Recently the 2012 Fisker Karma won the BBC Top Gear Award as ‘Luxury Car of the Year’. Previous winners have included the Mercedes-Benz CLS Coupe, Jaguar XJ and Rolls-Royce Phantom Coupe.
Not surprisingly, Fisker proudly promoted the news saying “as a start-up American car company, this award is very significant since Top Gear is based in Europe – the heart of the world’s top luxury automotive brands”.
Charlie Turner, BBC Top Gear magazine editor, explained why the Karma was a worthy winner: “Cleverness abounds in the Fisker and adds to the air of intelligent luxury. It works well, it looks good and it must be a genuinely exciting thing to own. It’s the top-of-the-line spec that features no leather, just textiles and reclaimed wood. And it’s more convincing than it sounds, managing to look, feel and smell premium without any cow peel in it at all.”
Imagine my surprise when I read a news release today from the Bridge of Weir Leather Company, that seemed to contradict Turner’s cheeky statement. It stated that the bulk of the Fisker Karma’s luxurious interior materials are wrapped in the Scottish company’s locally produced Low Carbon Leather.
It turns out that it’s only the EcoSport model that uses ‘cow peel’. The EcoStandard and EcoChic models use ‘animal-free interiors’ according to information on Fisker’s website.
Jonathan Muirhead, Bridge of Weir Leather Company chairman, said: “Our congratulations to Fisker on the Karma electric car’s success in the Top Gear Awards. A success made all the sweeter coming from a high-octane, internal combustion engine-loving medium like Top Gear magazine. We’re very proud to be Fisker’s leather supplier of choice, and like to think that our Low Carbon Leather interior in the Karma helped in some way secure its crown as the 2011 Luxury Car of the Year.”
Apparently, thanks to an average of just 60 miles travelled by Bridge of Weir’s hides from abattoir to tannery (most of the world’s leather is sourced from South America several thousand miles away) and the industry’s first thermal energy plant converting waste to energy, Bridge of Weir boasts the most environmentally friendly leather in the world.
I guess the green green grass of Scotland and the fresh water, that also makes excellent Scotch whisky, helps in raising ‘Low Carbon Leather’. As an aside, I doubt they have low emission cows in Scotland.
Fisker says the seat foam in the 403 hp hybrid electric Karma is soy-based bio fiber and wood for the interior trim is reclaimed from logs sunken in Lake Michigan or orchards burned in California.
Would you like reclaimed wood and an animal-free interior in your next luxury car?
Related posts:
- Fisker Karma Plug-In Hybrid Headed to China
- Updated: CEC Fisker Karma – 2011 SEMA Show
- Fisker Karma and Sunset
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