BMW creates a spectacular show car with X6 painted in Vantablack

This September, the Frankfurt Motor Show will provide the backdrop for the world premiere of the third generation BMW X6, the car that established the Sports Activity Coupe segment a good 10 years ago.

At the event, BMW will also present a spectacular one-off vehicle with a Vantablack paint finish - the 'blackest' black colour ever produced. This highlights the expressive design language and confident, dominant and muscular appearance of the new BMW X6. This exclusive show car is the result of a collaboration between BMW and Surrey NanoSystems, the inventors of the Vantablack technology.

The BMW X6 is the first and only vehicle in the world to feature a Vantablack paint finish. With design highlights like the optional glowing kidney grille, distinctive twin head lights and striking taillights, the new BMW X6 provides fascinating contrasts to offset the Vantablack paint finish, which changes the viewer's visual perception of an object's three-dimensional shape.

A surface coated in Vantablack loses its defining features to the human eye, with objects appearing two-dimensional. This can be interpreted by the brain as staring into a hole or even a void, making Vantablack a rather unsuitable vehicle paint finish, as it blots out virtually all the design details and highlights. For this reason, the BMW X6 was coated in the VBx2 variant initially developed for use in architectural and scientific applications.

The coating can be sprayed on and has a 1% total hemispherical reflectance, meaning it is still considered 'super black' while enabling a small amount of reflection from every angle. Thus, materials painted with it seem to lose their three-dimensional appearance - as demonstrated impressively on the BMW X6.