The Grande America caught fire and sank off the coast of France while traveling from Italy to Brazil with about 2,000 cars on board.
At the time of the accident, there were 27 people on board. All had left the ship and were rescued by the British Navy. French authorities also quickly took action to handle the oil spill caused by the sinking.
German automaker Porsche confirmed on March 19 that the crashed ship was carrying four 911 GT2 RS models. Production of this signature model stopped in February, but Porsche will produce some more to compensate for the lost shipment, according to Carscoops. Each of these cars has a retail price of about 293,200 USD.
In a letter to customers as well as published on Carscoops' website, the German automaker informed about the accident.
"We regret to announce that, due to the fire, a ship of Grimaldi Group, while transporting their vehicles, sank on March 12, 2019. For that reason, GT2 RS cannot be delivered to customers" - the letter clearly stated.
"As you can know, Porsche ended the 911 GT2 RS production in February 2019 and under normal cases will not be able to provide you with another car.
However, due to the nature of the situation and considering that you are a loyal customer and have high value for our brand, Porsche decided to continue producing GT2 RS in Germany. The men's vehicles will start production in April and are expected to be delivered in June, the company said.
In addition to the 911 GT2 RS, Porsche also had a number of other models that suffered losses in the accident that day, including the 718 Caymans, Boxters and Cayennes. In total, there were 37 raintersches on the Grande America.
Another European automaker - Audi also lost a large number of vehicles in this sunken ship, including Audi A3, A5, RS4, RS5 and Q7 models.
