If you haven’t seen this, you should check it out.
http://www…edes-benz/
Wow, that would be something to see. I can only imagine what that thing looks like out in the sunlight.
These sheiks have all the fun…
It’s polished with a special finish, it’s not white gold.
How can you be so sure?
According to the caption, the car is plated in white gold.
Same thing has been done to several cars, like this M3 (I’m not having much luck posting pictures):
More at Snopes:
Now that’s funny. I searched snopes.com to make sure it wasn’t fake. I guess snopes let me down.
My guess it’s rhodium plated over white gold. Most white gold jewelry and watches are rhodium plated to give that nice shiny white look. Real white gold actually looks pretty dull. Probably not a very thick plating or it would too heavy.
Twotone
It’s a scam to exploit anti-Arab prejudice. Check out Texases’ link.
I still haven’t gotten direct confirmation that it’s like the Audi and BMW, but that’s all that really makes sense.
Pur Sang
On 11 September 2007, a special version of the Veyron called the “Pur Sang”[2] (French for “thoroughbred”, literally “pure blood”) was unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show. The only difference from the standard Veyron is the body finishing: the Pur Sang has none, revealing the Veyron’s pure aluminium-carbon fibre body, with just a clear coat protection. Production of the Pur Sang will be limited to five cars, which will have high-gloss aluminium roadwheels with a diamond cut finish.[3]. All 5 vehicles were sold on the day of release.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a6/VeyronPurSang.JPG
posted the link rather than the picture due to it’s size(3456x2304 pixels)
Every article I’v efound on this (there are many) says it’s a white gold Mercedes SLR Mclaren.
By the way, rhodium is more valuable than white gold, and even over a polished substate it’s a dull gray.
Nah, just one story repeated multiple times. There are a number of cars finished like this, no white gold involved. Anyway, there would be no reasonable way to do this.
There have been stories of exotic bodies on Sheikmobiles for almost 50 years; gold fixtures in the back of the Rolls for ritual ablutions. Hey, if you’ve got a couple billion burning a hole in your pocket, any version of a McLaren SLR is walkin’ around money.
This has been a fad among the wealthy in the UAE and some surrounding countries for a few years now, ever since that paint came out.
Yeah, that’s paint. It isn’t plated. (Can you even electroplate carbon fiber, anyway?)
Now show me a 1987 Tercel with beat up body panels done like this and I’ll be REALLY impressed.
Reminds me of a sheik who put so much gold trim inside his jet plane that it was too heavy to fly.
Are you sure that isn’t another urban myth?
“Can you even electroplate carbon fiber, anyway?”
Certainly. I assume that you mean a carbon fiber reinforced composite, since the body could not be built from carbon fiber without a resin or metal matrix. It’s a lot like plating a printed wiring board, and that works quite well.
You’re assuming that shieks with a gazillion-billion dollars to blow have to be reasonable. They do things like this just out of boredom.
We had a wealthy guy in NH in the '80s who had a new black S-class Mercedes stripped of all its trim inside and outside and all the trim gold plated. I used to see the car around town occasionally. It looked like crap, but it was his money, so who was I to speak?
The car is not “made” out of white gold, it’s merely plated with white gold. The labor involved cost more than the gold itself…