Rolls-Royce Announces Its Second-Ever Custom Boat Tail

It drew inspiration from pearls and pearling

Rolls-Royce Boat Tail
A new custom-built Rolls-Royce Boat Tail.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars

Over the years, Rolls-Royce has earned a reputation for high-end automaking. More recently, they’ve re-entered the world of customization, which has led to some even higher-end work — if you’re an auto enthusiast with a fair amount of money on hand, a bespoke Rolls-Royce might sound pretty enticing, for obvious reasons.

All of which makes this week’s announcement of a second custom Boat Tail all the more intriguing. An article at Autoblog on the news offers some more details — namely, that the convertibles in question were made in a very limited edition of three, and there’s one still waiting to be unveiled.

The Boat Tail announced this week will be shown to the public on Saturday at Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este. According to Rolls-Royce’s announcement, the buyer wanted something that would honor his father, who spent years working in the field of pearling. That translated into a color scheme evoking mother of pearl, with the designers working from a quartet of pearl shells. Mother of pearl was also used for several elements of the dashboard.

It’s one of several aquatic aspects to this particular automobile. The Boat Tail name relates to the cars’ material and inspiration, with aluminum panels creating an homage to the style of yacht used for racing a century ago.

“Creating a motor car in honor of a revered client’s father and family history is an extraordinary privilege; a responsibility that we took very much to heart,” said Alex Innes, Head of Coachbuild Design for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. “The commissioning patron’s deep-rooted connection to Boat Tail is an inspiration — the result far exceeds a means of conveyance to become, quite literally, a moving work of art.”

As for what the third Boat Tail might look like — that remains to be seen.

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