Rolls-Royce Unveils La Rose Noire Droptail With Audemars Piguet Timepiece

Rolls-Royce revealed the La Rose Noire Droptail, a dark and dramatic motor car it calls a love story. Presented to its owners at a private event during Monterey Car Week, it was inspired by the Black Baccara rose. Rolls-Royce says it symbolizes the distillation of experiences cherished by its owners, who exemplify connoisseurship of the highest order.  

The color of the Rolls-Royce Droptail is called True Love. Lustrous and complex, the dark pomegranate color has a pearlescent shimmer that assumes different hues depending on the light. Five layers of clear lacquer follow the base coat, each blended with a slightly different tone of red. Rolls-Royce maintains it took a team of specialists to develop a new paint process for the color, an effort that took over 150 iterations to perfect. 

A dark finish called Hydroshade, due to its liquid quality, covers the brightwork. The pieces are not painted. Instead, a chrome electrolyte is introduced during the plating process to provide a dark but reflective finish. This finish is continued throughout the interior and is polished by hand to a high gloss. 

The Droptail includes a removable hardtop designed to give it two distinctive looks. The long, low-slung roof gives the car a dramatic coupe appearance and features an electrochromic glass section, which transitions from opaque to near-translucent at the touch of a button. When removed, the Droptail becomes a lithe, open-top roadster.   

Inside, the interior cocoons its occupants with exquisite craftsmanship, most notably the stunning parquetry. Formed using 1,603 black wood veneer triangles, it represents an abstract expression of falling rose petals. The highly complex pattern is intentionally asymmetric as the clients wanted it to represent a natural, organic scattering of petals.

The centerpiece is an integrated one-off luxury timepiece, a 43-millimeter Audemars Piguet Royal Oak concept Split-Seconds Chronograph GMT Large Date. It matches the colors of La Rose Noire, incorporating red counters and a red inner bezel, providing a bright contrast to the black dial highlighted with rhodium-toned bevels. The clients requested that it should be removable and wearable. When removed, the aperture in the fascia is covered with an elegant titanium blank head watch highlighting a white-gold coin displaying a rose engraving. 

La Rose Noire continues Rolls-Royce's bespoke line of handbuilt cars and is one of four unique Droptail commissions the coachbuilder plans to build. Meanwhile, the company is also transitioning to building electric vehicles like the new Spectre.