A Remarkable Rolls

“Rolls-Royce La Rose Noire Droptail stands as one of the most progressive expressions of Rolls-Royce Coachbuild ever conceived.-- Anders Warming, design director, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars

There are certainly cars that one can designate as being “over the top” without exaggeration. To describe the Rolls-Royce La Rose Noire Droptail like that would be to understate the case.

Let’s look at the privately commissioned vehicle simply from the standpoint of paint.

• The paint theme is based on the Black Baccara rose. This French flower has petals with a dark pomegranate color. The petals appear nearly black when in the shade. In the light, there is a red pearlescent shimmer revealed on the surface.
• Those two colors are the basis of development for the coatings of La Rose Noire: the dark tone is “Mystery”; the red shade “True Love.”
• True Love is used for the body color. To apply it to the surface, Rolls-Royce paint engineers developed what they’ll only describe as “a completely new paint process.” It required 150 iterations to get there.
• To achieve True Love, there is a base coat applied. Its color “is a closely guarded secret.” (Appropriate for love, one thinks.)
• There are five layers of clear(ish) lacquer applied on the base coat: each layer is blended with a different, by a soupcon, tone of red.

Then there’s the trim. It is finished with a dark, liquid-appearing color called “Hydroshade.” Of course, it was formulated for the project. This finish is achieved by adding a specific chrome electrolyte to the chrome plating process: each stainless-steel element is plated with a 1-micron thick coating.

The 22-inch alloy wheels are cloaked in Mystery. Initially, they appear black. When hit by the sun, red undertones appear.

What’s more, after the rims have been coated, sections undergo precision diamond milling so the base alloy is exposed. The exposed areas are then polished.

And there’s more. . .

At this point, you might be thinking this is extreme, but not uber extreme.

So into the vehicle, where one finds what is described as “the most complex expression of parquetry ever created at Rolls-Royce.” Let’s face it: If Rolls says this is the most complex it has undertaken, it is seriously intricate.

After two years of development, the engineers and artisans came up with the process by which a pattern is created for the trim used on the rear shawl panel, doors and instrument panel. The pattern is made with 1,603 pieces of Black Sycamore sourced from a French forest. There are 1,070 pieces that are symmetrically cut. They appear light and dark gray, which is achieved by selecting veneer from several logs with different natural patterns. The remaining 533 elements are asymmetrical; these are painted red, to appear to be rose petal-like.

To be certain that the red color wouldn’t fade, Rolls personnel spent a year developing the lacquer formula.

The pattern created is meant to appear as rose petals scattered on the surface.

To achieve this — something that required two years to figure out how it

would be done — there was a Rolls artisan who worked in a sound-insulated space for one hour at a time, no more than five hours per day.

After more than nine months, the pattern was complete.

The price?

Although there is no information on how much the family who commissioned La Rose Noire Droptail paid for the vehicle, here’s something that provides some context: The family also commissioned an exclusive vintage of Champagne de Lossy, apparently “one of only a precious handful of vintages produced by the Chateau in its 160-year history.”

Of course, this meant they needed Rolls to create a Champagne Chest for the wine. The exterior of the chest has the same style rose petal parquetry as the vehicle interior. The lid is made with open pore Black Sycamore. It features the design of the Chateau made with a laser-cut stainless-steel inlay.

The chest houses thermal champagne coolers that are fabricated from black anodized aluminum and carbon fiber. The coolers are finished with the Mystery color.

All of which is a case of if you have to ask how much all of this costs, you certainly can’t afford it.