Royale

In the late 70's Stutz produced two Limousines, named "Royale",
and, in difference to the Bugatti Royale, the clients were royals...

In 1976, Paolo Martin, the designer of the Stutz Royale, made some first design-sketches, which he sent me in August 2007:

Version A was quite close to the model, that got into production,
but the rear-design showed some interesting details that didn't make it...

Version B showed some different detail-ideas, specially the rear was redesigned.
Stutz finally decided to be more conservative, and the rear-design was closer to the original Blackhawk design.
More impressive, of course, we are talking of the design for a states-limousine!
So the Royale got a more unique rear-design, not a design that was so typical for the 70's.
The same design was used for the smaller Diplomatica Sedan, and later it was modified for the remodelling of the Blackhawk, and the renewed version was also used on the IV-Porte / Victoria, even the late Bearcat II used a modified version of the Royale rear-design.

But before Stutz built these ultimate Stretch-Limousines, they built a unique prototype, which showed some different, interesting details, but during all the years, I never saw a photo of this prototype.

In June 2007, I got a very special item for my collection, directly from Italy.

Paolo Martin, the designer of the Royale,
sent me the 1:1 design sketch for the Royale prototype, that was delivered to Saudi Arabia.

The original sketch messures about 6m x 1.3m!
(And so my scanner refuses to scan that item)

Here are two interesting parts:

A partial front view...

And the rear design, showing no spare wheel, but some sort of a humptrunk, like it was built in 1972.

Later, still in 1977, Paolo Martin made another design-rendering for the Royale Limousine:

The basic design, developed by Virgil Exner was modified, and, as you can see,
Paolo Martin suggested a rear design, showing again no spare-wheel. This detail was changed.

The real Royale showed the Stutz-typical spare-wheel, and the car was delivered, like the Royale Prototype to the
King of Saudi Arabia.

thanks to Helmut Becker

The above picture shows the car at the factory.

After the car was delivered, it was returned for changing an important detail.
James D. O'Donnell:
"He had to return the car, because the royal rear end was not allowed to sit on leather. So we  made him one out of velour."

The other owner of a Stutz Royale is:
El Hadj Omar Bongo, the President of Gabon

This photo was taken at Stupinigi, a hunting seat, located near Torino, Italy.

Going to:
Blackhawk
D'Italia
Bearcat
Duplex / IV-Porte / Victoria
Diplomatica
Bear / Defender / Gazelle