While it’s pretty well known that certain manufacturers tend to be a little “liberal” with their option pricing – try building a Mini, a BMW, or a Porsche online to see what we’re on about – the fact that you have to lay out an additional $1,200 over the base price of your Mini Cooper five-door for some “sporty” accoutrements pales in comparison to what Rolls-Royce is asking for a gold-plated Spirit of Ecstasy emblem, or what Bentley is asking you to shell out for a Breitling clock for your Bentayga SUV.
And that’s just the start of it.
Rolls-Royce Starlight Headliner
The price – $16,775 – is one thing, but it’s the sheer frivolousness of the whole endeavour that’s truly staggering. Really, all it consists of is a bunch of little holes punched into the headliner above you and backlit, giving the impression that you’re always driving a convertible. They can’t be seen during the day, and you have to think that most people buying a Roller probably already have a convertible anyway. Which, obviously, can be used to see, you know, the actual starry sky.
Aston Martin Transponder Watch
It may not look like your typical smart watch – scratch that, it absolutely does not look like an Apple Watch, Samsung Gear watch or those great circa-1970 Casio calculator watches – but the Jaeger-LeCoultre AMVOX2 actually does have some “smart” capabilities. They don’t extend far past being able to unlock your Aston Rapide, but who cares – just look at it! If my keyfob looked like that, I wouldn’t mind laying out the US$29,500 required to get it, either.
Breitling for Bentley Mulliner Tourbillon
For starters, just consider that name: “Breitling for Bentley Mulliner Tourbilion”. Just saying it makes you feel like you’re eating the world’s finest caviar, followed by a swig of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Then there’s the build time: a single Breitling craftsman builds one every three months, meaning only four will be offered per year. Forbes reports that they’re valued from between just US$10,000 and $21,000 depending on style, so why not throw in a matching watch, too, for a cool additional $175,000?
Maybach Granite Interior
Nothing says “opulence” and “efficiency be damned” like taking your 2,876 kilo tank of a sedan and making it even heavier by adding strips of actual rock to the interior, right? Turns out some thought so, compelling Maybach to offer granite trim for their 57 and 62 sedans. For the princely sum of $60,600, according to Car and Driver.
Rolls-Royce Gold-Plated Spirit of Ecstasy
The kings of the expensive add-ons, they are. You can get your Roller’s famous emblem plated in gold – real, Goldmember-pleasing gold – for about $10,000. Of course, when you think about it, the percentage that takes up of the overall cost of a Phantom is similar to what it takes to add an auto transmission to your Hyundai Accent. When you look at it that way, it doesn’t seem so outlandish, does it?
Range Rover DuoTone Paint
Besides sounding something you’d see in a GM catalogue circa 1958, this fancy-schmancy paintjob for your $225,000 Range Rover Autobiography LWB will set you back an additional $24,950, or roughly the cost of about three base-model Nissan Micras. Which is also around what the truck itself weighs (not really, but close enough). The kicker? While it is technically a two-tone jobby, in true Henry Ford fashion, the top half of the truck can be painted any colour, as long as it’s… well, just look at the pic.
Carb(on)-load Your Pagani Huayra
At nine zillion dollars or whatever it takes to actually get one of these ultra-rare exotics, the latest Pagani is one of the most expensive new cars available in the world today. If that doesn’t quite do it for you, however, and the rest of that $50 million lotto win continues to burn a hole in your Hermès chinos, you can go full-carbon with your Huayra’s bodywork, for the measly sum of one-hundred-and-fifty… grand.
Mercedes-Maybach S600… Champagne Flutes?
While $3,200 doesn’t seem like all that much at this level (the Mercedes-Maybach S600 starts at $194,595, after all), the fact that it’s being spent on mere crystal stemware is another thing entirely. And no, the fridge to keep the champagne used to fill said champagne flutes is not included; that’s another $1,100, please.
Do you like leather? Porsche has you covered.
Because an interior finished in leather can be had on most cars these days, simply offering a leather package for you Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo just won’t do it. Oh, you can do that – the most expensive option will run you $7,660 – but the true (and well-moneyed) leather fan would likely have no problem ticking all the extra boxes to ensure that every surface is covered, from the paddle shifters, to various interior Porsche logos, to the instrument cluster surround, even if all that costs an additional $7,500-plus. Better still, each individual piece can be finished in a different colour, if you so choose. Oh, and the colours you see online? They barely scratch the surface of what’s available. If you really want to go all out, ensure the sales guy shows you the binder that has examples of what’s actually available.
Audi A8 B&O Sound
There’s just something about Bang & Olufsen that just screams “luxury”, whether it be one of their vertical-load CD decks (when CDs were a thing) or $329 earbud sets. To that end, Audi seems to have no problem charging an additional $7,000 over the base price of an Audi A8L ($112,200) for a 19-speaker B & O set-up. Makes the $4,900 required to acquire the Bowers & Wilkins Diamond system in the BMW 760 seem like chump change.
