Just under two months ago, the cargo ship Felicity Ace caught fire in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean while hauling millions of dollars worth of European cars. The fire destroyed every single car on board, even forcing Lamborghini to restart production of the Aventador Ultimae to replace burned-up machine. But what of the poor owner of the one (1) 2014 Kia Soul on the ship’s manifest?
As spotted by Top Gear, the manifest of the Felicity Ace is now publicly available. It counts all the Lamborghinis and Porsches we know and love, but some entries are substantially odder. The manifest contains some industrial equipment, like:
- One Krone MiG M 450 self-propelled mower
- Seven Siebenhaar winches, seemingly for use in cranes
- What appear to be two Bauer Kelly borehole drilling systems
- Nearly 220,000 lbs of used tractors
But you aren’t here for absurd amounts of preowned farm equipment. You want to know the cars. Worry not, dear reader, for there were cars aplenty aboard the Felicity Ace:
- Five Volkswagen ID.4s, marked as “test” vehicles
- One similarly test-marked Volkswagen Taigo, which is notably not sold in the U.S.
- 83 Volkswagen Golfs, with no breakdown between GTIs and Golf Rs
- 50 Audi Q3s
- Three Audi A4 Cabrios
- 44 Audi A5 Sportbacks
- 10 Audi A5 Coupes
- 34 Audi E-Trons
- 9 Audi E-Tron Sportbacks
- 126 Porsche “Bratislava”s. Porsche has all its cars listed under factory names, but the Bratislava factory builds the Cayenne, so that’s likely what these are
- 23 Porsche “Zuffenhausen 85"s. The Zuffenhausen factory produces 718s, 911s, and Taycans, though it’s unclear which of those (or their submodels) is the “85"
- 25 Porsche “Zuffenhausen”s, with no number. These have an average weight of 4,475 lbs, far above even the heaviest 911, making it likely that these are Taycans
- 19 Porsche “Leipzig 62"s, either the Macan or the Panamera
- Three Bentley Continental Flying Spurs
- Six Bentley Continental GTs
- 12 Bentley Continental GTCs
- 12 Bentley Bentaygas
- Five Lamborghini Huracans
- Six Lamborghini Aventadors
- 10 Lamborghini Urus...es? Urii?
But the most interesting cars of the bunch weren’t shipped by manufacturers. A few listings on the Felicity Ace’s manifest were privately-owned vehicles, both new and old:
- One 2015 Porsche Cayenne
- One 2015 Ford Mustang
- One 2014 Kia Soul
- One 2018 Nissan Versa Note
- One 2017 Volkswagen Jetta
- One 2007 BMW 750I
- One 1996 Honda Prelude, reportedly the 65th Prelude SiR ever built
The report from Top Gear lists a number of other vehicles, but those manifests don’t appear on the list of shipments bound for the U.S. aboard the Felicity Ace. It’s possible they were meant to be redirected elsewhere, to Canada or Mexico or South America, but that would mean that Volkswagen truly sent one Taigo here — and why do that?