Pininfarina took advantage of the glamorous Concours d'Elegance at Pebble Beach in California to present its latest one-off creation. Derived from the Rolls-Royce Drophead Coupé, the car is named after Greek mythological Titan, Hyperion.
Hyperion is now owned by collector Roland Hall, who asked the Italian design house to create a car that evokes the style and appeal of cars from the 1930s. He has dedicated it to Andrea Pininfarina, who recently died in a car accident.
Hall's one-off is claimed to take up the legacy of other Rolls-Royces designed by Pininfarina such as the Silver Dawn saloon of 1951 and the Camargue coupé of 1975.
Structurally, the Hyperion differs from the Drophead Coupé by not having any rear seats, as well as the driver having to sit 400mm further back in order to create a longer bonnet line reminiscent of the art-deco era. The Special Projects Division also designed a completely new hood that folds under a wood-lined cover, further emphasising its retro persona.
Another neat addition to the coach-built Hyperion is a personalised Girard-Perregaux watch that has its own anchorage system on the dashboard, but can also be removed from the mount and slipped on the owner's wrist. Neither Hall nor Pininfarina will discuss the overall cost for the Hyperion project, but it's thought that the expensive watch was merely a drop in the ocean...
Dejan Jovanovic - 20 Aug 2008