Being king means having everything you want, and that’s exactly what happened here with this crazy one-off Rolls-Royce.
The king in question was Hassan II of Morocco, who felt his standard 1977 Rolls-Royce Carmargue just didn’t measure up.
It was a nice car, but it had one problem: it couldn’t be driven off-road for falcon hunting. Apparently.
Hunting with falcons, by the way. Don’t hunt hawks.
That was probably the moment Hassan remembered that he was a king and could put that right.
He challenged the famous Swiss coachbuilder Sbarro to design and build such a car at great expense and the result is what you see above.
It’s clear the car’s ride height was increased and off-road tires were fitted, although we’re not sure if all-wheel drive was fitted.
The roof of the car was chopped off, the front window was replaced with a hinged one, the doors were completely removed and a custom interior was installed.
An apparent grab handle has been added to the stern, which also serves as a convenient perch for the king’s hawks.
Finally, there’s a new blue color and body mods like flared wheel arches to accommodate those massive new wheels.
The price of a standard Carmargue was around £30,000 in 1977, or £200,000 in today’s money, and these modifications would have cost hundreds of thousands more.
It seems the German seller isn’t having much luck – the car was originally on sale in 2016 but clearly hasn’t sold.
They’ve now re-launched it for 248,000 euros (£213,000), perhaps in the hope that more people will seek out a post-pandemic falconry scooter.
The production Rolls-Royce Carmargue was not universally popular when it first appeared in 1975, despite being the most expensive production car in the world at the time.