That’s a lot of burning rubber.
Thousands of Porsches, Audis, and Lamborghinis were marooned on an unmanned burning cargo ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean Thursday.
Crew members of the 650-feet-long Felicity Ace were evacuated from the transport ship to a hotel in the Azores Islands, as the ship was adrift 100 miles away from the Portuguese archipelago, according to the country’s military. None of the 22 sailors were harmed.
The ship was still burning and billowing out clouds of white smoke as a Portugal navy ship inspected whether it was in danger of sinking, officials said.
Felicity Ace was likely too large to be towed to a port in the archipelago, which is more than 900 miles from the European mainland. The ship had been en route to Rhode Island from Germany.
There were 3,965 Volkswagen AG vehicles on board, including 1,100 Porches, according to Bloomberg. Volkswagen’s parent company manufactures its Volkswagen brand, as well as Porsche, Audi, and Lamborghini models, all of which were on board, an internal company email seen by the outlet said.
“Our immediate thoughts are of relief that the 22 crew of the merchant ship Felicity Ace are safe and well,” a spokesperson for Porsche said.
Anyone concerned by this incident and the implications on the car they’ve ordered should contact their Porsche dealer,” the statement read.
One man tweeted that his custom-ordered Porsche Boxster Spyder was on the doomed ship. Base models of the vehicle sell for $100,000.
In 2019, $300,000 Porsche models were among two thousand vehicles that sank with an Italian cargo ship near France, The Sun reported.
With AP wires