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.

The Rolls-Royce La Rose Noire Droptail exterior is painted with colors that are inspired by the Black Baccara rose, which means there is one that is dark and one that is red and both providing different, rich appearances, depending on lighting. Photo Credits: Rolls Royce

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

Surrounding that one-of-a-kind Audemars Piguet chronograph are some of the 1,070 pieces of finished Black Sycamore wood that are hand-positioned to resemble falling rose petals.

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.

Another Flower

Were it not for the La Rose Noire Droptail, the Rolls Amethyst Droptail would certainly be the study in finishes.

The color of this car is predicated on the Globe Amaranth desert wildflower. The exterior is two-tone, with a deep purple Amethyst upper and a softer purple hue on the lower. The paint for the upper includes red, blue and violet mica flakes to provide a metallic sheen; the paint for the lower includes flakes of powdered aluminum to provide an iridescent finish.

The Rolls-Royce Amethyst Droptail has a two-tone exterior paint scheme — although the inclusion of mica flakes in the paint used for the top section of the car and the aluminum flakes in the lower multiply the colors perceived.

Lower sections of the body are produced with carbon fiber. There is a book-matched chevron pattern created that is covered with a layer of lacquer with Amethyst pigment.

The carbon fiber lower front air intake consists of 202 hand-polished, stainless-steel ingots that are hand-painted with the Globe Amaranth pigment.

The 22-inch mirror-polished aluminum wheels have mauve paint applied to their inside to provide a hint of contrasting color.

Gary S. Vasilash

Gary S. Vasilash is the founding editor of Automotive Design & Production (AD&P) magazine, a publication established in 1997 by the then-Gardner Publications with the cooperation of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). He is responsible for the editorial management and direction of the monthly magazine. Vasilash continues to write a monthly column for AD&P and contributes several stories to each issue. Vasilash is cohost, with automotive journalist John McElroy, on a weekly webcast, “Autoline After Hours,” where they, joined by leading automotive and business journalists, interview leaders in the global auto industry. Vasilash has more than 30 years of experience writing about the automotive industry, best practices and new technologies. His work has appeared in a variety of venues, ranging from Car and Driver to Autoblog to The Wall Street Journal. He has made numerous presentations at a variety of venues ranging from the annual meeting of the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT) to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Vasilash is one of 50 automotive journalists who is a juror for the North American Car, Truck and Utility of the Year (NACTOY) Awards. Prior to his present position, Vasilash was editor-in-chief of both Automotive Production and Production magazines—predecessors to AD&P. He joined Cincinnati, Ohio-based Gardner Publications (now Gardner Business Media) in 1987 as executive editor of Production magazine. Prior to that, Vasilash had editorial positions with the Rockford Institute and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism and a Master of Arts degree from Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He is a member of the Automotive Press Association.