FRANKFURT MOTOR SHOW: BMW X6 debuts Nanotech paint

A one-off BMW X6 will become the first OEM car ever painted with a nanostructure paint when it debuts at the Frankfurt in two weeks.

The world-first X6, a collaboration between BMW and UK-based Surrey NanoSystems, will feature Vantablack VBx2 nanotech paint.

The paint, which changes the visual perception of the shape of an object depending on the angle, makes objects appear to be two-dimensional.

It blots out a lot of design details (not a bad idea in the case of modern BMWs), which would normally make it totally unsuited to automotive use, but BMW insisted.

“We turned down numerous requests from various automobile manufacturers in the past,” Surrey Nanosystems founder Ben Jensen said.

“It took the BMW X6 and its unique, expressive design for us to entertain the idea.”

And, doubtless, a cheque of significant size.

The VBx2 version of the Vantablack paint used on the X6 was developed for architectural and scientific use.

Sprayed on, it has a one per cent total hemispherical reflectance, so it’s technically “super black”, allowing just a small amount of reflection.

Originally developed for space applications, Vantablack absorbs up to 99.965 per cent of light and is ideal for aluminium surfaces and for space telescope parts.

Vantablack stands for Vertically Aligned Nano Tube Array of carbon molecules. Each nanotube is 14 to 50 micrometres long, and about 5000 times thinner than a human hair.

A billion nanotubes can fit into a single square centimetre; almost completely absorbing any light that strikes it and converting it to heat.

“There is a certain inherent contradiction (using it on a car), but that’s exactly what makes this interesting and explains why the BMW X6 is the perfect car for this project,” X6 designer and BMW Designworks creative director Hussein Al Attar said.

“Vantablack VBx2 opens up new possibilities for us as designers. We often prefer to talk about silhouettes and proportions rather than surfaces and lines.

“The Vantablack VBx2 coating foregrounds these fundamental aspects of automotive design, without any distraction from light and reflections.

“The most remarkable evolution over the predecessor concerns its proportions and that is precisely what Vantablack underscores, albeit in a rather unexpected fashion.”

There are no plans to make Vantablack available for production cars, though, with the cost of the special paint understood to be astronomical.