If, like us, you think the BMW X6 needs to look a bit less bulky, it looks like the call has been answered. The "Vantablack" BMW X6 shows off one of the most radical paintjobs on earth that seems to swallow all visible light and make you want to crawl into a corner to escape its black hole-like qualities. Just take a look at this thing!
The special paint was developed by a company named Surrey NanoSystems, and it uses carbon nanotubes to achieve the near total blackness. The X6 qualified as the first car the company used to show of its Vantablack VBx2 paint finish thanks to the unique shape and design of the vehicle. The paint is non-metallic, non-reflective and virtually eliminates any shine. Even matte paint jobs can't achieve that, and the result is an X6 that looks almost two-dimensional. Hell, you can't even see the freakin' door seams.
The paint brilliantly highlights BMW's new available Iconic Glow kidney grilles, as well as the hexagonal headlights and thin taillights of the X6. The classic BMW Roundel emblems on the front and the back also pop nicely against the super-black paint. And so much for those black wheels that now look even less black compared to the body color.
The name Vantablack actually stands for something. It's coined after the company's Vertically Aligned Nano Tube Array, the paint's matrix made out of carbon. The tubes are actually shockingly small -- 5,000 times thinner than a human hair. One billion nanotubes are vertically aligned and fit onto one square centimeter of paint. The light gets almost totally absorbed and converted into heat. We don't recommend this model get parked in the path of direct sunlight.
This paint was never meant for a car. In fact, the use was far more advanced and created to use as a coating for space-borne components like optical pieces in order to render them capable of seeing faint stars and distant galaxies. The earliest version of Vantablack VBx2 actually absorbed up to 99.965 percent of light. But we think the X6 now looks like an alien spacecraft on wheels with the new application of VBx2. Look for the Vantablack X6 at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September, and prepare to be awed. Just don't expect the color to show up in the X6's configurator.
