BMW shows off an X6 in Vantablack, the blackest of blacks



Everyone in the auto industry is trying to capitalize on skyrocketing SUV sales, from legacy marques like Ford (which is essentially ditching sedans altogether) to longtime luxury holdouts like Lamborghini, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, even Ferrari. The result is it’s harder than ever to stand out from the crowd. So what has BMW done? It made an SUV you can hardly see.
At next month’s Frankfurt Motor Show, BMW will display a one-off version of the forthcoming third-generation X6 SUV that’s been fully coated in Vantablack paint, in which carbon nanotubes are used to create one of the darkest substances on Earth.
BMW tapped Surrey NanoSystems, the company that stumbled onto Vantablack a few years ago, to cover one of its new X6s in a newer version of the substance called VBX2. (The Verge actually just visited Surrey NanoSystems’ UK headquarters to get a look at Vantablack up close, check it out.) This Vantablack variant allows for the slightest bit of light reflection while remaining “super black,” according to Surrey NanoSystems founder Ben Jensen.
While Jensen says that should make it possible for a human’s eyes and brain to process some depth information, the Vantablack X6 looks like a two-dimensional lump of an SUV in the press photos, or a bad fan rendering. (It also conveniently helps BMW show off its new light-up grille.)

Still, the Vantablack X6 is likely to cause a stir in Frankfurt. The paint is, by all accounts, a transfixing thing to look at. Hussein Al-Attar, the X6’s designer, said in a wonderfully choreographed interview that he could see it becoming an actual paint option on the new SUV, because “X6 drivers are among our most extrovert and free-spirited customers.” That seems... unlikely, but if BMW did go ahead with it, the Vantablack paint would certainly distinguish the SUV from the crowded field of competitors.


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