Rolls-Royce ‘BOAT Tail’. A counterpoint to industrialised luxury.

&ldquo;Today marks a seminal moment for the House of Rolls-Royce. We are proud to unveil Rolls-Royce Boat Tail to the world, and with it, the confirmation of coachbuilding as a permanent fixture within our future portfolio. 
 
&ldquo;Historically, coachbuilding had been an integral part of the Rolls-Royce story.&nbsp;&nbsp;In the contemporary Rolls-Royce narrative, it has informed our guiding philosophy of Bespoke. But it is so much more. Rolls-Royce Coachbuild is a return to the very roots of our brand. It represents an opportunity for the select few to participate in the creation of utterly unique and truly personal commissions of future historical significance. 
 
&ldquo;Rolls-Royce has carefully listened to its closest clients, each of whom has expressed a desire to deepen their relationship with the brand by creating ambitious, personal statements of true luxury. Rolls-Royce Boat Tail is not a concept created to be retrospectively sold. 
 
&ldquo;Quite the contrary. Rolls-Royce believes in complete authenticity and Boat Tail is the culmination of a four-year collaboration with three of our most special clients. 
 
&ldquo;Rolls-Royce Coachbuild clients are intimately and personally involved at each step of the creative and engineering process. We work in harmony with the client to gain complete fluency in the nuances of their character and personality. We carefully translate these qualities into the elements with which they wish to imbue their commission. 
 
&ldquo;Only the House of Rolls-Royce can offer its Coachbuild clients the inimitable opportunity to commission a product of future historical significance, that is as fundamentally unique as they are &ndash; and then participate in every detail of its creation. 
 
&ldquo;This is authentic luxury. This is contemporary patronage in its truest form. This is Rolls-Royce Coachbuild.&rdquo; 
 
Torsten M&uuml;ller-&Ouml;tv&ouml;s, Chief Executive, Rolls-Royce

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The first Rolls-Royce Boat Tail, unveiled today, is a curation of exceptional thoughts, concepts and items, which culminate to form the clients&rsquo; perfect experience. The commissioning patrons, a globally successful couple who are highly proficient in the appointment of Rolls-Royces, truly personify connoisseurship; their luxury curation is an artform in itself. Their proposition was purposefully self-indulgent. Their desire was to create a response to a life of&nbsp;hard work, success achieved, and celebration required. Their Rolls-Royce Boat Tail should be joyful, a celebratory car to enjoy with their family.

Together, with the marque&rsquo;s designers, they embarked on an intellectual journey, founded on a long-standing and creative relationship with the brand.&nbsp;&nbsp;Indeed, the clients&rsquo; fascination of the Boat Tail form was furthered by a motor car in their private collection; a 1932 Rolls-Royce Boat Tail, lovingly restored, by them, in time for their modern Boat Tail&rsquo;s completion.

Rolls-Royce Boat Tail presents a wonderful new aesthetic for the marque, balancing previously unseen levels of sculpture with discrete, sometimes playful functionality. The creation tells the romantic tale of Rolls-Royce&rsquo;s history, echoing a Boat Tail design but not explicitly mimicking it, fusing an historical body type with a thoroughly contemporary design.&nbsp; 
 
At nearly 5.8m long, its generosity of proportion and clarity of surface present a graceful and relaxed stance. The front profile is centred on a new treatment of Rolls-Royce&rsquo;s iconic pantheon grille and lights. The grille becomes an integral part of the front end, not an applique; a freedom of design bestowed only upon models within the Coachbuild portfolio. This progressive treatment softens Rolls-Royce&rsquo;s familiar formality while retaining the marque&rsquo;s undeniable presence. A strong horizontal graphic with deep-set daytime running lights forms Boat Tail&rsquo;s intense brow line and frames classical round headlamps, a design feature recalled from the design archives of Rolls-Royce. 
 
In profile, nautical references are very suggestive. The wrap-around windscreen recalls the visor on motor launches, while the gentle rearward lean of the A-pillar, the large, crisp volumes at the front and the tapered rear create a gesture that recalls a motor launch rising out of water under power. A progressive negative sculpture in the lower bodyside creates a lithe impression, while making an historical reference to the running boards of prominent heritage Rolls-Royce designs.

The exterior of Rolls-Royce Boat Tail is swathed in a rich and complex tone of the client&rsquo;s favourite colour &ndash; blue. The hue, with an overt nautical connotation, is subtle when in shadows but in sunlight, embedded metallic and crystal flakes bring a vibrant and energetic aura to the finish. To ensure the smoothest possible application when rendering the exterior, a finger was run over the definitive body line before the paint had fully dried to soften its edges. The wheels are finished in bright blue, highly polished and clear coated to add to Boat Tail&rsquo;s celebratory character.&nbsp; 
 
A hand-painted, gradated bonnet, a first for Rolls-Royce, rises from a comparatively subdued deeper blue which cascades onto the grille, providing a progressive but informal aesthetic and a solidity of overall volume when viewed from the front. 
 
