Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales was out and about as he executed his official duties in grand style.
Prince Charles made an impressive entrance arriving at his second duty at the new Aston Martin Lagonda factory in St. Athan on Friday. Prior to this the royal visited the CAF train factory in Newport, the British Airways Maintenance Centre and the Marie Curie Hospice in Cardiff.
The heir-to-the-throne arrived at the plant in his own Aston Martin DB6, which was his 21st birthday gift from his mother, the Queen, powered by bio-diesel made by a by-product of the cheese manufacturing process and wine unsuitable for human consumption. The car was converted to the alternative fuel source in 2008.
While at the factory, Charles toured the factory floor and was given the chance to test drive Aston Martin’s new SUV and the DBX. He then joined a reception with staff and apprentices to celebrate the new premises.
In the Prince, Son and Heir: Charles at 70 documentary to mark his milestone birthday in 2018, he revealed how the idea came about. He said: “They discovered they could run it on surplus English white wine, but also I hadn’t realised that they had mixed whey into it too. The engineers at Aston said, ‘Oh, it’ll ruin the whole thing.’ 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.”
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge made quite an entrance at their wedding in April 2011. The moment the newlyweds appeared beaming in the 1969 Aston Martin, which was decked out in ribbons, ‘C’ and ‘W’ ballons and a ‘just married’ sign, was one of the most memorable images of the day.
