Crafted by the marque’s exclusive Coachbuild division, the Rolls-Royce Droptails stand out as automotive masterpieces. Each one boasts lavish design elements and transcends the boundaries of typical car manufacturing, resulting in price tags that soar into the tens of millions.
The initial Droptail, La Rose Noire, stunned the world in 2023 by claiming the title of most expensive new car at a staggering $30 million. Its extraordinary bespoke details included a dedicated Champagne vintage and a removable, dash-mounted Audemars Piguet Royal Oak concept, blurring the lines between luxury car and art piece.
The second Droptail, the Amethyst, followed suit with its breathtaking form. Featuring the world’s first downforce-generating raw wood deck and a detachable Vacheron Constantin tourbillon, it reaffirmed the Coachbuild division’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of automotive design and luxury, even if its price tag remained undisclosed.
Unveiling a masterpiece that surpasses its predecessors, Rolls-Royce presents the third version of the Coachbuilt Droptail, aptly named Arcadia after the mythical Greek paradise. Unveiled at a private ceremony in Singapore for its unnamed client, this masterpiece is reportedly worth a staggering $31 million, dethroning the La Rose Noire as the world’s most expensive new car.
The Arcadia embodies its namesake, drawing inspiration from the ‘Heaven on Earth’ with a breathtaking duotone paint scheme. The main body gleams in a white paint infused with shimmering aluminium and glass particles, while the car’s lower sections, crafted from carbon fibre, are adorned in a bespoke silver shade. The finishing touches come in the form of meticulously mirror-polished 22-inch wheels and the intricate kinks of the vertical grille vanes.
Wood development was central to the vision of the client, who insisted that Arcadia stay as true to its earliest conception as a hand-drawn sketch in 2019. Santos Straight Grain was ultimately chosen, which is particularly vulnerable to tearing under machining. The yacht-like wooden rear deck, comprised of 76 hand-applied pieces, is laid at a perfect 55-degree angle. And given that the car will be driven internationally in tropical climates, Rolls-Royce spent over 1,000 hours just testing the wood’s lacquer before settling on a single protective coat that will never need to be reapplied.
The inside features a version of the exterior’s bespoke white hue and a contrasting tan color designed to complement the Santos Straight Grain wood that also makes up Arcadia’s 40-piece shawl panel—the longest continuous wood section ever featured in a Rolls-Royce. Each piece was digitally mapped using CAD tools and laid, like the rear deck, at a perfect 55-degree angle.
The same wood also houses Rolls’ most complex clock face, assembled in the dash over five months and developed over two years. The timepiece incorporates a geometric guilloche pattern in raw metal with 119 facets—a nod to Rolls-Royce’s 119th anniversary in 2023, when the car was first unveiled for the client.
Its hands and indices are partly polished, partly brushed and 0.1mm thick—Rolls-Royce claims that it held this particular timepiece was held to higher standards than those of even the world’s finest watchmakers. The clock’s guilloche pattern is also referenced in the instrument dials.
Though Arcadia has set the bar extremely high, don’t be surprised if Rolls-Royce somehow creates something even more magnificent for the fourth and final Coachbuild Droptail commission.
