Rolls-Royce Arcadia Droptail Is an Amazing Car and All, But Have You See Its Clock?

Rolls-Royce is a carmaker that needs little introduction. Established in 1903, the brand has made a name for itself over the years as the maker of some of the most luxurious vehicles on the planet: Phantom, Spectre, Ghost, or Cullinan.

But even over at Rolls-Royce, there are degrees of luxury, and all four models mentioned above pale in comparison with something called the Droptail. Described by the company as "the first roadster body style in Rolls-Royce's modern history," it's not as much as a car, but a statement.

That's because the Droptail is not a production car, but a very limited series of one-offs that will never be replicated. Just four of them are to be made, each different from the other, and built on commission from some of the world's most powerful and richest people.

Until last week the Rolls-Royce Droptail family had just two members, presented over the past couple of years: the La Rose Noire Droptail, a tribute to the love of all things expensive, and the Amethyst Droptail, a car that features the world's only wooden surface that produces downforce.

The pair was joined last week by the third of four Droptails, the Arcadia. Named after the Greek term that basically means heaven on Earth, it is a statement in "minimalism and subtlety" wrapped in fine British luxury.

As usual, when it comes to such builds, the accent falls not on the car's mechanical properties, but on what it has to offer in terms of appointments and bling. Before getting into the specifics of this beauty on wheels, I do have to mention though that under the hood lies the carmaker's twin-turbocharged 6.75-litre V12 gasoline engine, which spins mirror-polished 22-inch wheels.

I'll start, naturally, with the exterior, which in the photos provided by Rolls may appear white, but it is actually a bit more complex than that. That's because this is not a simple paint job but a painting of sorts that mixes white paint with aluminum and glass particles to create the impression the color goes from solid to deep when natural light falls upon it.

You may notice that, unlike the other two Droptails so far, this one seems not to have a carbon fiber lower section. Well, it does, but instead of it being exposed to some degree, it is completely painted in silver.

The whiteness of the exterior, interrupted only by the black hood, is more than matched on the interior. Wrapped in leather, it comes as a soft play between white and contrasting tan, both of them featured to make the wood surfaces Rolls is so fond of look even more exquisite.

Just like with all the other Droptail models, the Arcadia comes with "the largest continuous wood section ever seen on a Rolls-Royce motor car" – in all, 233 wood pieces were used in the build. In this application, that large wood section comes in Santos Straight Grain open pore veneer with individually shaped leave stripes.

There is one thing inside this Rolls that in some respects it makes everything else pale in comparison: the iconic Rolls-Royce clock, nicely fitted inside the car's fascia. And it's not just any clock, but one that wears the most complex face ever designed.

An "expression of haute horlogerie," the element took no less than two years to develop and no less than five months to be put together.

The thing's design comes with a guilloché pattern that is mirrored on the dials. It was made in raw metal with 119 facets, a number meant to represent the company's years of existence when the Arcadia was commissioned. The hands moving across the face are partly polished, partly brushed, while the hour markers they point to are just 0.1 mm thick and enclosed in more prominent housings. The minute markers, on the other hand, are ceramic coated.

The clock boasts, naturally, the double R monogram of the carmaker individually machined from solid stainless steel billet.

As usual, Rolls is very tight-lipped when it comes to naming the person who had this made. There is a chance some of us will get to see both the car and its driver on the road, as there are plans for the Arcadia to travel around the world sometime in the future.

It took the British company five months to put this coach together, with the company's people spending 8,000 hours creating the wood sections alone.

Rolls also didn't say how much the vehicle cost to be made this way, but estimates are the amount paid by the unknown owner sits at around $30 million.