What sort of car blends perfectly with next-level opulence? Champagne fountains, matching Gulfstreams, villas, superyachts, that sort of stuff. It almost has to be a Rolls-Royce, right? However, something common like a Ghost or Cullinan won’t do. After all, if you already have more than one Gulfstream, you probably also have more than one Cullinan. That’s where the Rolls-Royce Droptail comes in, a rakish two-seater that promises to be the most opulent thing the reborn Rolls-Royce has ever built. It has phenomenally intricate veneers, an Audemars Piguet in its dashboard, and it might be the most expensive new car ever seen on this planet. Let’s dig in, shall we?
The Rolls-Royce Droptail is a dashing two-seat cabriolet for the superyacht set, a more rakish, more daring form than we’re used to seeing from Rolls-Royce. From the uniquely rounded tail to the flared lower flanks, the Droptail carries just enough golden era coachbuilding DNA to suggest devilishly handsome ancestors without coming across all heavy-handed. It’s uncharacteristically svelte for a modern Rolls-Royce, and that’s a good thing. It’s also worth keeping in mind that this is one of four Droptails that will ever be made — all four have been spoken for, and this first one is called La Rose Noire, for obvious reasons.
The highly-dynamic red on this particular Droptail was formulated from scratch, and Rolls-Royce claimed it took 150 iterations to get the paint right. While many automotive paint colors go through heaps of iterations while fine-tuning the color and then testing for durability, this True Love red is more complex than most, consisting of five different tintcoats over a basecoat.
Each Rolls-Royce Droptail comes with a removable hardtop, a feature that was once a staple of high-end convertibles. It’s a convenient way to offload packaging concerns of retractable hardtops to owners’ garages while still offering tin-top security. Mind you, this detachable hardtop is fancier than the one you’d find in a mid-’70s Mercedes-Benz SL. For instance, it comes fitted with electrochromic variable-opacity glass to block out the sky or let it in at the push of a button.
While the dark red upholstery is stunning, the obvious highlight of the La Rose Noire Droptail’s interior is the fabulously intricate wood trim that consists of 1,603 individual pieces of Black Sycamore veneer, 553 of which are dyed red to represent rose petals. To say creating this wood trim was an endeavor is an understatement — Rolls-Royce claims one craftsman spent five hours a day on the project for more than nine months.
Now, let’s talk about the Droptail’s clock, which is actually a watch. Specifically, it’s a one-off 43 mm Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept Split-Seconds Chronograph GMT Large Date, which is one expensive mouthful. The standard version of this watch stickers for around $193,000, which essentially means that the Droptail has an entire Mercedes-Maybach S-Class worth of timepiece in its dashboard. How’s that for perspective? Much like an ‘80s Blaupunkt, the Audemars Piguet in the Droptail is removable, with a special white gold coin taking its place should the car’s owner prefer to use it as a wristwatch on occasion.
This particular Droptail also comes with its own wine and matching carrying case, a specially-commissioned Champagne de Lossy vintage stowed in a unique powered Champagne chest. The chest itself is a fascinating piece as its removable lid doubles as an open-pore sycamore wood serving tray with a snazzy stainless inlay.
Rolls-Royce only plans of building four Droptail cabriolets, each of which is highly-customizable and each of which should prove extremely costly. Bloomberg reports that this particular example carries an estimated price tag north of $30 million, which would make the Droptail the most expensive new car ever. It’s not entirely uncharted territory, seeing as the Rolls-Royce Boat Tail cost more than $28 million, but it is extremely Rolls-Royce.
(Photo credits: Rolls-Royce)
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If I had the money I would rather buy 1,500 Mitsubishi Mirages and give them away than be seen driving this DMC Doing my Cousin, vehicle.
Doug shows up:
“This! Is a $30,000,000 Rolls Royce! And I’m going to review all it’s quirks and features!”
I like to think that, somewhere, there is a ten-millionaire who looks at that thing and thinks: “now that seems a bit over the top, no?” And then, sees that boat-tail, looks over at their Phantom Drophead with its 2000s Hyundai back-end, and gets a version of that feeling normal folks get when we see that blank bit of plastic where the button for the option we couldn’t afford would have been.
