Prince Charles Has Been Driving A Cheese-Fueled Car For Years And Nobody Noticed

The Prince of Wales converted his 51-year-old Aston Martin to run on bio ethanol in 2018.

Remember when Al Gore tried to tell everyone that the planet was fucked and nobody listened? Well, Prince Charles has been doing the same thing over in the U.K., and nobody listened to him either. Bless their filthy rich hearts; these fellas really did have the best of intentions—but when old wealthy white dudes tell the working class how they should be living their lives, the serfs tend to tune them out, even if the fate of humanity happens to be on the line.

Case in point: today, Prince Charles and his precious Aston Martin DB6 are in the news after an interview with the BBC, in which he mentions the 51-year-old car runs on "surplus English white wine and whey from the cheese process." More specifically, it runs on a type of fuel called E85 that is 15% unleaded gasoline and 85% bioethanol. The latter is an environmentally friendly fuel made from plant byproducts. Pretty rad, right?

Thing is, this isn't breaking news: Prince Charles' car started running on cheese back in 2018 but, again, the world wasn't paying much attention when to the future King of England proselytizing about climate-friendly vintage luxury cars. But now, looking back at this nearly three-year-old Wallpaper interview from a world that is actively burning, it's much easier to take the Prince's words, environmentalism, and cheese car seriously.

The Prince told Wallpaper that he'd been trying to convert his various cars and royal vehicles to biofuels for several years, including an attempt to get the Royal Train to run on "old chip grease." Eventually he found an upstart eco-friendly fuel company that was making bioethanol from whey and wine (both of which were deemed unsuitable for human consumption). He then hired an Aston Martin specialist to figure out how to figure out how to make the eco-magic happen.

"At first, the engineers weren't convinced that the conversion would work, but I insisted that it would," said Charles. "When the conversion was done, they had to admit that the car now performs better than ever."

Now that Charles' Cheese Car has captured the world's attention, perhaps we should start paying attention to his other climate-related philanthropic efforts. In 2019, the prince founded the International Sustainability Unit, which seeks solutions to environmental challenges like food security, the depletion of natural resources, and ecosystem resilience. I know the monarchy has no actual political power, but maybe the British should start listening to some of Prince Charles' ideas. He did, after all, voice serious concerns about Brexit, and you see how well that's been going for the U.K.

Recommended