The interior leather reflects the bonnet&rsquo;s colour tone transition with the front seats swathed in the darker blue hue, recognising Boat Tail&rsquo;s driver focused intent, while the rear seats are finished in the lighter tone. A soft metallic sheen is applied to the leather to accentuate its pairing with the painted exterior while detailed stitching and piping is applied in a more intense blue inspired by the hands of the car&rsquo;s timepieces. A brilliant blue is also found woven at a 55 degree angle into the technical fibre elements to be seen on the lower bodywork, precisely orientated to emulate the spill of a water&rsquo;s wake. 
 
The fascia is distilled in its appearance, purposefully reduced to provide a modern aesthetic. This minimalist canvas accentuates the jewel like features of the completely unique BOVET 1822 timepieces specifically commissioned by the client for Boat Tail (see below). Collecting pens is another of the clients&rsquo; great passions. A particularly cherished Montblanc pen will reside in a discretely placed, hand-crafted, case of aluminium and leather, in Boat Tail&rsquo;s glove box. 
 
The instrument panel dials are adorned with a decorative technique named Guilloch&eacute;, more commonly perfected in the workshops of fine jewellers and watchmakers. An elegant, thin rimmed two-tone steering wheel then bears the colours of the commission. 
 
The tactility of the open pore Caleidolegno is brought into the cabin. Anthracite in colour, the veneer brings modern strength and depth to offset the softness of the light blue and metallic sheen. The wood is applied to the lower cabin and floor area, reminiscent of wooden hull forms, again, at 55 degrees, perfectly book matched on centre line providing a uniform appearance when viewed from either side.

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&ldquo;This car should mark a sense of occasion and serve that occasion like nothing else&rdquo;.

At the press of a button, the deck opens in a sweeping butterfly gesture, to reveal an intricate and generous hosting suite. Its complex movement was inspired by cantilever concepts explored by renowned architect Santiago Calatrava.

The hosting suite creates a celebratory focal point for a shared occasion and affords ample opportunity to reveal the individuality of the clients&rsquo; tastes and desires.&nbsp;Hinged towards the centre line, the synchronised balletic opening movement reveals a treasure chest of moving parts that offer themselves to the host at a precise angle of 15 degrees. This subtle gesture of presentation reflects a genteel and quintessentially British expression of service. 
 
The chest is appointed with the perfect accoutrements for a true Rolls-Royce&nbsp;al fresco&nbsp;dining experience; one side dedicated to aperitifs, the other, cuisine, complete with cutlery engraved with the name &lsquo;Boat Tail&rsquo;, made by Christofle in Paris. 
 
A double refrigerator has been developed to house the clients&rsquo; favourite vintages of Armand de Brignac champagne. Elegant cradles were created to stow the specific bottle size within the refrigerator, the surrounds are highly polished and colour matched to the bottle.

A classic design element of contemporary Rolls-Royce motor cars is the stowage of Rolls-Royce umbrellas in the doors, in anticipation of possible poor weather. In a delightful twist and to heighten the languid experience of Boat Tail, a unique parasol is housed beneath the rear centre line in anticipation of fine weather. A telescopic movement opens this beautiful and whimsical canopy inversely, ensuring effortless deployment.

Cocktail tables, which elegantly rotate to mimic the offering of an attendant, open on either side of the hosting suite providing access to two highly contemporary minimalist stools, which are discretely stowed below. Designed by Rolls-Royce and created by Italian furniture maker Promemoria, the slim-line interlocking stools are formed from the same technical fibre found on the exterior of the car. The interior blue Rolls-Royce leather provides the stools&rsquo; suitably comfortable seating materials.

&nbsp;

To fulfil the clients&rsquo; extraordinary ambitions, significant engineering challenges were overcome in the development of Rolls-Royce Boat Tail. Indeed, 1813 completely new parts were created specifically for the cars. Time, patience, dedication and passion were the project&rsquo;s hallmarks. To complete the preliminary engineering phase, prior to the commencement of production, a total of over 20 collective years were expended.

While designs were being finalised with the clients, the marque&rsquo;s body-in-white, with its scalable aluminium spaceframe architecture, was completely reconfigured to support Boat Tail&rsquo;s generous proportions, a process that took eight months in itself. As ever, the 15-speaker Bespoke Rolls-Royce Audio System was intended from the motor car&rsquo;s inception, but the spaceframe architecture was exploited differently. Rolls-Royce&rsquo;s existing product portfolio use a specially designed sill section of the architecture as the resonance chambers for the sound system&rsquo;s bass speakers. In Boat Tail, the entire floor structure is utilised, creating an exceptional audio experience for the client.

As Boat Tail is a fully homologated, road-legal motor car that was created to be driven, it was only fully released by the marque once it had undergone the same rigorous dynamic testing as all other Rolls-Royces, including high speed analysis to ensure the contents of the rear hosting suite are sufficiently fastened and therefore silent under power. Indeed, each client has stipulated that they wish to drive their Boat Tail immediately upon receipt.

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Torsten M&uuml;ller-&Ouml;tv&ouml;s,&nbsp;&ldquo;Boat Tail is the culmination of collaboration, ambition, endeavour, and time.&nbsp;It was born from a desire to celebrate success and create a lasting legacy. In its remarkable realisation, Rolls-Royce Boat Tail forges a pivotal moment in our marque&rsquo;s history and in the contemporary luxury landscape.&rdquo;&nbsp;

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Photo: Rolls-Royce Press

Rolls-Royce Impresses by Launching the Most Expensive Car in the World

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