NEW YORK: Rolls-Royce knows that for some clients, the US$330,000 Wraith—in all its 12-cylinder, 3,800-pound art deco glory—is not enough. The model is six years old, after all, and usually cruises rather reservedly down the street in a shade of navy or noir.
These special editions—Aston Martin’s DBS 59, Bugatti’s Chiron Noire, McLaren’s 600LT Spider Segestria Borealis, Lamborghini’s Huracán Avio, Land Rover’s Range Rover Fifty—are to car collectors what the Air Jordan 11 25th Anniversary is to sneakerheads. On May 13, Aston Martin said it would need more cash to fulfill a crucial restructuring plan, even after Ernesto Bertarelli, whose family’s US$18.1 billion fortune derives mostly from pharmaceuticals, acquired a 3.4% voting stake in the company.
The special edition allows these brands to play to their strengths, by making fast sports cars with enviable looks. Brands build enthusiasm on such machines much the same way Nike or Supreme do before a drop: They release teasers of the colourways and vague body lines to the media months in advance and produce polished videos showing an edge of the grille. They drop hints like breadcrumbs across social media about the name, pricing, and quantity of the special object.
It went from zero limited-edition series in 2010 to producing the Cullinan Black Badge, the Wraith Eagle VIII, and the Zenith Collector’s Edition of the Ghost in 2019 alone. Interest in a car that’s special to one’s self is a grand tradition in automaking, even if it’s never been as widespread as it is now. Ferrari was building limited-run 250 GT Berlinettas outfitted by the builder Zagato as far back as the 1950s.
“We create a business model for everything we do,” says Lamborghini chief commercial officer Giovanni Perosino. “We try to avoid having any car that loses money. For cars like this, even before we start production, we already have customers with a down payment and a signed letter of intent.”