Dammit, I Hate That I Think This New Stupidly Expensive Rolls-Royce Is Kind Of Pretty

Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit. I know my usual schtick is to really mistreat ultra-premium car brands and call them out when I think they’re being pretentious or stupid or tasteless, which is usually. As in I usually couldn’t be bothered to donate a brace of bowel movements about whatever inane, inaccessible, insipid, inbred limited-edition monstrosity Rolls-Royce or whomever has carefully hand-crafted for one of their loaded clients to the tune of more dollars than you’ve had cold drinks. This time, though, I’m perturbed to admit that Rolls’ new concept car – of which 100 specially-invited and anointed people will be allowed to buy – actually looks pretty lovely.

This is a lot more fun when the car they’re crowing about is a miserably overdone embarrassment, like that silly video game-themed Ghost they did late last year, which ended up being $600,000+ worth of cloying decals and embarassing ideas. That was fun to be a jerk and write about critically, because perhaps deep down I have Real Problems. But I can’t do that this time. This time I think I have to admit that Rolls-Royce’s designers have made something striking and compelling with their Project Nightingale.

Is it worth the around $3.5 to $5 million dollars it’s expected to cost? No, of course it isn’t; you could get like 350 nicely-restored Citroën 2CVs for that price, a car with twice as many doors. But it is a lovely design, and it’s also Rolls-Royce’s first electric convertible, which is a pretty significant milestone in the history of this storied company. Here, have a look at it, in this eye-rolling video Rolls-Royce put out:

Yes, yes, perfection, wonderful. I like how that designer has a little hissy fit when he gets a line wrong or whatever happened. Maybe time to switch to decaf, edgy.

Snarkitude aside, this thing is quite beautiful, and I think it’s that dramatic boattail that really makes it all work. And the color, if I’m honest. The Nightingale – Le Rossignol, French for ‘the nightingale’, which was the name of the designers’ and engineers’ house by Henry Royce’s winter home (which I assume was a double-wide, at least)– is inspired by Royce’s experimental EX-series of cars from the 1920s and 1930s.

These cars – like the 1928 17EX pictured above – featured that dramatic boattail and a wonderful blue, both of which were re-interpreted in this new design. The “Côte d’Azur” blue of the new car is said to have red flecks in it, much like the phlegm in a handkerchief of a movie character who coughs in the first act and will be dead by the third.

Another notable use of the color red is on the Rolls-Royce badge, which has traditionally been black since 1933, but is now used for experimental Rolls-Royce cars. I used to believe the badge changed to black after Sir Henry Royce’s death, but this seems to be just a myth. It was actually changed to clash less with client’s color choices, and you can see it, in its original form, on that 1928 17EX:

Let’s look at this modern car a bit more; the proportions of a modern car are decidedly wider than its nearly century-old inspiration, and I think the front end is remarkably restrained-looking:

The famous flying lady/Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament is in a sort of recessed groove, which Rolls’ press release tells me is supposed to suggest motion through water, and you know what? I can see that.

I’m confused about the front lighting; I half expect 1970s Lincoln-style covered lights flanking the grille, but I think all the front lighting is somehow contained into those two thin vertical units at the edges of the fascia, which is impressive.

The taillights are a particularly evocative design, a pair of launching boomerangs that seem to have plowed through the rear deck to launch off the rear of the car into the great behind. I’m assuming amber indicators are hiding there, though I have no idea where the reverse lamps may be lurking. Those channels are stainless steel strakes that started at the headlamps and traveled the length of the car.

Again, I’m impressed by the restraint; it’s not overdone, but it has enough risk and drama to be interesting. You do get the sense that the body is a surface over which details are flowing, and it’s moving, literally and figuratively.

This modern interpretation appears to be based on the Rolls-Royce Spectre with its 650 horsepower from twin electric motors, and also boasts the largest wheels ever on a Rolls – 24 inches, and those wheels are supposed to evoke spinning boat propellers, as seen underwater.

The trunk opens sideways; Rolls-Royce likens it to a grand piano, but it reminds me more of how the trunk opens on rear-engined Skodas. I’ll bet you money that’s what was on the designer’s mood board.

From above, you can see the speedster-like headrest fairings that flow into the rear deck, an always-appreciated styling detail, as well as appreciating just how nicely all those flowing lines start to converge at the rear.

Dammit, why do I like this miserably unobtainable thing? It’s like having a craving for a unicorn taco: it’s just not going to be a desire that can be satisfied. Stupid, it’s stupid. It’s all stupid. I wonder who that group of 100 anointed Rolls-Royce buyers will be? What criteria are they using? I hope they offer one to Matt Berry.

I’m curious about the packaging here; the proportions are quite dramatic, with Rolls themselves saying

“This is a motor car that is almost entirely bonnet and tail, its two-seat cabin an intimate counterpoint to the grandeur of the volumes surrounding it.”

…which is a fancy way of saying even though it’s huge, the interior is kind of cramped. The Spectre this is based on doesn’t have a front trunk, so that whole vast plain is useless area to the passengers.

I guess the upside to a cramped cabin is that a lot of attention and detail can be spent on everything in there that you touch, smell, or taste, and I’m sure Rolls-Royce considered it carefully.

I think the convertible top has Rolls’ twinkling stars fiber-optic lights, and I’m sure there’s nice rubber Pantsaver floormats down on the floor, too. I’m sure it’s great, just great.

It’s lovely. It’s absurd. Most of us will never even see one, so it doesn’t even really matter. I think the best outcome here is for Mitsuoka to make a shameless copy of this powerful design and build it on, say, a Nissan Versa chassis and sell it for, oh, $65,000. That’s what should happen. I doubt that would steal much of Rolls-Royce’s sales, anyway, so why would they mind?

Mitsuoka, just shoot me an email and I’ll send you all these pictures I downloaded.

Top graphic images: Rolls-Royce