Red, white, and blue are the colors of the American flag, sure. But they’re also the colors of more national flags than we’d care to count.
That includes the United Kingdom, where the highest tradition of coachbuilding is still alive and well with vehicles like the Speedback GT from David Brown Automotive. And to drive home the point of its essential Britishness, David Brown has brought together three of its exclusive grand tourers in the colors of the Union Jack.
Big deal, you say? They could have done that in Photoshop, you say? Only they didn’t, as you can see from the video below. And when you realize just how much effort went into bringing these three cars together, you’ll realize just how much of a big deal it was for such a low-volume automaker with such a meticulous paint process to bring together three of its own cars.
Lest its classic styling fool you, David Brown Automotive is one of the newest kids on the block in Coventry – a city in England’s West Midlands that has historically been the home of the country’s automotive industry. It was founded in 2013 and revealed its first prototype in 2014. And in the time since, it has only sold, produced, and delivered five vehicles.
Seeing three in the same place, then, would – in relative terms – be like seeing 270 Bugatti Veyrons or 24 million Toyota Corollas brought together. And that’s before you even take into account the time-intensive paint process.
For each vehicle that David Brown Automotive makes, the paintjob alone takes eight weeks to finish. That’s right, eight weeks. One of the cars pictured is wearing a staggering 14 layers of paint. Each car is made to order and is finished in a unique color formulated to the buyer’s taste. So you’ll never see another painted in the same shade of Ruby Tuesday, White Knight, or Blue Moon like the ones you see here.
Of course, that level of exclusivity and attention to detail comes at a price. David Brown charges £495,000 (~$600k) for each one. And though it plans to increase its current rate of production beyond the current annual rate of 6-10, it will still take it years to sell the 100 examples to which the company has limited production of the current model.
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