Second Rolls-Royce Boat Tail is a pearler

Rolls-Royce is continuing to embrace the concept of coachbuilt motor vehicles, originally popular in the 1920s and ‘30s. It was an era when the engineering beneath the car was of less importance than the body created on it. It died off in the 1950s but recently the British luxury automaker took the decision to return to coachbuilding.

In 2021 it reinvented the famous Rolls-Royce Boat Tail with the reveal of the first of a series of very exclusive coachbuilt models that bear the name of the original. Rumoured to cost around $20 million, the first was an elegant and opulent model that also introduced some new design lines, such as the water line that runs above the Pantheon grille and around the body to contribute to the nautical theme.

Now Rolls has revealed the second in the series. Built for a wealthy client with a history in the pearl business, it has taken four years to create. The first year was purely about the design, which Rolls-Royce designer, Alex Innes, told Car Design News kept him very busy, including spending time with the client at various locations around the world to get an idea of his tastes and those of his family.

“We were very lucky that we were given a huge amount of trust, but also latitude throughout the process,” says Innes. “The client obviously expected something extraordinary, but they were very happy to be guided by us in terms of the definition of that and the ideas. There were some lovely anecdotes, for example, the pearl references which is a link to the client’s legacy and that of his family, both explicitly in terms of the mother of pearl within the precious details like the instrument dials and the clock, but also some other less explicit, like the paint on the bodywork, how it carries the behavioural properties of a pearlescent. I would suggest that in principle, it imbued his character and his personality but also somehow in a very restrained and tasteful manner.”

A big part of that is the Oyster White paint, a unique combination of pearlescent and metallic, with Innes explaining that the client wanted a finish that would reflect the environment around it at any of his residences around the world. “It is a combination of metallic and a pearlescent to create not just a lustre, but also to create the variation, so that it really does reflect the situation around it in terms of light and the environment,” he says. “It’s a very different car to even what I recognise from just a few weeks ago in the UK to seeing it here at Lake Como.”

While the expression of the new model is very different to the first, Innes explains that the overall shape remains the same.

“We wanted to have that lineage of the modern boat tail body style, so we very purposefully remained with the same shape,” he says. “We had to very respectfully pick up on some of the cues of the early boat tail body styles, the nautical influences. Some are more explicit than others, but I think the one that we paid particular attention to is the gesture that those early cars carried, that they conveyed so well, of a yacht moving through water. So the sense of form, the upsweep and the lower line work, the fact that the fender and the A-pillar are all slightly inclined rearwards was just to create that sense of movement that for us is what conveys the genetics of a nautical influence.”

As with most yachts, this means clean exterior lines and surfaces and Innes says the design represents reduction, with the client encouraging both minimalism and modernism in the overall appearance. He says it’s all about telling the story of the client in a very measured way, but for many the real measure of the car is what happens when you open the rear deck.

At the press of a button on the key fob, the wings of the deck open and up rise the various elements of the picnic set. Innes refers to it as the Hosting Suite and says it’s “the heart and soul of the car.” The client and his wife chose the various elements, from what cutlery and crockery to include to the colour schemes. In case you’re wondering, because we were, there is also a small amount of space beneath it for tailored luggage, but this is not a holiday car, it’s a day trip car, albeit a very exclusive one.

Finally, Innes confirmed that the third in the series is currently in development and interest in general is high enough that there could be more. So, any hints as to what we might see in the third Boat Tail? “Unfortunately not, other than as you would probably expect of course, it carries very carefully the body style lineage, but we’ll have to wait and see,” he says.