What you get for a £25 million custom Rolls

Adam Hay-Nicholls

Back in the early days of the motor car, Rolls-Royce would sell you a ladder chassis and drivetrain, but for the bodywork you’d have to consult a coachbuilder and write a separate cheque. It wasn’t until 1946 that Rolls-Royce provided its own. Henry Royce dealt with the oily bits, but when it came to the styling, his patrons had to visit the likes of Park Ward, Mulliner, James Young and Hooper.

There were dozens of firms to choose from and the outcome would be a collaboration between designer and client, not unlike tailoring. There was an upside to all of this: Rolls-Royce customers often ended up with something unique, or at the very least rare. While Henry Ford was mass-producing identical Model Ts in Detroit, London’s mews (and elsewhere) rocked to the percussive banging of sheet metal, with rakish saloon, touring, coupé and roadster shapes fitted to chassis brought down from Rolls’s works in Derby. These creations would bring the streets to a standstill; despite stiff competition from Bentley and Bugatti, nothing made a statement like a prewar Roller.

The owner of the car you see here hopes to stop traffic in a similar fashion. Rolls-Royce still offer coachbuilding, but now it does so in-house. And while a hundred years ago it was possible to spend up to £3,000 on a four-wheeled spectacular (£150,000 in today’s wonga), things have escalated. At £25 million, the 2023 Rolls-Royce Droptail is, by a considerable margin, the most expensive new car ever built.

The reason coachbuilding is now so rare and pricey is because cars are all built as monocoques, with the chassis and body as a structural whole. This makes manufacturing unique or very limited-edition models rather complex and time-consuming. The Droptail’s gestation took four years. Ford and Toyota would expect to shift 300,000 units off the back of an investment like that. Here, we’re talking rather less.

This is the third model to leave the Coachbuild department, where design is headed by Alex Innes. The first was the Sweptail in 2018, a one-off commissioned five years earlier by the son of a Hong Kong property tycoon. The second was a trio of Boat Tail cars starting in 2021, one of which has never been seen in public (there are persistent rumours it belongs to Jay-Z and Beyoncé). Droptail will be a quartet. Last weekend, at Pebble Beach where the world’s wealthiest car enthusiasts congregate each August, La Rose Noir Droptail was unveiled. Now comes the second in this series: Amethyst Droptail.

Last month, I got to see it in the metal in a top-secret studio within Rolls-Royce’s Goodwood plant and before doing so I had to sign an NDA the size of a phone book. The V12-powered Droptail is the first two-seat Rolls-Royce since the interwar era, when American customers in particular had their coachbuilders come up with something sportier than those requested by backseat Brits with their chauffeur. F. Scott Fitzgerald imagined Jay Gatsby owning such a machine for flitting between West Egg and Manhattan after dark.

As such, the proportions are rather different than we’ve come to expect from BMW-owned Rolls. Innes went way back for inspiration, reinterpreting some of the spirit of the 1930 Brewster Roadster, which was one of the original US-only specials, and the monolithic 1912 Silver Ghost ‘The Sluggard’, which was coachbuilt to portray strength as well as its 100mph top speed.

On the Droptail, there’s less of a rear overhang, while the cabin is high-collared and reduced flanks. An upsweep line on the door panels, unheard of on a Rolls, pushes its form forward. The exterior details are minimal and clean, and for the first time the pantheon grille – less ostentatious than usual – has been chamfered and the vane pieces kinked. These things come together to make, not a sports car, but certainly the most athletic Rolls-Royce shape we’ve seen since the 1930s.

The fact that the Droptail is 5.3 metres in length – much the same as other modern Rolls – is a testament to the clever proportions, which include a high waistrail and snug glasshouse, that make it appear lower and more compact. This is surely the most lux-o-barge two-seater ever sketched. The nautical metaphors continue to the rear, which is referred to by designer Innes as the ‘aft deck’ (and which is the first open-pore wood surface to produce downforce on a car). Innes refers to the ‘transom area’, a term taken from yacht design where the deck slopes down to meet the waterline. Meanwhile, the aero void at the back of the deck should probably be considered the only time Rolls-Royce has ever put its badge on a car with a spoiler.

Inside, the occupants feel cocooned and protected by a huge swathe of calamander open-pore wood – the most extensive wooden surface ever crafted by Rolls-Royce – which wraps around the cabin. Shaped almost like a scarf or shawl, it looks to be a single piece of uninterrupted veneer but is, in fact, made from 32 pieces. The sand-coloured secondary leather was chosen to match with the caramel strands in the wood. It took six months and 99 false starts just to find the perfect log.

There is no convertible roof. Instead, there is an electrochromic glass and carbon-fibre canopy that is set aside and fitted (you’ll need your gentleman’s gentleman to help with this bit) over the cabin, transforming the open speedster into a closed coupé with a hint of 1930s West Coast hot rod.

Who bought this thing? The identity of the Amethyst’s owner has not been revealed but Innes did say the car’s specification embodies certain connections. ‘We explored their sensibilities, pursuits and values through curated details, each imbued with symbolic significance.’ These include ‘a passion for modern design, haut horology, and a family connection to gemstones.’ Gemstones are a longstanding source of the owner’s riches and amethyst is the son’s birthstone. A polished ring of amethyst sits under the Spirit of Ecstasy and illuminates the winged figurine. I’m told the patron’s precious jewel collection, like their car collection, is significant, and they have so much contemporary art they’ve built a private museum. The main body colour – a soft purple with delicate silver undertone – is inspired by the Globe Amaranth wildflower, which blooms in the desert near one of the client’s homes and, putting my Sherlock Holmes hat on, probably makes that Mexico, though I’ve been given hints the owner may originally hail from Morocco.

The owner’s son is the watch obsessive. There’s a nod to that in the brushed stainless steel grille, which took 50 hours to buff, and more directly with a one-off dash-mounted Vacheron Constantin, which can be removed and worn on the wrist.

The designer speaks of projecting modernity while acknowledging the past. It’s about ‘creating something artful that has real meaning,’ says Innes. ‘[This car is] glamour distilled, imbuing the personal passions and distinctly bold visions of the commissioning family. It is an elevated statement of true connoisseurship.’

If you’d handed over £25 million, you’d expect some floral flattery too. But given the rising values of the world’s rarest classic cars, you never know; perhaps at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in the year 2123, the car’s auction estimate will exceed that sum adjusted for inflation. But I’d be more surprised if that Vacheron Constantin timepiece hasn’t gone walkies by then.

Adam Hay-Nicholls

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