Freddie Mercury's iconic Rolls-Royce heads to auction to help war victims in Ukraine

Fashioned by Rolls' Coachbuild unit, the blue-painted car has been made for three clients who drove its design, according to Rolls-Royce Motor Cars chief executive Torsten Muller-Otvos. "The client comes to us with an idea in mind, exactly what happened 100 years ago when clients commissioned the bodies they wanted to see," Muller-Otvos told AFP during the car's launch this week at the company's Goodwood headquarters near Chichester in southern England. "It's not us defining what the car should look like, it really is as it was in the past, that the client defines what they want to see," he added.

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, owned by German car giant BMW, revived the art of coachbuilding in 2017 with the Boat Tail's precursor "Sweptail". Speculation about Sweptail costing some $13 million was "pretty close", Muller-Otvos confirmed, while reports suggest Boat Tail could be twice the price. "We are never talking about prices in agreement with our clients," he stressed. The launch of Boat Tail comes after Rolls delivered its highest-ever first quarter sales in the marque's 116-year history.

Muller-Otvos, who has led the company since 2010, described the global picture for the entire luxury goods industry as "very promising" with "quite some money around to be spent" by the wealthy following lockdowns. "Quite a lot of our clients said that Covid taught them that life can end easily tomorrow and now is time to enjoy your life." He said the company is looking at launching a new coachbuilding project every other year.

Aside from its niche projects, Rolls is on a path to having fully-electric cars in the current decade, mirroring moves by the global auto sector pressured by governments hoping to meet targets on reducing carbon emissions. "It's clear on our agenda to improve the sustainability of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars even further," said Muller-Otvos. With the support of parent-group BMW, Rolls has managed to avoid the pandemic-fuelled semiconductor shortages affecting many automakers.