If you have enough coin, car manufacturers will do just about anything you ask.
Case in point: the one-of-a-kind Rolls-Royce Sweptail, just unveiled at Villa d’Este for Concorso d’Eleganza.
It is the dream request of a client who desired something reminscent of the swept-tail Rolls-Royces of the ‘20s and ‘30s. Except, y’know, new.
“Sweptail is the automotive equivalent of Haute Couture,” says of design Giles Taylor. “You might say we cut the cloth for the suit of clothes that he will be judged by.”
According to Rolls, what you’re looking at is the “grandeur, scale, flamboyance and drama of the 1925 Phantom I Round Door built by Jonckheere; the svelte tapering glasshouse, dramatic dash to axle proportion and of the rear departure angle of the 1934 Phantom II Streamline Saloon by Park Ward; the elegantly falling waist-rail, swept tail coachwork of the 1934 Gurney Nutting Phantom II Two Door Light Saloon, and the flowing roofline, rising departure angle, and again the swept tail coachwork of the 1934 Park Ward 20/25 Limousine Coupé.”
So essentially a history of epic models rolled into one finished product.
Unsurprisingly, the pinnacle of luxury comes at a lofty cost. Forget ‘37 Bugattis going for $7.7m; according to the Telegraph, the Sweptail comes with a sticker price of $12.5m, making it the most expensive new car to date. But for a bespoke project of this caliber (it began in 2013 at the request of a yacht and aircraft connoisseur), was certainly no object.
In fact, it might have been the point.
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