Modern marketing does no favors for this auto dynasty Marque vehicle.
1. 1 of 4 at $30 million? Yes sold before production started and not a record for a 1 off build. Yea 4 off but you need a minimum to qualify for a record.
2. This monstrosity is clearly for the inbred who no longer have the money. I bet nouvre riche idiots bought the 4 because i doubt even the Saudi Royal Family is naive enough to buy this puke colored POS just because they can Only a rapper or hillbilly would by this.
McKaren for the nouveau gauche.
_Sir, let me ask you, I see you’re smoking a cigar, is it an expensive one ?
_Why, yes…
_Do you smoke many per day ?
_Why, yes…
_For how long have you been smoking ?
_Well, I’d say, since my youth, at least 30 years…
_Sir, do you realize that if you had not smoked expensive cigars for all these years, you could have bought – say – this here hotel with the money saved ???
_Fascinating…Indeed…Never looked at it this way…you are right… But let me ask you – you, Sir, do you smoke cigars ?
_No, never have, in my long live !
_ Then why haven’t you yet bought this here hotel – which, by the way, is mine ?
I’m not smart enough to be a millionaire, but am smart enough not to teach millionaires what to do with their money 🙂 From where I’m sitting, this $30 million thing will sell for more than $30 million at ANY point in time after its purchase, thus making the owner more money than the hundreds of thousands their “regular” Rolls Royce will lose with depreciation over the years.
“Let’s dig in, shall we?”
I’m getting some serious Critical Drinker vibes. If so, good on ya!
I’m not offended that this car or the market for it exists. I am, however, offended that I remain not smart enough to know how to convince rich people that $1.5M in parts and labor costs (being extremely generous here) equals $30M in value. I could really get behind that kind of grafting these folk.
Because Locklear it is grifting.
Pfft. If the inlays in the custom champagne case were platinum I might consider it, but stainless? I can barely contain my disgust.
That was the type of Fancy Kristen comment I was expecting.
Fancy Kristen was too busy counting her Gulfstreams to bother commenting.
I think this car turned me against capitalism.
Late to the party, but glad you made it!
Molotovs are on the entree table.
***Cadillac drops it’s new 350K Rolls Royce Competitor… Rolls Royce: “Hold my Champagne de Lossy”
An AP Royal Oak, ummmm really? So first we had a Breitling stuck in a Bentley, now an AP in a Roller This is profoundly stupid. Not because putting a $200K “clock” in the dashboard is stupid, but because it’s not a clock, it’s a watch, zero frigging effort. What if you bought an Infinity and Nissan decided to just glue a Casio to the dashboard. 30 million dollars and you don’t even get a clock you can read. AP Chronos can be fussy visually as it is, on ones wrist, and sure this car likely rides smooth as a cloud, but this would be insulting to me, if I had $30 mil and were still me. No way anyone who can afford this is thinking “oh I can economize by using the clock as my wrist watch”, they have a drawer full of APs, Pateks, or even a Rodger Smith. AP couldn’t have simply increased the dial size and made it a real clock?
You think the buyer, who was able to customize every feature of the car, got to clock and said “eh, whatever you guys want”?
If I were endlessly wealthy and purchasing a vehicle like this that could be fully customized, I think, just to be an ass, I ask for all the changes that I could until eventually I had bespoke 2003 Corolla.
RR made a good start with the Japanese after-market alloy wheels.
I had to read that 3 times until getting it. Do you supposed some RR designer would punch you once figuring out where you were going?
I don’t know, I re-read the article and can’t tell if that option was special or part of the “base” RR. I can’t seem to see the line between where the car stops and the custom options begin.
You had one job! Tell me the time when I look at you without squinting.
I eagerly await the news of someone actually street parking one of these and facing a several million dollar repair bill after a couple of tiktoking teens tried to break in.
This has to be the only car that has less repair facility options than Tesla.
I rather buy 2 new his and hers matching F-16’s and still have 4 million left over.
Base spec F-16? You must be a peasant.
And how do you borrow any grey poupon?
