Some designer at Rolls-Royce was sitting around the company’s Goodwood HQ in the UK a while back and no doubt had the following thought: “Our cars aren’t painted with diamonds? Why aren’t all of our cars painted with diamonds? What have we been thinking? Why waste time with all those paint colours when there are perfectly good diamonds piling up in South African vaults everywhere?”
Note: “Colours” was not misspelled in this case. Rolls-Royce designers think in British.
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So, the Rolls-Royce boffins got busy grinding up valuable (though surprisingly common and held back from public use to inflate prices artificially) gems into dust. The result is “Diamond Stardust,” paint created from 1,000 crushed jewels. Jokes aside, it’s important to note that the diamonds included in the car were ethically sourced and not banned conflict stones.
To make diamonds into paint, the Goodwood’s Technical Laboratory’s crew spent two months examining the dimensions of the stones with a high-powered microscope. Analyzing the transmission and reflection of light, the density and strength of the diamonds and the best type of clear paint for mixing, the team created a very fine diamond powder and used an extra final layer of thin lacquer to protect the diamond particles.
The final exterior touches to this one off Rolls-Royce Ghost were applied by Rolls-Royce master coach-line painter, Mark Court, with a squirrel-hair paint brush — as one would. To enhance the exterior, the center of the 21 inch wheels are hand-painted with a red pinstripe.
Now, there’s only one diamond-coated Rolls-Royce Ghost, so this process isn’t finding its way through the line. It’s a show car to demonstrate what the automaker is capable of and is not for sale. However, it’ll stand as an example of the company’s unabashed worship of extreme luxury and the unashamed display of said same.
