Pininfarina presents the Hyperion, a one-off custom-built car derived from the Rolls-Royce Drophead Coupe which made its world debut at the Concours d’Elegance at Pebble Beach, America’s most important competition for historical classic and one-off cars and a prestigious annual event.
The car is named after Hyperion, one of the Titans of Greek mythology, to underline its architectural and figurative power.
The car as an artistic expression
It is not the first time that the Pininfarina Special Projects Division has designed a unique car from a standard production model. In the recent past Pininfarina has reinterpreted Ferrari engineering, as in the case of the P4/5 of collector Jim Glickenhaus, or Peter Kalikow’s Scaglietti “K”. In the case of the Pininfarina Hyperion, Roland Hall, a collector and the owner of a Rolls-Royce Drophead Coupe, asked Pininfarina to create a custom-built car that would evoke the appeal of the sumptuous cars of the 1930s. It might seem paradoxical, but today more than ever before, there is a desire on the part of a very elite clientele to return to the idea of the car as an artistic expression. As it was in the 1950s.
With the Hyperion, the team of designers and engineers of the Special Projects Division was able to express its creative skills and to apply Pininfarina expertise without limits, save that of coming as close as possible to the type of car that our customer had in mind. The result was a custom-built unit that is firmly rooted in the values of the Pininfarina and Rolls-Royce brands, with lines and dimensions that are hard to find in a 21st century model. The Hyperion takes up the legacy of other Rolls-Royces designed by Pininfarina, the Silver Dawn saloon of 1951, for example, or the Camargue coupe of 1975.
The concept in brief
The history of Pininfarina offers plenty of examples of special cars built on “noble” bases. Which is why the company naturally welcomed Roland Hall’s proposal to work on a Rolls-Royce floorpan. For the new Pininfarina one-off, however, the Special Projects Division wanted a new idea, something absolutely unique, which only an individual in love with the car as an abstract, and not merely utilitarian, concept could appreciate. And so the Hyperion project was born, in the Autumn of 2007.
In terms of the styling, the first brainwave came when thinking of some of the cars of the 1930s, with their majestic, regal bonnets, and a body that surrounded the driver and a single passenger. Distinctive features of a car which, thanks to its strength and elegance, does not need to move to draw attention to itself.
Like all the cars designed by Pininfarina, the secret of the Hyperion lies in its absolute harmony between masses and volumes, and the perfect balance of every proportion.
The bodywork is made of carbon fibre. Structurally, we moved the driving position further back (400 mm) and took out the rear seats. We designed a new hood, which folds behind the seats under a wood-lined cover. In front of the windscreen we created two compartments for small items or for sports equipment, such as Mr. Hall’s hunting rifles.
The hood cover and the doors of the two compartments were made of solid wood by craftsmen who specialise in creating components for luxury boats. This is another aspect of the programme of Pininfarina special cars: offering customers unique stylistic and technical solutions that are not possible on mass produced cars.
