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Michael Fux sure likes fuchsia — now there's a 'Fuxia' Rolls-Royce

Over the weekend, we told you about a McLaren 720S done up in a bespoke color at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, an eye-popping fuchsia that McLaren dubbed "Fux Fuchsia." And now it's showing up on a Rolls-Royce as well, unveiled at The Qual in a color RR calls simply "Fuxia." There's a lot more surface area on a Rolls than on a McLaren, so on a day when we're supposed to save our retinas by not looking directly at the solar eclipse, you might consider wearing your eclipse goggles to view the gallery above. The car is, well, vivid. Fux is a Cuban immigrant who made his millions in mattresses as the founder of Sleep Innovations. A mattress is clearly not where he stores those millions, since he has amassed a vast car collection. This "Dawn in Fuxia" car is his 11th Rolls, each highly personalized. "Michael is a very special patron of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars," said RR CEO Torsten Muller-Otvos in revealing the car. "Rolls-Royce designers love working with him because he constantly challenges them to take their work to an even higher level, delivering a true work of art." The color is said to be based on the petals of a fuchsia flower Fux found last year at Pebble Beach. He presented them to Rolls Royce to replicate. As with the McLaren, Rolls is using Fux's car to highlight the fact that it can build you a bespoke car in any color you want — Rolls says it offers a palette of 44,000 choices. Some of Fux's previous Rolls-Royces have come in these custom colors (each officially named using his name): Fux Blue was his Pebble reveal last year. Before it was Fux Intense Jade Pearl; a two-tone of Aequus Green Jade Pearl, Cornish White Jade Pearl; Deep Purple; Candy Red; and Yellow. Related Video:

Navigating the road time forgot in a Rolls-Royce Cullinan

The Rolls-Royce Cullinan glides evenly over the rutted single-lane dirt road, barely unsettling its passengers. Nobody is speaking in the lush cabin, not even my normally chatty 7-year-old.  All eyes are turned to the Delaware River gliding by, a dozen feet away, through a skim of skeletal hardwood trees. There’s no sign of humanity or habitation. ItÂ’s almost a scene in a movie. The Last of the Mohicans, perhaps.  Today we are exploring the Old Mine Road, and it is making us think of ghosts. Its 104 miles of asphalt and dirt make up one of the oldest continuously-used roads in America, stretching from New YorkÂ’s Catskills to the Pennsylvania Delaware Water Gap. The Lenape are thought to have first threaded a path here in the 1300s.  It is also a pathway wending its way through the NortheastÂ’s violent history, from bloody skirmishes between the original Native American inhabitants and European settlers to the Americans and Brits in the Revolutionary War. Little wonder that out here in the quiet, that history — and those ghosts — feel close. Amazingly, the 40-mile section in New Jersey that follows the eastern banks of the Delaware looks much like it did a hundred years ago. There are million-dollar views, but as part of the Delaware recreation area, no development is allowed.  Instead of the gated McMansions youÂ’d expect less than 1.5 hours from New York City, we are greeted by silent forest and twin lanes of bumpy or shattered asphalt. ThereÂ’s a section of dirt and gravel, narrowing to a single lane. Easy to imagine hundreds of years of horses and mules stamping down the thin path.  It is early spring and like everyone else, we have cabin fever. My wife, son and mother-in-law are sheltering-in-place at our country house in the Poconos. America is locked into a struggle with an invisible enemy. It seems a good time to get some historical perspective. If our ancestors lived and endured under harsh conditions, so can we.  There is nothing inherently unsafe or socially unacceptable about taking a short road trip on a virtually unused road, so we pack a lunch of cold pizza and snacks, and pile into the leather-bound, environmentally-controlled cocoon of the Rolls. We make our way to Kingston, N.Y., where the road begins. IÂ’m finally going to drive the entirety of the Old Mine Road.   Our Barney-purple Cullinan is a rolling sanctuary, a movable fortress of social isolation.

I got to see the Rolls-Royce Dawn

It may look like a Wraith convertible, but that doesn't do this new Rolls justice. In mid-May, Rolls-Royce announced the name of its forthcoming convertible: Dawn. Two days after that news was released, I saw the new car in Beverly Hills, CA. And as you can probably guess from earlier spy shots, not to mention my choice of lead photo, it looks like a Wraith convertible. Well, sort of. Before getting a full briefing of the new Dawn, I was frisked, security guards waved handheld metal detectors around my limbs, and my iPhone was confiscated. I was left standing outside a glamorous mansion with no more than a blue notebook, a pen, a glass of champagne, and gorgeous views of the Hollywood hills and Pacific Ocean. I was told to keep my mouth shut about everything I was about to see, until further notice. So no, I can't tell you everything I know about the Rolls-Royce Dawn; the company wants to save some information for the car's official unveiling in September at the Frankfurt Motor Show. I don't have photos. I don't even have a napkin sketch. Instead, I'm now allowed to tell you my impressions of the car I saw. It may look like a Wraith convertible, but that phrase alone doesn't do this new Rolls justice. Fabulous places. Shared social occasions. That's the sort of imagery Rolls-Royce wants to convey with the Dawn. In an effort to really convey this, Rolls-Royce opted to give the car a totally different name – that's why it isn't called Wraith Drophead Coupe, like the convertible version of the flagship Phantom. "'Dawn' perfectly expresses the character of the new Rolls-Royce. In its tentative, inchoate, anticipatory state, dawn is the world coming to light from the ethereal dark of the night," the company said in its original release. The Dawn name also harks back to the incredibly exclusive Silver Dawn from the 1950s, pictured above. Fabulous places and fabulous people. Shared social occasions. That's the sort of imagery Rolls-Royce wants to convey with the Dawn. After a hearing details that shall not be mentioned here (yet), I met the Dawn for the first time. The car drove up a path to the Beverly Hills mansion's courtyard, top up, modern music playing in the background. This was the first time in recent memory that a convertible was introduced with its roof affixed, but this was intentional. With the roof on, the differences between Wraith and Dawn are immediately noticeable. View 8 Photos With the roof up, the big droptop sort of looks like a hot rod.