This level of money really boggles my mind, and we haven’t even scratched 1/10 of a single billion yet. And for that, I could have either one (1) of these, or pretty-much every car I’ve ever wanted including a new Celestiq, a warehouse to put them all in, a modest airplane, a nice beach house in Brazil, and this race track:
https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/Jesup-Pacific-Junction-IA/28922381/
And I’d still have $$$s leftover.
I have pretty good insurance with high limits, but let’s say one of my kids pulled my attention for one second and I crashed my 09 Camry into one of these, I’d be homeless so someone could get their car fixed. There should be clauses in the purchase contract for cars this expensive that if you get into a wreck, no matter who is at fault, the expense to fix the car is entirely on the owner.
you make an excellent and somewhat scary point, but from a practical standpoint the likelihood of seeing this thing anywhere but the owner’s garage or a car show is damn near zero.
While not $30M cars, I have seen a Ferrari Daytona, Lamborghini Miura, and gull-wing M-B 300 SL out and about on public roads. The Ferrari and Lambo were even out in morning rush hour traffic. Each of these is nearing or surpassing 7 figures in value and well beyond my liability limit and home value.
Hell, I would think Matt’s sphincter puckered once or twice chauvering the boys around Pebble Beach this past weekend with all the multi-million dollar iron on the streets.
Yeah, every month or so I see a few cars that not only exceed my automotive liability limits, they also approach the limits of the overarching umbrella policy I hold for liabilities in excess of other insurances.
This comment makes me think of a story from the technician at the engine lab back in college, as he had previously worked on vintage cars. He had just finished up some major work on some several million dollar old Ferrari, and took it out for a cautious test drive. There was one blind intersection where he had a bad feeling, so stopped despite having the right of way, and some kid blew through the stop sign on the cross street and would have T-boned him. Some clause like that could also help protect people driving someone else’s millions of dollars vehicle.
I think it would be repairable for less – I imagine a sizable portion of the $30M is to pay for the development and legalization costs, spread across four rather than 400,000 cars, rather than the cost of actually building it. It would still be expensive though, and I like your idea. Might should be applied to Rivians as well…
I’m not sure that’s something to brag about. Sounds like incompetence to me…
Yea, yea, eat the rich. But for something with this much excess baked in, you have to admit that its kinda subtle. Really, the only thing crass is the price.
Because pyramids are so last epoch.
Let’s see purchase price is $30,000,000.00 million, financed for 72 months @ 7% with $3,000,000.00 down = Monthly Payment of $460,323.17!
easy-peasy , lemon squeezy! 🙂
Just lease it. 3 years, unlimited mileage, no payments.
Firstborn child and one soul due upon lease-end.
That monthly payment is pretty close to my lifetime earnings as an old Millenial/baby Gen Xer
(☉̃ₒ☉)
“This car is full of computers and other scary complex things which could fail at any moment. Strictly for your peace of mind, let’s explore our extended warranty contracts and prepaid maintenance plans.”
It’s a Rolls – Royce, what could possibly go wrong? ヽ(͡◕ ͜ʖ ͡◕)ﾉ
That puts it into perspective; well played.
Does CarMax offer a warranty on these used?
Didn’t Doug essentially kill Carmax extended warranties?
This is just the car version of the “I am rich” app where you paid something like $1000 just to have a picture of a diamond. It’s not worth 30 mil except in rich douche cred.
Meh, I’ll wait and pick one up off the BHPH lot in a few years for peanuts.
You can get Bentleys in the 25-50k range all day every day in my area
…I’m not saying you SHOULD, of course. But you CAN. Outside of 70s and 80s ones Rolls Royces don’t seem to suffer the same type of depreciation. Most of their stuff from the 2000s/early 2010s is still a six figure proposition.
Haha I have thought about it, but for the same $30-35K you can get either a salvage/high mile Continental (not really a Bentley IMO), a 25 year old Arnage, or a decent W221 S65, and well, I know which of those I’d want.
$100,000 for a 20 year old Phantom is bonkers to me, but someone pays it I guess.
The Continentals horrify me because of…VW, of course. I have no intentions of ever touching a vehicle with a W-anything engine wise
As you know, you’re preaching to the choir here.
I always said that the Phantom was impressive and a real RR, whereas the rebodied VW Phaetons were gaudy trash – happy to see that these prices indicate that the world agrees with me!
