream MEB and performance-oriented PPE electric architectures. The conglomerate expects 80% of Group products to use it, counting some 40 million unit sales across all brands over the platform's lifetime. The only details we have about what's coming concern the EV's mission statement. Winkelmann said he told designers "this car has to be recognized as something different to what weÂ’ve done before" ... "[showing] a new way of designing cars" while still clearly being a Lamborghini. We would just like Lamborghini to remember that it has the Asterion (pictured) saved on a hard drive somewhere. Hint. As a middle child between the scarab-looking screamers the bull brand is most known for and the Urus SUV the brand makes the most money on, the electric GT is expected to sell annual volumes somewhere in between those siblings. As for capability, in 2019, company head of R&D Maurizio Reggiani mentioned 350 miles of range as a suitable figure.