Wealthy customers in the United Arab Emirates seem to have a penchant for special editions of the most expensive luxury saloons. As if it wasn't enough to get the Maybach Landaulet revealed right there on their home turn, one Arabian customer recently ordered a custom gilded Rolls-Royce Drophead. Now Rolls-Royce has followed up with a special edition of its Phantom limousine targeted specifically for the UAE. Called the Peony edition, the bespoke Phantom borrows its name from the indigenous Asian flower that symbolizes royality in ancient Oriental culture. The car features a special two-tone pearl blue exterior and Seashell interior, emblazoned with the peony floral motif. It even comes with a complementary bottle of perfume specially crafted by Emirate fragrance specialist HIND. The special edition was created by the Rolls-Royce Bespoke Program, which does the bulk of its business with Middle Eastern customers. No word on how many will be built or how much it costs, but if there was ever a case of "if you have to ask, you can't afford it", this is it.
While fuel prices continue to ratchet up and put a squeeze on all aspects of the world economy, times are flush within the borders of major oil producing nations. So flush, in fact, that several Emiratis found a total of 9.8 million dollars to indulge in low-number license plates at a recent auction. The fascination with distinctive tags is a world-wide phenomenon, but $926,000 for a plate that says "50G" is uniquely asinine. If that's what our last few fillups helped purchase, we're going to bike more.
Some records stay in place for a while, and some are shattered regularly. Records set for obscene spending on frivolity never seem to stay put for very long, however, as there's always someone with more cash to blow on something ridiculous. And so it transpires that after tuning magnate Afzal Kahn paid $870,000 for the F1 license plate in the UK, Arabian billionaire Saeed Abdul Ghaffar Khouri dropped the equivalent of $14.5 million on UAE license plate number 1.
If that seems like a big hunk of cash for a registration number, consider that Khouri, who has yet to decide on which of his assuredly many vehicles he'll mount the plate, was prepared to spend over twice that much – 100 million emirate dirhams, or $30 million – on the plate. The sale took place at an auction in Abu Dhabi, the proceeds from which are earmarked towards assisting victims of traffic accidents. At least it's going to a good cause, then.
