Prince Charles’ Aston Martin DB6 runs on wine
Author: Chris Barker
Published: 03 July 2008
Ever the green champion, the world’s most high-profile plant communicator has proved it’s possible to quaff wine at the same time as being behind the wheel - and completely within the parameters of the law - by filling his Aston Martin DB6 to the gunnels with wine. Or rather the bioethanol byproduct that remains once the fermented wine has been distilled and further refined for alternative fuel usage.
The classic Aston Martin DB6 has been converted to run on 100% bioethanol ,as the Prince of Wales plans to minimise his own carbon footprint and highlight the Royal Family’s awareness and commitment to issues regarding the climate.
At £1.10 per litre, the bioethanol is only marginally cheaper than full-grade four star, yet belches out a CO2 bubble that’s an estimated 85% less damaging than a petrol-tinged exhaust burp.
The next-in-line to the throne only potters a few hundred miles from home each year in his 38-year old DB6, but for all that he wants to set the right example to his many subjects who travel considerably further leaving a catastrophic snail trail of excessive CO2 stains as they go.
The vintage DB9 – the Princes’ 21st birthday present - averages ten miles to the gallon, or the equivalent of 4.5 bottles of wine for every mile covered.
Made from surplus English wine, and more precisely the grapes that have fermented at a Wiltshire vineyard, it’s the very stuff that should makes us all feel jolly English, wave a Union Flag and belt out a few lines of the national anthem. English wine fuelling a quintessentiall-English sports car that transports a bona fide member of English aristocracy. You couldn’t make it up.
The vineyard bottles the majority of its harvest, yet due to EU quotas have to cap the bottles before the grapes actually runneth dry. So as to not waste a drop, the vineyard flogs its excess vino to Gloucester-based biofuels supplier - Green Fuels - where it’s distilled as part of the advanced process that will eventually see it reaching alternative pumps. And Prince Charlie's Aston.
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