The fact that there’s a sizable market for 9 figure cars is quite a succinct indictment of our tax code and society in general. The fact that this stuff even exists is nauseating to me.
WITH THAT ASIDE…if I were to wake up tomorrow with disgusting amounts of unethically acquired wealth I’d probably look into getting a Rolls or Bentley of some sort. This one is gaudy, excessive, and stupid but the British ultra luxury marquees do have a way of baking elegance and timeless design into their vehicles that few else do.
What if you woke up with disgusting amounts of ETHICALLY acquired wealth?
That’s not how it works, that’s not how any of this works!
I mean, is there a way to become a billionaire ethically? Seems like if you founded some crazy successful company and didn’t exploit the employees and paid fairly + provided good benefits, you’d be unlikely to become a billionaire.
This. You don’t become a billionaire by being ethical. Those two things are mutually exclusive. In order to obtain the level of wealth that purchasing a 30 million dollar car requires you need to exploit people.
And were it possible to become a billionaire ethically… there’s probably a good argument to be made that _being_ a billionaire, is, in itself, unethical.
This is not to say that I would be above being a hypocrite.
What if that person is a billionaire, who you exploit either via an elaborate heist or getting them to do dangerous adventure tourism after making your way into their will?
I’m thinking of a chaotic good scenario here.
Anyone have Bezos’ ex-wife’s number? I’m starting to smell opportunity here. I should probably find out her name before I try to chat her up. Anyone know Bezos’ ex-wife’s name?
Mrs. Bezos.
Yeah, that’s as far as my research went too.
Mrs. Ex-Bezos
“Never ask a rich man how they made their first million” (Russian proverb)
I would no be surprised if none of these 4 end up in North America.
I have a feeling at least 1 is going to Dubai.
For all the cash:
The taillights remind me of the Cadillac CT5.
The expensive wood panel just looks like hotel carpet.
The entire thing looks really dorky, especially with the roof on.
“The expensive wood panel just looks like
hotel carpeta Trapper Keeper from the 90’s”Nah Trapper Keepers are in fun colors and not “sales conference grey” with a dash of red.
More like setting a record for the highest depreciating car ever. And I can only think about how the hell is someone gonna restore one of these in 50 years?
They’re making four of them so when the time comes just find a parts car.
Handmade things are easier to recreate down the road than mass-produced ones (once existing parts supplies have dried up). Compare with the recent $1.9M Ferrari Mondial.
The most expensive new car: yawnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
The least expensive new car: newsworthy
If a new Mitsubishi Mirage is $17,600, you could get one Droptail or 1,704 Mirages and still have about 8 grand left over. Just imagine the shennanigans you could get up to with that many mirages.
Mirage racing series! Wheeeeee! *Oprah gif* you get a Mirage. You get a Mirage. Everyone gets a Racing Mirage!
I’d rather watch that than watch rich people throwing tantrums while playing with their expensive toys in Formula 1….
Instead of the hydraulic press YouTube channel, you could have a “Mirage crashes into things” channel.
The list of things you could put at the end of a sufficiently long runway that would be entertaining in slo-mo is endless.
“You all enjoyed ‘plastic garden shed week’ so we’re doing steel garden sheds next week, then it’s back to folding tables with jars of stuff on top.”
I would like to subscribe, sir
Put one in Jell-O and drive it out
This purchase would potentially single handedly revive the subcompact market.
Somewhere along the line, manufacturers just kind of looked at each other and realized, “So if we just keep charging more, they’ll keep rushing to buy them?” And that’s how we got here.
Exactly. There is absolutely NOTHING in it or on it that’s worth $30,000,000
Indeed. There is nothing in it or on it that’s worth £3m. Nothing other than willy waving to the other billionaires not deemed special enough to be offered the chance to buy one of the four.
We should be outraged such expensive vehicles are on sale and the extreme skewing of wealth they reflect.
How about we vote for legislators that will impose 100% sales tax on cars sold for over 250K or something like that. It won’t stop the super rich from buying them anyway, Tax the sales price the same 100% at every transaction as well.
Veblen Goods are weird. Taking money away from billionaires to do relatively harmless stuff is always good though.