Prince Charles says his Aston Martin runs on fuel made from wine and cheese

  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Prince Charles' car is much like a fancy dinner party: it runs on wine and cheese.

The Aston Martin gifted to him by Queen Elizabeth II on his 21st birthday uses a combination of English white wine and whey from cheese, the prince told the BBC in an interview Monday.

The car, which Charles said he's driven for more than 50 years, underwent a conversion in 2008 to change its fuel source to bioethanol made from wine and cheese.

The prince asked Aston Martin himself to make the change, but the request was initially met with some skepticism, he said.

"The engineers at Aston said, 'Oh, it’ll ruin the whole thing,'" Charles told The Telegraph in 2018. "I said, 'Well I won’t drive it then,' so they got on with it and now they admit that it runs better and is more powerful on that fuel than it is on petrol.

"And also, it smells delicious as you’re driving along," he added.

Climate change: Queen Elizabeth II to attend UN conference, marking closer embrace of cause

Britain's Prince Charles, Prince of Wales walks away from his Aston Martin DB6 during his visit to the new Aston Martin Lagonda factory in Barry, Wales on Feb. 21, 2020.
Britain's Prince Charles, Prince of Wales walks away from his Aston Martin DB6 during his visit to the new Aston Martin Lagonda factory in Barry, Wales on Feb. 21, 2020.

The bioethanol that goes into the car is a renewable energy source created by fermenting the sugar and starch components of plant byproducts, which can be accomplished using wine and cheese, Euronews reported.

Charles' car was a brief talking point in a wide-ranging interview on Monday about the environment and climate change with the BBC's Justin Rowlatt.

The 72-year-old heir to the British throne said world leaders need to do more than “just talk” when they gather in Scotland’s biggest city, Glasgow, from the end of this month for a U.N. climate summit, known as COP26.

Charles said leaders should take note of the despair many young people feel about their futures, adding that he understood the “frustration” of climate campaign groups such as Extinction Rebellion who have been staging protests and blocking roads.

“The difficulty is, how do you direct that frustration in a way that is more constructive rather than destructive,” he said.

The summit, which is scheduled for Oct. 31-Nov. 12, is being billed by many environmentalists as the world’s last chance to turn the battle against climate change around.

Charles is due to attend a series of events at COP26, alongside the other big names in the royal family including his mother, as well as his eldest son Prince William and William’s wife, Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge.

Contributing: Pan Pylas, Associated Press

Prince Charles hates 'throwing anything away': Royal talks sustainable fashion, patching his old suits

Follow Jay Cannon of USA TODAY on Twitter: @JayTCannon

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Prince Charles' Aston Martin runs on wine and cheese, he tells BBC