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.
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.
