Rolls-Royce drives up car luxury with ‘Boat Tail’

Rolls-Royce drives up car luxury with ‘Boat Tail’

CHICHESTER, United Kingdom: Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, which along with the wider luxury goods sector is recovering strongly from pandemic fallout, has launched a "Boat Tail“ automobile - tailor-made for just three ultra-wealthy clients. With a rear resembling a yacht deck and opening up for alfresco dining, the Boat Tail's opulent design features also hand-crafted aluminum panels and Swiss timepieces.

Fashioned by Rolls' Coachbuild unit, the blue-painted car has been made for three clients who drove its design, according to Rolls-Royce Motor Cars chief executive Torsten Muller-Otvos. "The client comes to us with an idea in mind, exactly what happened 100 years ago when clients commissioned the bodies they wanted to see,“ Muller-Otvos told AFP during the car's launch this week at the company's Goodwood headquarters near Chichester in southern England.

"It's not us defining what the car should look like, it really is as it was in the past, that the client defines what they want to see,“ he added. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, owned by German car giant BMW, revived the art of coachbuilding in 2017 with the Boat Tail's precursor "Sweptail“. Speculation about Sweptail costing some $13 million was "pretty close“, Muller-Otvos confirmed, while reports suggest Boat Tail could be twice