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Rolls-Royce La Rose Noire Droptail a dark floral love letter to customization

Rolls-Royce's boat-themed custom vehicle developments have gone from the 2017 Sweptail to the 2021 Boat Tail and now the Droptail — to be precise, the La Rose Noire Droptail. This is the first of four coachbuilt Droptails, handed over in a private gathering near Pebble Beach to the family that commissioned it. The name La Rose Noire blows a kiss to the Black Baccara, a hybrid tea rose created in France around 25 years ago and a favorite of the matriarch in the family that commissioned the Rolls-Royce. The flower's petals shimmer from almost black to dark red-burgundy and pomegranate depending on the light and the angle of view. Two hues represent this fierce luster on the car: a deep red called True Love and a darker red called Mystery. Painters applied the iridescent True Love to the body with a secret base coat followed by five layers of clear lacquer, each lacquer layer blended with a slightly different tone of red. Rolls-Royce says it took more than 150 experiments to perfect the final product. True Love appears again on the Pantheon upper grille, the shade painted on the backs of the grille vanes. Rolls-Royce 3D-printed the lower intake in a composite material, accented with 202 stainless-steel ingots painted in True Love. Mystery bows on the 22-inch alloy wheels, contrasted with millwork that exposes the alloy spokes underneath. And a new chrome plating process created the darkly reflective Hydroshade tint of the brightwork. Removing the custom roof with its electrochromic glass panel reveals a cockpit that Rolls-Royce used to set new standards for its craftsmanship. The buyers wanted parquetry with a motif of scattering rose petals. Rolls-Royce decided the best way to achieve that would be to create and finish 1,603 Black Sycamore veneer triangles by hand, and lay 503 red veneer pieces asymmetrically among them to represent the petals. The woodwork runs across the instrument panel and in an element along the doors, then down the tail. The application was so intense that a single artist worked in one-hour stints no more than five hours a day in a sound-insulated room "to ensure the focus required."  Then there's the treasure in the instrument panel. The commissioning family went to Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet for a custom timepiece, a 43-millimeter Royal Oak Concept Split-Seconds Chronograph GMT Large Date.

I got to see the Rolls-Royce Dawn

It may look like a Wraith convertible, but that doesn't do this new Rolls justice. In mid-May, Rolls-Royce announced the name of its forthcoming convertible: Dawn. Two days after that news was released, I saw the new car in Beverly Hills, CA. And as you can probably guess from earlier spy shots, not to mention my choice of lead photo, it looks like a Wraith convertible. Well, sort of. Before getting a full briefing of the new Dawn, I was frisked, security guards waved handheld metal detectors around my limbs, and my iPhone was confiscated. I was left standing outside a glamorous mansion with no more than a blue notebook, a pen, a glass of champagne, and gorgeous views of the Hollywood hills and Pacific Ocean. I was told to keep my mouth shut about everything I was about to see, until further notice. So no, I can't tell you everything I know about the Rolls-Royce Dawn; the company wants to save some information for the car's official unveiling in September at the Frankfurt Motor Show. I don't have photos. I don't even have a napkin sketch. Instead, I'm now allowed to tell you my impressions of the car I saw. It may look like a Wraith convertible, but that phrase alone doesn't do this new Rolls justice. Fabulous places. Shared social occasions. That's the sort of imagery Rolls-Royce wants to convey with the Dawn. In an effort to really convey this, Rolls-Royce opted to give the car a totally different name – that's why it isn't called Wraith Drophead Coupe, like the convertible version of the flagship Phantom. "'Dawn' perfectly expresses the character of the new Rolls-Royce. In its tentative, inchoate, anticipatory state, dawn is the world coming to light from the ethereal dark of the night," the company said in its original release. The Dawn name also harks back to the incredibly exclusive Silver Dawn from the 1950s, pictured above. Fabulous places and fabulous people. Shared social occasions. That's the sort of imagery Rolls-Royce wants to convey with the Dawn. After a hearing details that shall not be mentioned here (yet), I met the Dawn for the first time. The car drove up a path to the Beverly Hills mansion's courtyard, top up, modern music playing in the background. This was the first time in recent memory that a convertible was introduced with its roof affixed, but this was intentional. With the roof on, the differences between Wraith and Dawn are immediately noticeable. View 8 Photos With the roof up, the big droptop sort of looks like a hot rod.

Queen Elizabeth II was a longtime automotive enthusiast

Since driver's licenses, license plates, and passports were issued in her own name, Queen Elizabeth II didn't need them to drive and travel. She started combining the two just before she turned 19, joining the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) transport division in 1945 for vehicle mechanic training. She wanted to help the British effort during World War II and would drive an ambulance — one that, theoretically, she could also fix if it broke down. The war ended before she graduated as an Honorary Junior Commander, the other ATS members dubbing her Princess Auto Mechanic. We donÂ’t know if she got under the hoods of the many official state vehicles and the far more numerous unofficial fleet in the royal garages, but she was still driving herself around England as late as this year. Here is a tiny selection of royal conveyances used during her 70-year reign. Gold State Coach (1762) True, she never drove this one, but a tour of every royal garage should start with the coach. King George III commissioned Samuel Butler to build it in 1760. Butler spent two years on the gilded carriage 24 feet long and more than 12 feet high. The quarters are suspended from the frame by leather straps, so occupants get tossed about even during a slow stroll, which is as fast as the eight Windsor Gray horses can pull it. It wasnÂ’t until the 1900s that King George VI rubberized the wooden wheels. Word is the queen didnÂ’t like it.   1953 Land Rover Series 1 Land Rover gave Queen ElizabethÂ’s father, King George VI, the 100th example of the 80 Series off the line in 1948. She picked up the Landie habit for herself five years later, when a 1953 Series 1 with a custom 86-inch wheelbase was part of the fleet used for her six-month tour of the Commonwealth in 1953 and 1954. That Land Rover became Ceremonial Vehicle State IV. The models above were built in Australia in 1958 as near copies of the Commonwealth tour vehicle, when Australia decided it wanted six identical versions for royal service. ItÂ’s thought the royal family went through around 30 Land Rover Series cars and Defenders since then, and many of the most common photos of her have her posing in or near one, especially the 2002 Defender built just for her. The royal family isnÂ’t finished with them, either: A current Defender 110 served as a luggage hauler for family members headed to Balmoral Castle during the queenÂ’s final days.