Rolls-Royce has unveiled the Droptail limited to just four examples with each believed to be the most expensive new car ever produced.
Like the Boat Tail before it, the new Droptail is a coach built design that shares very little with any other Rolls-Royce product. The gist of the design was a collaboration between Rolls and the four customers, but each will be customized to the owner’s preference.
The Droptail is said to be the first two-seat vehicle ever produced by Rolls-Royce with the first of four being called ‘La Rose Noire’ (black rose).
The ‘La Rose Noire’ wears pomegranate-coloured paint, said to have been inspired by the Black Baccara rose, and offset by dark finishes on the exterior detailing.
Rather than a conventional fabric roof, the Droptail uses a solid, removable carbon-fibre hard-top roof which features an electrochromic glass section that can change opacity with the press of a button.
Power is provided by the familiar twin-turbocharged 6.75-litre V12 in a bespoke state of tune that boosts power by 30 hp over the Phantom but cuts torque, giving total outputs of 593 hp (442 kW) and 840 Nm (620 lb-ft). They did not reveal any performance figures, but no doubt the Drop Tail will be a close match for the V12-engined Dawn.
‘La Rose Noire’, comes with a bespoke Audemars Piguet watch which also functions as the car’s clock, mounted to the dashboard using a clasp mechanism. This posed a significant challenge, said Coachbuild design boss Alex Innes: “That had to be crash tested, both physically and in virtual simulations, to ensure that the timepiece would remain in situ were the car to experience any sort of abstract movements in a crash situation. [We went to] lengths that nobody would normally go to, were they not instigated by the specific wishes of a commissioning client.”
Rolls never reported the Boat Tail’s official cost, as it was a bespoke project and only three coachbuilt cars were created to exact customer specifications. At the time, the Boat Tail was said to command $28 million. While Rolls hasn’t officially revealed the new Droptail’s cost either, Autocar reports it is even more expensive than the Boat Tail.
